David Boddington Appreciation Society

[RottenRow]

In the late ‘70s my school library had a copy of David’s R/C Primer book. I used to read it during many lunch breaks when I should probably have been looking up homework subjects. It was (still is) a great book for beginners.

 

Like Geoff above I also had a DB Moth in the Out of Africa colours, built shortly after the film had been released. It lasted many years but oil soaking under the covering meant that it wasn’t feasible to repair it after its final crash. I found another one at an Old Warden event a few years ago in the same colour scheme, which is now in the queue of models needing work…. along with a larger version.

I also have a couple of DB Tiger Moths. All of these models fly very well.

 

Brian.

[Nigel R]

Rc primer is dated now but was an excellent book.

[Simon Burch 1]

11 hours ago, Nigel R said:

When I was small, I wanted to do the "RM Flight Training Course"... although I ended up learning on a Precedent Flyboy, Junior 60 and then an aerobatic trainer I cannot remember the name of.

 

Many moons later I finally built the pair...

 

Part 1... RM Trainer (and sheep):

 

 

Part 2... RM Aerobat:

 

 

Both electrified on 4S 2200, 300W and 400W respectively.

 

The Aerobat is lightly modified (mainly style - I made the deck a little more rounded, and moved the tailplane upwards a couple of inches).

 

I built an Aerobat in 2022, having had the plan filed away in the loft for 27 years.  I made similar modifications to yours, but use a 3S 3300, which gives 420W with a Graupner 10x6 CAM Slim Prop and 400 with the APC equivalent.  It's a bit lardy at 3lbs 7oz, but still has vertical performance on a full charge.

 

 

Its maiden flight ended up in the poo - literally....

 

 

 

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

I see you’ve got your landings off pat… 

[Mike T]

A little bit of heresy from me, I'm afraid, as I made a few mods to my 1/4 scale Pup.  Reeves cowling and wheels, F1 recessed to set back engine, scale outline tail surfaces and wing ribs thinned in profile and capped with thin strips of lime to stop the Koverall sticking to the spars. Up front an early McCullough conversion from back in the day and a Williams Vickers on the cowl.  The ridiculous former in the cockpit was also cut away and replaced with wire to replicate the fuselage cross-brace cum gun mounting.  Switches and charging points are under the hatches on the cowl sides.  So it's not so much a DB Pup, but leaning a little more to Sir Tom's version...

[Chris Freeman 3]

In 1993 David and I were at an Airshow in South Africa and we were watching the Silver Falcons, the Airforce display team,  doing a display. David had all his cameras and was taking pictures like only David could. The number 5 of the team was Charles Rudnick who was a very good R/C glider pilot who came second in the first world champs cross country event. Charles had just done a large loop 90 degrees to the runway and the rest of the team did a barrel roll through the smoke, as he was pulling out of the loop the right hand wing sheared off and the aircraft rolled a number of times before crashing quite a distance from the airfield. Charles did eject but was too low for the parachute to open and died on impact. 

We were in shock and as the cameras still used film we could not see what the pictures were like. David was leaving early the next morning for the Kruger Park he asked me to get the film developed as it was for slides and needed a professional  developer to process. Once I got the slides a managed to call David and told him that he had taken an incredible sequence of photos including the ejection and what would he like me to do with them. Without any hesitation he replied that I need to send them to the Airforce to assist with the investigation and not send them to any publication as he would not like any family member of Charles to see them.       .   

[Cuban8]

My wife and I first met DB at one of the early (pre Modelair) flying days at Old Warden during the 1980s - just a friendly hello and quick chat for a few minutes about nothing in particular. Amazingly, DB never forgot us and if he happened to spot us at later meetings he'd always acknowledge us with a cheery " hello again, how are you? - enjoying the day?"

A really lovely man.

[John Lee]

I was also fortunate enough to meet David on a number of occasions at shows & fly-ins and again I can confirm that he was a lovely man who was always good for an interesting chat. I built a number of his designs going back to single channel days and in the 80's was active in the various 'Club 20' competitions which David instigated.

 

This year's winter's build project is his 'Tinker' biplane designed in 1972:

 

[Nick Cripps]

On one occasion at Billing Lake near Northampton many years ago, I was flying my favourite waterplane of the time, an ARC Cessna Cardinal. The ARC range are sadly discontinued now but in many ways they were perfect for waterplane flying as they were moulded from plastic (ABS, I think). All the models in the range (Ready, Beaver, Jupiter, etc) shared the same float set but with different fittings for mounting and have been quite popular over the years. They were slightly heavier than the equivalent built-up models but that was not really a problem; well, most of the time.

 

Boddo wandered over to look at the Cessna and told me that he had recently been flying one for a magazine review. He further went on to ask me if I had tried spinning and, as I hadn't, he suggested I try it as it was "interesting". So on the next flight, I took the model up a couple of hundred feet, throttled back and started feeding in up elevator. As the model slowed I pushed both sticks across and the model dropped into a perfectly-developed spin. After a few turns, and with the lake fast approaching, I let go of the sticks, expecting the Cessna to recover just like all my other models would do. I was surprised to see it carry on spinning, so I quickly put in opposite rudder and aileron, at which point it rapidly flicked into a spin in the other direction. I was by then in full panic mode and desperately banging the sticks into the corners in a vain attempt to recover but, to no avail, as the Cessna hit the water with a splash.

