| Large Hercules under construction & a little history of radio sets.
A friend who inspects large models for the LMA sent me this picture,it is Hercules number 3 from the same modeller ! one crashed whilst being filmed and was shown on TV,just look at this monster looks like lots of blue foam and ply in its construction.
The amount of work that goes into these models is staggering and a compliment to the skill of these model builders.
The very first model of a C-130 that I saw was built by Geoff Franklin ( remember him ? ) he had a small model shop in Leicester in the old days of Reeds,his brother had a Kraft agency in America and used to ship the gear over to his Jarrom street ,Leicester shop now long since gone as the bulldozers moved in,a really funny sight if you can imagine a solitary shop standing in the middle of a building site ! Geoff fought to the end to keep his unique business,Kraft were to pioneer the proportional equipment market and pave the way,then RCS came along ( long since gone also ) who produced reasonably priced proportional gear running a chain of shops,Peter Lovegrove was a designer with them ( autogiro builder full size ) hope you dont mind this modelling history lesson ? !!
And then who remembers Staveley from Bedford ? I once remember sitting in a light aircraft full of radio sets that we had picked up from Cranfield airfield,we had orders for scores of them and Staveley just could not keep the pace with production,their service was a personal touch with their customers,you could ring them up and ask for say six radio sets,they would get all hands on deck and work overnight if necessary,something sadly missing these days but again like many they finished and went without trace,I doubt whether many remember this company ?
__________________ 'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !' www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/ |