Model flying on Countryfile

[Peter Miller]

Just happened to catch the end of Countryfile.

They featured a chap doing model flying and he is a builder. Sorry that I missed who he was but it was good to see...even if the presnter did crash the chap's glider

[Anthony Scott 2]

Referred to needing a licence, too? CAA registration.

[leccyflyer]

This chap was featured in another programme a few months back, when we got to see inside his workshop. He works and lives on the Auchlyne estate in Perthshire.

[David Ashby - Moderator]

Good to see although I think I'd have chosen something a little less nice for the presenter to damage.

[John Privett]

It's now available (though probably only for UK viewers) on BBC iplayer - the relevant bit starts at around 54:15 into the 1-hour programme.

[GrumpyGnome]

Nice piece but with some obvious continuity errors. Looks like he still uses some 35Meg gear as well as 2.4 - doubt he has interference issues there!

Very trusting to let the presenter have a go.....

Like the rest of us, he will gave some essential maintenance to do!

GG

[Tim Kearsley]

Yes, continuity was a bit rubbish, but I thought what a lucky chap he was, a) to have such lovely surroundings on your doorstep to fly over and b) to have 65 models in his fleet!!

Tim.

[John Muir]

I've seen Dave at a couple of fly-ins up our way. Nice chap. Although flying from a very nicely prepared strip he always hand launched his models, even his forty powered aerobatic job. Now I know why. Slightly iffy presentation but at least he got a free trial flight out of it.

[Colin Carpenter]

Is it me or was throttle backwards ? I know an old boy taught on reeds flys that way. Impossible to help him !😱

[Peter Miller]

I thought that the presenter crashed the model!!

[Gordon Whitehead 1]

Did anybody recognise the large yellow glider which was on the ground beside the presenter at one point? It had "Thunderking" inscribed on the fuz. I'm sure that it was a Hoverking slope soarer from the old Aeromodeller Plans service. The fin shape and through-fuz tailplane mounting are giveaways.

I built one around 60 years ago in my 'teens fitted with a home-built Hill 2-valve receiver and Ripmax Mactuator sequential escapement. 30V hearing aid battery HT, and a couple of U2 1.5V cells in parallel for the valve filaments. Quite a weighty payload! The Rx with its Sigma SCR522 relay to switch the actuator weighed over 10oz by itself. Six feet span and a lovely flyer. Single-channel rudder-only of course but there was plenty of lift on the hillside overlooking Earby, Lancs where we lived.

Happy days!!

Edited By Gordon Whitehead 1 on 21/12/2020 11:54:27

[Phil Green]

Posted by Colin Carpenter on 21/12/2020 10:56:19:

Is it me or was throttle backwards ? I know an old boy taught on reeds flys that way. Impossible to help him !😱

Reeds throttle convention is forward for high, back for low - just like propo

Edited By Phil Green on 21/12/2020 12:32:06

[Peter Miller]

Posted by Gordon Whitehead 1 on 21/12/2020 11:52:41:

Did anybody recognise the large yellow glider which was on the ground beside the presenter at one point? It had "Thunderking" inscribed on the fuz. I'm sure that it was a Hoverking slope soarer from the old Aeromodeller Plans service. The fin shape and through-fuz tailplane mounting are giveaways.

I built one around 60 years ago in my 'teens fitted with a home-built Hill 2-valve receiver and Ripmax Mactuator sequential escapement. 30V hearing aid battery HT, and a couple of U2 1.5V cells in parallel for the valve filaments. Quite a weighty payload! The Rx with its Sigma SCR522 relay to switch the actuator weighed over 10oz by itself. Six feet span and a lovely flyer. Single-channel rudder-only of course but there was plenty of lift on the hillside overlooking Earby, Lancs where we lived.

Happy days!!

Edited By Gordon Whitehead 1 on 21/12/2020 11:54:27

I thought that it might be a Thermalist. Lookng through my old plans handbooks. Hoverking looks very similaar but is smaller. Sunspot doesn't have the rounded wing tips

[Cuban8]

Great. Another boys with their toys pantomime. Top Gun music, flying jackets, goggles and what the crowd always hopes for.......a crash at the end.

Sorry, but I don't see how this type of exposure does us much good at all. Dave seems a nice enough bloke, but its not nice to see him belittled in the way he was, in my opinion.

My daughter appeared on Country File a while back when they were covering the work of the National Trust. She wasn't asked to dress up in fancy dress or smash a valuable vase for a laugh or to amuse the audience by putting her cleaning brush through a valuable painting that she was working on.

Conservation of art = worthy of serious coverage, Aeromodelling = a joke.

[Gordon Whitehead 1]

I've just checked on Outerzone and found the plans for both gliders. The Thunderking is an 11ft 4in span towline thermal glider which won the 1949 Thurston Trophy. The Hoverking sloper was designed by the same person and although only 6ft span has a distinct family resemblance in shape and structure, and, I suppose, name.

The main difference in layouts is the Hoverking's long dorsal strake which was intended to help to keep the model's nose into wind on the slope. I remember it doing that very well when I first flew my Hoverking free-flight and had to chase it for about a quarter of a mile as it crabbed along the ridge until safely landing equidistant and only 10ft from two adjoining walls. That's why Dad and I decided it needed radio fitting. So I borrowed the avionics from my Elfin 2.49-powered Black Magic.

Whilst agreeing with C8's posting, the feature awoke a nice memory for at least one viewer, even if I did misidentify the glider.