 

Boddo, standing behind me, guffawed with laughter and said "I told you it was interesting, didn't I?"

[kc]

I don't think the team behind Boddo has been mentioned yet - I got the impression through his articles that there were many people involved in his activities - his wife, son, nephew plus Dave Toyer and countless other who built the prototype models for films or articles.    Presumably he inspired others to go along with his ideas and that might be the secret to success?    

[Nick Cripps]

That's a good point, kc.

 

Whenever I saw David at Billing, or Old Warden, Ken Swailes was always present. Ken built many of Boddo's models and was a big part of his life. After Ken sadly passed away, Boddo was never quite the same and seemed somehow lost without him.

[RottenRow]

Andrew Boddington gave an excellent presentation about his father and his models via Zoom a couple of weeks ago, for the BMFA Scale Technical Committee.

 

It included all of his TV and film work, both models and full-sized replicas.

 

The presentation was recorded so it may well be available on YouTube at some point.

 

Brian.

[Richard Acland]

Only met the great man once and that was quite a short conversation. It was at the Barkston Nationals. I had just opened my boot to get out a free flight model for the evening jamboree. A face appeared over my shoulder and exclaimed "an ED bee mark one but what's the model". When I turned around to say it's a Vic Smeed Miss 38 I saw it was Boddo.  After a quick chat he was gone, camera at the ready looking for something else to photograph.      

[J D 8]

4 hours ago, Nick Cripps said:

On one occasion at Billing Lake near Northampton many years ago, I was flying my favourite waterplane of the time, an ARC Cessna Cardinal. The ARC range are sadly discontinued now but in many ways they were perfect for waterplane flying as they were moulded from plastic (ABS, I think). All the models in the range (Ready, Beaver, Jupiter, etc) shared the same float set but with different fittings for mounting and have been quite popular over the years. They were slightly heavier than the equivalent built-up models but that was not really a problem; well, most of the time.

 

Boddo wandered over to look at the Cessna and told me that he had recently been flying one for a magazine review. He further went on to ask me if I had tried spinning and, as I hadn't, he suggested I try it as it was "interesting". So on the next flight, I took the model up a couple of hundred feet, throttled back and started feeding in up elevator. As the model slowed I pushed both sticks across and the model dropped into a perfectly-developed spin. After a few turns, and with the lake fast approaching, I let go of the sticks, expecting the Cessna to recover just like all my other models would do. I was surprised to see it carry on spinning, so I quickly put in opposite rudder and aileron, at which point it rapidly flicked into a spin in the other direction. I was by then in full panic mode and desperately banging the sticks into the corners in a vain attempt to recover but, to no avail, as the Cessna hit the water with a splash.

 

Boddo, standing behind me, guffawed with laughter and said "I told you it was interesting, didn't I?"

 I still fly an ARC Jupiter and it too will stay in a spin until some opposit rudder is fed in. Having the extra mass of the floats probably did not help.

[Chris Freeman 3]

The best part of knowing David was just to see what a humble man he was and also how much he loved aviation, big or small. A couple of times when he flew to South Africa we managed to get him into the cockpit for take off or landing and even some time in the simulators and he showed that he loved the experiences as he had been in the RAF as a pilot. David at the flying field also spent as much time talking to the builders and pilots of the large and the small aircraft. I want to be like David and still get a thrill from Baby Bee or a big petrol motor. Many modeler's get caught up in the mine is bigger than yours syndrome( or more expensive). All his designs were practical to build and flew well, might not have been the most scale but you could be assured of a good aircraft once finished.

 

One day after the official flying at the world scale champs held in SA in 1997 I was flying my DB designed DC3 and David was doing the commentary and after I had done a few circuits David said come on Chris show us a stall turn so I opened the throttles built up some speed and pulled up the nose. David started shouting no Chris no but it was too late and I did a fairly low level stall turn. David did not challenge me again after that!

 

You might notice the shirts David got lots of strange comments when he wore his shirt in the UK.

[Andy Stephenson]

FIFY

 

Was this on Swartkop Airfield. I was there for one of the world scale championship meetings but I can't remember what year it was. It must be around the end of the 90s. Was this the only time around then it was held there.

Edited February 6 by Andy Stephenson

[Chris Freeman 3]

Correct, the year that many of your team found out the challenges of thin air! The World Jet Master were held at the same venue in 2003. Len Gardner gave my son the pilot from his ill fated FW190 which then flew in our Precedent Turbulent for many years! You can see Byron always had to be part of the action and this involvement resulted in him having a real passion for aircraft at these events. 

[Steve Fox]

Hi

I have enjoyed reading all the stories a out David. Funny enough I got an old book of his out of the library a couple of weeks ago for a look. It had two planes of the same model on the cover  but I wasn't sure if it was his design  or not.

My first model that I built was the RM trainer when I first started flying.

I rebuilt it on several occasions as I was teaching myself. as lone flyer.

I got very good at building them and could make a new one over a week or so..

I always remember David Boddingtons name for this reason. It's been great reading all the stories about him 

Cheers Steve NZ 

Edited February 10 by Steve Fox
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