Here is a little story about how I managed to acquire a forgotton film star,about ten years ago we had been touring around the Yorkshire area,instead of returning straight home to the Midlands the idea was to extend the holiday by calling in somewhere for a meal and then heading for Old Warden in Bedfordshire where an air rally was being held,I never need any excuses to visit the virtual time-warp atmosphere that prevails at this wonderful airfield,if you want to see flying examples of world war one ( and even pioneering ) aeroplanes,vintage cars,a real working workshop where you can see engineers restoring old flying machines then this is your place ! there was the usual selection of trade stalls laid out selling balsa,fuel and a hundred and one other items that us modellers crave for,as we walked along the lines I spotted a large heap of wings,tail and a rather battered fuselage with German crosses,closer inspection revealed what was once a very large biplane that had struck a tree ! the lower wing was a mangled mess of broken ribs and bracing wires tangled everywhere,the dealer came over and said that the model was once part of an expensive fleet of models built for a television series called 'Wings' yes I remembered this series which used not only large models but replicas of period aeroplanes to re-enact dog fights,many of the models had been written off in making the series,some even blown up in the air with explosives ! they were the work of that doyen of all radio modellers,non other than David Boddington,the standard of original workmanship was excellent with silk covered structure and an heavy ply fuselage,I just had to get this wreckage home and rebuild her ! my dear wife gave me a look of 'what do you want that heap of rubbish for' ? anyway a deal was struck for the bits and we headed home with the parts of my film star rattling away on top of our holiday gear in the back of the car.After a few weeks of hard work which included building a new lower wing,new wing struts to replace those that had been lost and sorting out a tangled heap of rigging wires,she was ready to install some radio and a engine,the original was powered with a big healthy Webra according to an article that I found in a copy of an old R.C.M & E magazine,all that I had was a somewhat worn out Merco that had seen better days,but she would have to do.After waiting for some decent weather I assembled this monster and just managed to get her into my Nissan Prairie sideways on with the wings resting across the passenger seat ! there was just too much fiddly assembling to get her rigged on the flying field,dont forget these types of model were made to be instantly available on the film set and travelled between locations on large trailers,sometimes they were flown virtually out of sight between two flyers who took over at each end of the action shots,this is probably why they had been built mostly of heavy plywood in the first place.Anyway I remember it well it was a beautiful summers evening but I seem to remember that the grass had not been cut for a while on the club strip but I decided to go for a post restoration flight anyway and started up the old Merco which was kicking out a lot of dirty oil along the side of the fuselage but seemed to have adequate power,first I did a few taxy runs and then put her right in the corner of the strip checked everything was working fine and in the correct sense and opened the throttle,she lumbered forward slowly and I could see that with very little wind and the long grass she was not exactly going to leap into the air,gradually the tail rose and the rigging wires started to whistle,a glorious sound that anyone who has flown a biplane will treasure as part and parcel of vintage aeroplanes,by now she was well into the much longer grass past the strip and I worked hard on the rudder to not only keep her straight but to miss the rather long thistles that the field was well known for ! after a while and with a little elevator she lifted gracefully but very slowly into the air really looking the part of a period Albatross C.1 especially with those huge crosses on the wing,I flew her over the canal and slowly banked her around the field clawing for some height,the temporary buggy wheels ( yes the originals had been robbed or lost ) still spinning in the evening air,after what seemed like ages and thank goodness for the large filming fuel tank,she had attained 300 feet,her ailerons were sluggish and certainly needed a little assistance as the full sized from the rudder but I was happy that at least she once again had air under her wings and was a real flying machine again after her ordeal with that tree.Soon it was time to plan the landing approach and I slowly throttled her back to a fast tick-over not wanting the old motor to oil up on me,I dragged her around a few fields out and she puttered nicely in a gliding powered turn,sheer magic,I looked quickly around to see if the strip was clear,and nobody in the way and judged the approach in relation to her very slow flying speed which was much less than any other big biplane that I had flown previously,I just had to be patient and like the lady she was not rush her into making a landing,eventually she floated in over the hedge and with a little bit of elevator she flared out nicely leaving her wheel marks across the grass strip,she had flown once again and my film star could be wiped over and taken home again,was the effort to save her worth it ? you bet it was and I was delighted.
At that time we were in the process of a move and she had to be dismantled,since that day she has been stored,the radio removed and the engine retired,she only flew in my custody the once but that was proof that there was still life in the old girl,perhaps one day I will treat her to a big fourstroke engine and rig her up again,meanwhile she shares space with a few spiders in the hangar,perhaps not the end of a model that once thrilled thousands as she re-enacted those halcyon days of yesteryear !
cracking tale bud
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