BumpyGreen were invited by Chesham Model Flying Club to go along to the BMFA South Midlands Area Rally.



This an annual event held at Old Warden Aerodrome in Bedfordshire. Chesham MFC were organising the Radio Control and were in charge of the flight line for the day. Choddy grabbed his Long Cabin in the hope of calm weather and headed off to Old Warden, stopping to pick up Grot on the way. Chinman took his painted twinjet and hitched a ride with Maddog and we all met up once we were there.

The event was up to the usual well organised standard we've come to expect from Old Warden Aerodrome and the modelling events that are held there. Well almost, We have to say that recently we have seen the Radio Control flight line and flying area of modelling events being setup along way away from the Old Warden Hangers and trade stands & this is not ideal.

A wide variety of different types of modelling could be seen on this 2 day event including Control Line (sports, combat and scale), Carrier Landing area, Free Flight, Radio Control and Trade Stands.

Choddy stayed on the R/C flightline for most of the 2 days, Chinman & Madddog had a good look around the museum while Grot managed to get round all the areas.

Once again the traders put on a nice spread for us to see. And choddy found just the thing he was looking for at the Somoso stand. He needed a high capacity cell to power the constant glow in his Bob Long cabin as it runs on a saito 45 with petrol mixed with 30% engine oil. He managed to pick up some excellent 5000mah cells that were suprisingly lightweight. The cyclone cell that he had used to date was a sealed lead acid 2v and regularly burnt out plug. also at only 2.5 amps did not last very long.

Chinman and Maddog also had to release the moths and purchased a square reciever pack (1500mah) and a new charger respectively from Somoso, whilst a swift visit to Flight Hook netted Grot a little "New Ruler" kit. This is a vintage style free flight model. Occasionally he likes to invest in one of these low cost models for two reasons. Firstly he loves to build a model in the traditional style, it keeps your building skills sharp and secondly you can learn a great deal from free flighters in terms of trimming the model as radio makes me very lazy in this department.

During the 2 days we saw some excellent flying and here are some pics of the people and the planes that flew.

Al Spicer from Chesham Model Flying Club started the flying on Saturday with his Gambler.

A very good display of prescition aerobatics was put on by Richard Ginger with his pattern ship model called 'Chilli'.

Ken Sheppard was there, keen as ever, with his ARTF 'Miss America' Mustang, a great plane from ripmax which comes with mechanical retracts. Also his Bristol Fighter which is pictured here.

A fine example of a WW I classic	"Now where did that Micro servo get to?"	Ready for the off.

It flies as good as it looks, and it looks ... superb!

Great detail all over, right down to the panel stiching.

Next up was Frank Dalby Smith's very nice Barnstormer.


Robert Mahony made an appearance with his electric powered Spirit of St.Louis, an excellent scale model which made one flight despite the wind, but that one flight was enough for Bob as like the other flyers found the condidtions were far from ideal.



Finally Dave Chinnery flew his ducted fan test bed, a nice aerobatic number he designed for testing his ducted fan setups.

Does anyone know the gentleman who owns the vintage model below?
Somehow Bumpy Green didn't manage to get his name even after a lengthy conversation about the model and it's very useful modifications.


A very nice and well flown Junior 60, and although not the conditions for a Junior 60, a very brave flight was made and safe landing to end the flight.
We were very impressed with the thought that went into building this model and some good ideas used.


Here you can see the clever little hatch that allows access to the reciever. Also in the 2nd picture you can see the additional bracing used below the wing. This is done with formers that run the whole depth of the fuselage and provide much additional strength. The screws in the lower wing (3rd pic) act as guides for the wing and prevent it sliding forward on the fuselage. Another mod mentioned is the sprung undercarriage using a hinged wire frame and rubber bands for springing.


The final modifiaction is the use of a beech stern post running from the tip of the tail to the bottom of the tail skid. This prevents the skid from flexing too much on hard or crooked landings.
Running an OS 26 four stoke and using standard size 3 channel r/x.

I took along my Twinjet with mind to having a flight at the end of the day once everyone else had gone home. As it was the wind on the day was gale force and caused considerable problems for some of the planes that had already flown. As the afternoon moved on very few people wanted to fly again and I spoke to BMFA examiner Al Spicer about having a flight if nobody else minded. I asked if he would stand close by in case of problems and he agreed. After a few minutes of courage building I was happy with the setup of the Twinjet and headed out for the flight line. With the wind still blowing fast across the airstrip I walked to the far side of the runway for a hand launch.

Ready to launch into the gale .....	Maybe I'll just wear the twinjet and fly my hat instead ....	Away with a hefty throw & the famous Chin shot.

At first the Twinjet bucked and careened like a wild horse and I almost closed the throttle for fear of losing all control but as I turned across the wind and headed back over the strip it gained height rapidly and I settled down. I took a few passes up and down along the strip well away from the crowd line and the transmitter control tent until I was happy it was trimmed to fly without constant correction for wind. After the recent goal post incident I had reworked the control surfaces to be more reactive to control inputs. As I gained confidence I pulled the stick over to the right expecting (as I had 60% rates set) a lazy roll as before. Instead I was rewarded with a double twinkle roll returning to an upright flying posture and continued on in a straight line. ''Some roll rate'' said Al. I mentioned that was just over half rates and wondered to myself if I should attempt to use no rates. I decided against it as the wind chopped the Twinjet around some more.

Rolling out of the inverted flyby.	Diving out of the loop

A few loops and some more rolls followed but as the wind was not letting up I decided against the low passes I love so much. I did however manage an extended inverted flyby fairly high up and I was very happy as previously it would not stay level while inverted. Trying to get the twinjet to hover in the wind was hard work as the turbulence was quite harsh. Filmed at long range, the resulting stills are lower quality than normal. Mostly due to the fact I was keeping it well away in case of wind induced difficulties.

A quick correction over the potatoes ....	Nice and steady on the approach ....	And finally, in for a greaser. (que applause etc)

After about 5 minutes I could hear the change in motor pitch and decided to land it early with plenty of power left for an abort and slowly circled round to approach into wind. Slowly I lost height and kept the speed on to avoid a stall. Gently it glided down and skimmed across the grass to settle onto the strip a few yards from my feet.
My landing was met with cheers and applause from the Chesham guys and the few members of public who had watched.

My hearty thanks to Al Spicer for support,
Choddy for filming it in the gale like wind,
& CMFC for inviting us along.

With only about 45minutes to go before all flying had to stop so that the full size aircraft returning from Duxford could come in and land. We decided we would fit the Bumpy Cam into one of the models flying there, we opted for Al's Gambler and with Al on the sticks and the onboard camera fitted to look out over the wing he took to the air. The recording wasn't great as it takes a long time and patience to find where the receiver is best situated on the field but here are some pics from the film.

Towards the end of the day some of the full size aircraft returned from thier various shows. First came the Bristol Fighter then the Lysander which would have been a stunning sight if we weren't at the wrong end of the field. Joking around as the hurricane came in we decided to wave to the pilot. To our surprise he flew around and gave us a little display rounded off with a very low pass and then off to land at the other end of the strip.

Although the Saturday was a bit sparse on spectaters, Sunday picked up a lot more and everybody seemed like they were having a good time. Old Warden model shows have always had a reputation for being well organised and good fun for all, We are pleased to report this show was not an exception and a good time was had by all. Chesham Model Flying Club once again provide very excellent cover on the radio control flight line, there were some excellent models on display and the pilot's executed very safe and impressive flying.

Article by Choddy, Chinman and Grot from Bumpy Green Model Aerodrome
8th October 2001

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