My name is Dave Whiston , I work and live in Mexico, previously I did 5 1/2 years in Brazil and prior to that 3 1/2 years in Spain.

For a small group of individuals, our employment, places us in positions, which under normal circumstances we could never imagine. I have over the past years met with celebrities, leaders of countries even royalty. But the one thing I have been able to do is pursue my hobby in the worlds most exotic of locations. My family and I left England some 10 years ago and set up home in Madrid , Spain . But my interest in Radio control was sparked by a neighbour of my mother in law, Gerald Murray is and remains to be one of the stalwarts of a small flying club based in Staffordshire , he with Harold who is now well into his 80's can be found most Sundays at the field, Gerald having a wealth of experience, suggested I should kick of with “something big and stable” so my first aircraft was a Flair cub flying on an OS 40 the engine and second hand Hi Tec radio purchased at a Cosford LMA meeting. Initially I flew with a non-aileron wing, however gravity and a large beech tree would soon decide that I should upgrade to an aircraft fitted with ailerons. It was one of those beautiful sharp blue days that only England has and Gerald and Harold were overseeing my early attempts at landing. We did not have the use of a buddy cable so both stood close and if all went out of shape would snatch the transmitter out of my hands and hope to achieve the miracle of getting it back in the air or safely on the ground. But today all was well I had achieved 3 or 4 bouncy touch and go's but all looked well. Lining up on a large beech tree on the final approach, I had a slight doubt of how the Cub was in relation to the tree so I inquired of my two Co-pilots, “ do you think I need to go a bit further to the left ? “No” said Harold “it's looking good”, “I should go bit more to the right” said Gerald, Obviously we did not take the laws of nature into account as the tree decided at that moment to take two steps to the left, The cub valiantly tried to fly through the lower limbs of the tree but it was to no avail it was a total write off. So back to the building board and Cub number two rolled out the hangar doors. As you can see Cub number 1 was in a bit of a mess, but Michael had great fun with what was left. Roughly around the same time late 80's early 1990 I was driving heavy trucks and one of my trips took me into Scotland, Now I think it was Sterling, but I can not truly remember but I discovered a model shop near to a golf course, I think it was owned by a Jim somebody anyway, hanging from the roof was this secondhand Spitfire , it's a 60's size model. If anyone recognizes it, well it's still going strong and now lives in Mexico. Just as the new wing was ready, the cub and all my gear was loaded into a large ply wood box and sent on its way to Madrid , a beautiful city which provided a fantastic backdrop for my early overseas flying. Locating a flying club turned out to be more difficult than anticipated as most of the people I met were into radio control cars. But luck was on my side and we met an RAF engineer working on the Euro fighter project, so we set up camp on the road to Burgos , unfortunately work load meant that only limited flying could be achieved, but it is fair to say my flying skills were now improving and confidence was now coming. Me and My Mate Kev ( RAF) 1993 on the road to Burgos Spain Yes it is another Cub !! but I got the colour right this time, note the tall bushy grass, hence the Cub became christened “The Tundra Queen”

I now wanted to move on to a low-winger, unfortunately that coincided with my being moved on to Brazil !. So the Cub went back in the box and was sent on its way. Now how to locate a flying field in a city of over 19 million, the only solution was the world wide web, try doing a web search for model aircraft sites in England and see how hard it is and we were working in Portuguese! After a couple of attempts, we located a flying club at www.aerobello.com.br the site was not too far away, about 1 hours drive (Sunday driving that is, traffic is always light). So the following Sunday Michael and I set off to find the site. After a couple of wrong turns and with the aid of the locals we arrived at the site, which was located high on the top of a plateau. The runway was a beautifully kept grass strip. Aerobello Brazil Restaurant in the back ground (Pilots sitting in the shade) which had been leveled and rolled until it gave the impression of flying off an aircraft carrier? The rest of the site was just perfect, a covered pits area provided shade from the sun, (Not as in England , to protect from the rain !!), a small brick office where the radios are held, and a small restaurant which offered at least two different menus for “THE PILOTS”. There was only one thing we could do - We joined up immediately! (Pilot entering the taxi way at aerobello, note the safety catch fence !! Modeling and safety taken very seriously here!!) The club has two excellent instructors Henry and Mauro, both Michael and I took to Mauro both of us signing up for flying lessons. Now I knew how to fly but had never really had the benefit of real lessons, and if we are all honest we all have a responsibility to conduct ourselves in a professional manner. Needless to say I had many self taught problems to iron out ! Flying lessons turned out to be the most sensible thing I had done in a long time but flying off the aircraft carrier was not as easy as it seemed, get it wrong taking off and you fell off the sharp end, get it wrong landing and you flew straight into the stern (nautical term applied, it sounds better than ships bum). Mauro turned out to be an excellent teacher and in no time at all both Michael and I were comfortably “ dominating our aircraft” making it go where we wanted it too and not it go where it wanted, probably the most difficult element was avoiding the small monkeys who congregated at the end of the strip frantically jumping up and down and then chasing the aircraft up the strip, so high speed taxiing and a well placed stone was the order of the day. On our 4th week, Michael managed to plant Mauro's trainer into the rough, only minor damage was sustained but it was obvious that a serious bump to the confidence had been taken, Mauro remained his usual smiley self despite the prospect of a few late nights repairing the damage. Seeing that Michael was most put out by the accident Mauro commented “ Look, there are only two types of model aircraft, those that have crashed and those that are going to crash” we all know that to be true !! There are on the market certain “gadgets” which can greatly aid the learner pilot and seriously extend the life of your aircraft, hopefully we can discuss these at a later date. Time rolled on and again we changed countries and now live, work and fly in Mexico. Which now brings us up to date so we can skip any more of the history. So 10 years on we finally laid our faithful Flair cub to rest, not due to flight damage, more to a faulty builder. The front of the airframe over the years absorbed fuel to the point where further flight was deemed too dangerous, the possibility of the engine breaking loose is not worth considering. So here is where we begin, Tequila sunrise seemed a good title for my efforts, •  Because the local hooch “tequila” can give some vivid hangovers in the morning and •  Our sunrises take place at 7500 feet above sea level and the sun rises through a very wide band of pollution !! So what do you replace your faithful Cub with ? I decided on something a bit sportier….

