Mode Zero

Maybe this one has been posted here before, but I don't remember seeing it. Action from the Bromley club from 1968.



Is there an existing thread for videos like these? If so, admins, please feel free to move/delete this. If there wasn't an existing thread, then I guess there is one now!

Those are great videos Martin.

I was going to post a link to a video about HLG and the beginning of DLG gliders, so this is as good a place as any. I'm quite keen to have a go with these sorts of gliders particularly HLG which you launch like a javelin. Whilst finding info regarding this type of glider I came across this film recorded in 2000 showing competitive HLG. Not so retro as Martin's, but look out for all the tx aerials as I'm surprised no one had their eyes poked out during the competition - and 2000 is already 19 years ago . Still need to finish watching it but found it fascinating.

In 1968 I was 9 years old and just getting into model aircraft, I remember my dad taking me over to the edge of Epping Forest to a place called Chingford Plain, just below a pub called Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge. On a Sunday morning the local model club met, and the sort of models shown in the first video were often seen, sometimes on the ground, sometimes in the air and sometimes going from one to the other at high speed.

Walking the dogs in the woods beyond where the flyers were could occasionally turn up bits of highly coloured balsa and I once found part of a fuselage with the engine still attached, which being an honest lad, I took over to the flyers on the way back.

Thanks for the video's, brilliant fun to watch.

The first video is also posted on a couple of facebook groups....... As a teenager, I lived in Bromley and used to go to watch the "aces" in the Bromley Club at their field near Biggin Hill..... The guy with the light brown coat and hat with red/yellow model was Frank Van den Berg. The guy with the bald head who crashed at the beginning of the film I'm pretty sure was Harry Brooks (Sprengbrook). Frank VdB and Harry Brooks (along with Chris Olsen) were members of the British team at the first ever Aerobatics World Champs at Kenley in 1962. The guy with the very nice red, white and blue model (Twister?) I think was called Dave Walker........ Happy days!

Frank Van den Berg test flew my first "Multi" model...... and it crashed! But to be fair, it was over ambitious and I now realise, it was completely unflyable! With hindsight, I think he should have refused to fly it but perhaps he just didn't want to disappoint me.

Paul

It's funny how you watch one thing on YouTube and then various recommendations appear. This great video going back to transmitter boxes on the ground popped up. Even some aerobatics too

This video just recommended to me on YouTube. Lovely models, lovely transmitters and lovely flying

Towards the end you see one pilot skillfully using a reeds set

Look on the quality of the models and the care in the packaging of the receiver/batteries. I love it ...and in those day always well dressed on sundays and smoking was dangerous yet!

Carl wrote: ↑05 Mar 2019, 18:01 This video just recommended to me on YouTube. Lovely models, lovely transmitters and lovely flying

Towards the end you see one pilot skillfully using a reeds set

But this really drew my attention: 3'02"- 3'08", 3'28" - 3'48"
This pilot was to become a future World Champion with the next incarnation of the model he's flying in the video.

Here's some 8mm film from my early days, flying on Little Haldon, near Teignmouth in Devon:



(I'm the kid with the broken Sharkface, about 1'30"in!)

Our "leader" at the time was John Haytree, who later become well known as the "go to" man for engine repairs. He's wearing the light brown pullover in the stills section at the end.

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Pete