Edited By Gordon Whitehead 1 on 21/12/2020 13:46:38

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

Posted by Cuban8 on 21/12/2020 13:11:27:

Great. Another boys with their toys pantomime. Top Gun music, flying jackets, goggles and what the crowd always hopes for.......a crash at the end.

Sorry, but I don't see how this type of exposure does us much good at all. Dave seems a nice enough bloke, but its not nice to see him belittled in the way he was, in my opinion.

My daughter appeared on Country File a while back when they were covering the work of the National Trust. She wasn't asked to dress up in fancy dress or smash a valuable vase for a laugh or to amuse the audience by putting her cleaning brush through a valuable painting that she was working on.

 

Conservation of art = worthy of serious coverage, Aeromodelling = a joke.

I think we should see it as a bit of light hearted entertainment. The one who came over as a bit of a "wally" was the presenter, dressing up in Top Gun gear - surely any viewer would see it as a set-up?

Dave went off to fly his model dressed perfectly normally and left the viewer in little doubt that he was just going along with the joke with his discrete head shaking at the presenter's theatrics. The presenter wasn't disparaging of the model flying and showed the public that (a) they would need to think about the legal aspect and (b) it's not as easy as it might look.

Edited By Martin Harris on 21/12/2020 15:39:07

[Cuban8]

Fair enough, we'll agree to disagree.

[SIMON CRAGG]

It was a bit of light hearted "fun" nothing more nothing less.

No need to read to much into it.

Enough doom and gloom in the World at the present.

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

Looked fine to me, people smiling and talking about how enjoyable it is.

[Peter Miller]

Isn't it amazing! You get something that is interesting and gives us a tiny little bit of positive exposure and the miseryguts have to criticise it

It is like my next door neighbour. She won't watch "The Antiques Roadshow" because it is "All those geedy people wanting money."

While I love to watch the joy on people's faces when they are told that that heap of junk is worth a fortune. In this lousy world it is uplifting to see people happy.

[John Muir]

Just a bit of well intentioned harmless fun. I did like the bit where Dave launched a trainer while holding a 35Mhz transmitter then was chatting to the presenter while flying the model, now on 2.4Ghz, and with said model rather obviously sitting on the ground in front of them. All intercut with nice flying shots of the trainer. Is that what they call 'creative licence'?

[SIMON CRAGG]

Posted by Peter Miller on 21/12/2020 18:13:19:

Isn't it amazing! You get something that is interesting and gives us a tiny little bit of positive exposure and the miseryguts have to criticise it

It is like my next door neighbour. She won't watch "The Antiques Roadshow" because it is "All those geedy people wanting money."

While I love to watch the joy on people's faces when they are told that that heap of junk is worth a fortune. In this lousy world it is uplifting to see people happy.

A bit like that RC Model programme a couple years back "Model Battle of Britain" or similar.

I thought it was a great advert for the hobby (we ended up with two new members), and some great (and not so great) model flying.

Some people take the hobby way to seriously.

I was up the patch yesterday, and did no flying at all. What did six of us do?. Spent a happy couple of hours retrieving an errant model from the top of the tallest fir tree. We likened ourselves to the cast of "Last of the Summer Wine" Great FUN with great mates.

Finished off with a Christmas buffet around the club "tree" washed down with brandy coffee.

Heaven!

[Peter Miller]

Posted by SIMON CRAGG on 21/12/2020 22:33:15:

Posted by Peter Miller on 21/12/2020 18:13:19:

Isn't it amazing! You get something that is interesting and gives us a tiny little bit of positive exposure and the miseryguts have to criticise it

It is like my next door neighbour. She won't watch "The Antiques Roadshow" because it is "All those geedy people wanting money."

While I love to watch the joy on people's faces when they are told that that heap of junk is worth a fortune. In this lousy world it is uplifting to see people happy.

A bit like that RC Model programme a couple years back "Model Battle of Britain" or similar.

I thought it was a great advert for the hobby (we ended up with two new members), and some great (and not so great) model flying.

Some people take the hobby way to seriously.

I was up the patch yesterday, and did no flying at all. What did six of us do?. Spent a happy couple of hours retrieving an errant model from the top of the tallest fir tree. We likened ourselves to the cast of "Last of the Summer Wine" Great FUN with great mates.

Finished off with a Christmas buffet around the club "tree" washed down with brandy coffee.

Heaven!

Now that sounds like fun indeed.

[Tim Kearsley]

It's quite astonishing that anyone could find the piece anything other than a bit of fun. Maybe it's an effect of all the Covid negative news we're deluged with or perhaps a few individuals need to just lighten up a bit!

Tim.

[Cuban8]

All you chaps are obviously seeing something in the programme that I don't. Nothing to do with being miserable or needing to lighten up, Covid depression etc. The point that I feel that people are missing is that our hobby is so often portrayed in the frivolous manner which we saw on Country File and it would be nice to see something different on the mainstream  media that presents  the hobby in a little more depth to the general public, as opposed to the constant 'having a laugh' and busted model approach. YouTube is stacked full of such antics and as amusing as I do find some of the footage, it's not a true reflection of what goes on (or would be allowed) in our flying clubs.

Does much laughing and horseplay go on just before a competitor starts an important scale competition flight or aerobatic routine? Not that I've seen, but that doesn't mean we don't know how to see the lighter side when the heat's off.

Not taking oneself too seriously is very laudable but it can be overdone, particularly if we're trying to 'sell' the hobby to a broad spectrum of possible newcomers.

Also, not seeking to be contentious for the sake of it, but maybe seeing things from a slightly different perspective.

 

 

 

Edited By Cuban8 on 22/12/2020 11:09:50