After much persuasion from the Bumpy Green mob I finally agreed to brave the British road network (M6 & M1) to visit them and take in the Halton Model Air Show over the weekend of the 7th - 8th October. As I live in the wastes of Cumbria (oop north), this was quite a long trek (about 240 miles) so I wasn't looking forward to the drive. It took 4 ½ hours to reach Bumpy Green HQ and I was looking forward to a good afternoons flying followed by a ruby murray and a few beers. After leaving the M1, I was guided by Bumpy Green air traffic control (choddy) until I arrived at their home base.
This was a real culture shock as being married for more years than I care to admit, I'm used to confining my modelling activities to the garage and the loft (if the slightest balsa shaving escapes into the house, I get a real bad case of earache) so to see a house with models in all stages of construction decorating all the rooms was unexpected. Clearly, the female of the species held no power in this house (I call it a house, but it was really like a modelling Alladin's cave). Below are some pics taken to illustrate.
The weather was less than ideal, (blowing a hooly) but it wasn't raining for a change so we walked down to Bumpy Green flying site 2 (the local playing fields 50 yards from the house - these guys have got it made!) for a bit of flying mayhem. Choddy flew his i/c aerobatic fun-fly model (yuk-messy and noisy) while Chinman and I flew various electric models. I started by flying my RCM&E Tucano but the wind was too much for it and I quickly landed and replaced the model in my car before I broke it. Chinman flew his Pico Jet for a while and then we both flew the Twinjets for some serious combat action faithfully captured on video by Choddy.The Competition consisted of :-
Chinman in the blue corner Gary in the red tip corner
Grot arrived and proceeded to amuse himself flying Choddy's plane enthusiastically. Chinman managed to avoid the goalposts while landing this time, but still managed a spectacular cartwheel as a nasty bit of turbulance caught him just 4-5 ft above the deck. No damage done though, it just shows how tough these foamies are!
As the weather continued to deteriorate, we packed up and returned to base to prepare for the evenings activities. Myself, Choddy and Grot headed off for a Curry and the odd beer or two. A most enjoyable evening was had by all spoilt only by Choddy announcing that he wanted to leave for the airshow at 7:30 the following morning (we'll see about that!). Grot kindly put me up for the night so I had a nice comfortable bed to sleep off the beer and curry.
Got woken up by Grot at 07:30 (could have been worse) so we packed our stuff up and headed off for the show only stopping at the nearest cashpoint to withdraw my spending money for the day. We arrived at Halton about 09:00 so after unloading the van, I left the lads talking to the Chesham crew who were running the flight-line for the day, and headed off to the trade stands to pick up some bargains before they got too busy. Managed to pick up a Protech DC3, a Foxbat and for some odd reason 3 left wings - dont ask.., and so after spending all my money I headed back to the flight-line to see what was happening. The first thing to catch my eye was a lovely large scale mosquito being unloaded from a transit van (pics below). A superbly made model that flies as well as it looks.
Another model that caught my eye was a turbine powered helicopter. I've seen plenty of turbine powered jets fly before but never a helicopter. It was a truly impressive sight to see and was extremely well flown by the pilot who deservedly won an award. I managed to get some pics which are shown below…..
Choddy also managed to win an award for best civilian scale model with his third scale Blackburn Monoplane which is pictured below.
The weather, which had been threatening all day, finally broke at about 14:00 persisting down for about 45 mins causing the abandonment of the rest of the flying display. Shame really, as the show up to then had been extremely enjoyable. All that was left to do was to pack up the models and head off back to BG HQ. Once the models had been unloaded, it was time for me to head off back home. I thanked the lads for a thoroughly entertaining weekend and took my leave. Before finishing, I thought it would be a good idea to include some pics of the BG mob so you could put a face to the names in case you ever run into them (scary thought!) so here they are!
Note from Bumpy Green: I think it only fair to include a picture of Gary here so here he is :-
Gary aka Murky
Article by Gary from Furness Model Aircraft Society
25th October 2001
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