I fitted an Irvine 46 ( No dealers in Mexico so Thanks to Steve Webb Models) and a Pitts Muffler type exhaust so it all fits inside the cowl. It flies like a dream and has absolutely no vices. Let's look at basic kit. Aircraft, all aircraft perform well at this altitude, however we have to use bigger engines to ensure sufficient power is available, for example, my flair SE5a flew beautifully in the UK on a 40's four stroke, the same aircraft in Mexico needs a Irvine 53 2-stroke running on 15% . Under normal circumstances I would never consider running such an “high octane “ fuel but that's what is needed to give our aircraft a normal flight envelope. So everything is very different to what we would consider the norm in the UK !! Of course greater maintenance is required, religiously engines need to be cleaned and lubricated after use, I use after run in all my engines and to date have got good life out of them, My oldest engines are a couple of OS 2 strokes which are around 8 years old and still going strong. I am now looking at moving towards petrol engines, the biggest problem with modeling in Latin America is price, a gallon of 4 stroke fuel costs about 22 pounds now I do not know how that compares to the UK but If you are running engines in the OS 120 size, it does not last long and soon makes a reasonably large hole in the wallet. I am currently working on a Cessna, which will fly on a 23 cc Zenoah, I will keep you posted as the project progresses. My current large aircraft is the Great planes Ryan. This is an ARF aircraft and flies on an OS 120 Four-stroke. Building of this aircraft, for anyone with at least one constructed kit under their belt is simple. BUT TAKE HEED…. My Ryan was built 100% as per the manual, and I used a Great Planes balancing machine to accurately set up the centre of gravity. Now in all the write ups, it says “flies like a trainer” and yes it does, but it lands like a rabbit on steroids if you are not totally tuned to how a tail dragger comes down. My first landing was a series of bounces verging on a ground loop. So disillusioned was I that I went out and purchased a great planes flight simulator, only because it has the Ryan as one of the selectable aircraft. So after many hours of Stimulated Flying I ventured once more to the field. The first flight was good, landing was pretty much as the simulator, requiring a balance flairing of the aircraft with a final closing of the throttle. Now more confident with the aircraft and my ability off we went again, this flight was even better I threw in a couple of loops and rolls for good measure and then concentrated on a couple of dummy landing runs. Everything looked good so I committed to land. The Ryan settled nicely in to a descending glide ( ¼ throttle) and I flared out and held the wheels just off the asphalt for a couple of meters before chopping the throttle, I was a little ways down the runway so I decided to run onto the side grass verge to slow things up a little, not a good move the aircraft slowed to almost a stop and then sooo slooowly nosed over and did a pathetically slow flip onto its back. Needless to say everyone made their favourite wise crack, though no-one imagined any damage had been caused, Michael set off down the site to recover the aircraft and as he approached…. The wing collapsed. No-one could believe that such heavy damage had been caused, on returning home I cut the entire covering off the wing and what did we find ? No glue on almost 50% of the wing components. Certainly this was the cause of the wing failure, during the construction of the aircraft I had re glued the fire wall with a 30 min epoxy as I felt it was not properly secured. I thought that this might be grounds for a warranty claim so I photographed and sent a description of the fault to Great Planes. Their response was to ask me to ship the wing to them and they would then make a decision…….. WHAATT!!!. Considering it cost me $300 US to receive a CD Rom posted by DHL from the USA you can understand my reluctance to do this. I settled for the usual modeller's response, I rebuilt it myself. Michael lends Scale to my Ryan ( Photo is after crash repair) So the lesson to be learnt is do not believe those three letters ARF, always have a good look at any glued joints and make sure you are happy with it all before you fly, covered wings are difficult to inspect, but if you have a good look inside the fuselage it might give an indication of how the rest as been put together. Also dump the foam wheels for some good low bounce items they aid to take the shock out of landings if you are operating from an asphalt strip. Well that's all for now, Fly safe and enjoy it while you can and always remember as Mauro says..... ”There are only 2 kinds of Model aircraft”

Article by Dave Whiston from Mexico for
Bumpy Green Model Aerodrome - January 2004

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