Flying Back in Time
The posse head back under the sea to La Belle France.
Customs men are not usually noted for their sense of humour, but when the three of us, myself, chauffeur Barrington Smallpiece, and Transit ballast Sideways Sid were stopped at the British entrance to the channel tunnel and enquiries made as to the contents of our van, the official response to our reply was ‘you just couldn’t make that up!’ Nevertheless, the back doors still had to be levered open to show that the contents really did consist of a load of large model aeroplanes. Customs men can’t have very long memories though, because it was that time of year again when the SSUK Expeditionary Force prepares for the annual peaceful Normandy landing in preparation for storming the flying field of the Caen Aeromodelles Club for the occasion of their annual aerotow event.
This event attracts modellers of the scale soaring persuasion from far and wide, the main attractions being the laid back French organisation, the nearly always perfect weather and the opportunity for lots of flying. It has become traditional over the years for the British contingent to arrive a day or so early in order to take over the flying site for our own purposes and, as Friday dawned, the previous day’s (month’s!) rain became a distant memory as sunshine and light winds became the dominant condition. How do they do it?
This year’s fleet from the UK mainland was to be a pretty impressive one, and included a new 3rd scale Blanik L213A (yet another of Phil Hoegger’s aerobatic mounts), Steve Davis’ 3rd scale Wilga tug and Andy Schafer’s usual collection of heavy plastic. Also included, my new 3rd scale C-Falke motorglider, christened ‘Humphrey’ over the weekend by Steve Davis, a name that I’m afraid is likely to stick. Also joining the day’s festivities were two German sailplane manufacturers in the persons of Ekkerhard Hermann of Rosenthal fame, and Thomas Budseus who specialises in the manufacture of ‘grossmodelles’, or ‘big ‘uns’ as we say this side of the Manche. Blowing in from Switzerland to complete the line up was the ‘all electric Chris Garrod show’ combining no less than three ‘up-and-go’ electric glass ships (Nimbus, 2-seater Nimbus and Ventus) and his always impressive Rascal electric tug.
The weather seemed perfect, no wind, sunshine, and a welcome rise in temperature after the long winter, so we set to with a will, just another day in paradise.
Now tugs are temperamental creatures, always prone to spraining a gusset, but five tugs represent money in the bank, as it were, so it caused some consternation when three of them became unserviceable as the day progressed. Sid’s Wilga was the first to succumb, and then Steve Davis’ Wilga became silent when its expensive transmitter threw a digital wobbly and then, to put the tin lid on it, Barrington Smallpiece suffered fly-in-the-eye syndrome and was able to fly only sporadically for the rest of the weekend. Despite these setbacks, a full programme of flying took place until the sun, wearying of the spectacle, started its descent to the western horizon. It was then that Humphrey came into his own; in the flat evening’s calm he purred gracefully at low level over the crop, slow, majestic and scale-like, the perfect combination of virtues. With photos and video in the can, this represents to me the culmination of a long project, whatever happens now there will always be pictures and a movie to torture the grandchildren with! So, after the obligatory Barbie, it was back to the Gallic B&B, too spent to even take the wee-wee, able only to fall into the sack to rest in preparation for the start of the event proper.
By the next morning the weather was starting to warm up, and first model to catch my eye was the superb 3rd scale Castel 25S being rigged by French modeller Andre Gaborit. Bearing a similar colour scheme to Humphrey, lots of red and see-through fabric, I was really impressed by the way the wings rigged to the fuselage, exactly as the full size, with metal plates in the wings locating with plates on top of the fuselage, joined together by steel pins. In the air, as you might expect at this size, the model was slow and realistic, the only downside being a tendency to land in the crop rather than on the strip. Talking of Normandy landings, this event usually ties in the with the annual commemorations, last year being the big one, so it was fitting indeed to see a rather large model of a Waco troop carrier being assembled. With the scale towing strop being attached to two points in the side of the fuselage, this would no doubt have been a moving sight to any World War II veteran as the Waco descended over the crop to land on the strip.
A glider queue argument between two Frenchmen is always an impressive sight, with plenty of passionate shouting and no small amount of gesticulating (well, they can’t do you for it) and such was the level of their toe-to-toe commitment that I felt unable to risk my execrable French on one of them to gather details of his large-ish Schweizer 1–26 that seemed to spend more time in the air than on the ground. Maybe next year.
It’s always amusing to chart the progress of the day’s events at this aerotow: first there is a leisurely rigging of models and a period of prolonged chat to the background noise of Brit aerotowing. A bit more chat follows, followed by the ceremonial opening of bottles of wine, a bit more chat, and then, wouldn’t you know it…time for lunch. Pausing between mouthfuls for a bit more chat, lunch is consumed after a period of an hour or two, by which time we assemble for the briefing. The briefing (consisting largely of chat) is in French, of course, well, you can’t blame them for that, and then one of guys manfully struggles to translate into ‘Frenglish’ and I wonder if we could do any better at one of our events? With bewildering suddenness, a French tug fires up and, as if by magic, a lengthy glider queue forms out of nowhere and then it’s non-stop aerotowing until about six-thirty, when it’s time to stop and gather in the big marquee for the evening meal with lots of food and wine and — oh yes — more chat. Now, if you happen to have a motorglider and you get out there during the chat periods you will find, like Chris Garrod and I, that self-launching has its attractions, especially when the sun is shining and the wind is light.
The next day we saw more of the same, only this time it took even longer to get around to the pre-flight briefing, so once again the motorgliders sawed their way into the sky without hindrance. Having suffered the symptoms of the old trouble recently, Minimoalitis that is, it was with the reluctant fascination of a reformed alcoholic confronted by a beer festival, that I saw that there was not just one, but two examples of the type on display. The first, belonging to Bertrand Gillot, was from the Krick kit, examples of which must have first seen the light of day many years ago now. Bertrand had modified the wings to accept Schempp-Hirth airbrakes rather than the more usual barn door spoilers, and admitted, as many before have too, that there were certain difficulties in setting the model up to turn properly. These have always been difficult models to fly on the slope, but aerotow allows them to come into their own, and this one seemed to fly pretty well. The other example, belonging to M’sieur Aymeric, was from the S2G stable, of which there are a few around now. This one flew very well, suffering only from a lack of glide path control, there being no airbrakes or spoilers, relying un the raising of the ailerons instead. When the three Minimoas, these two and mine, happened to be parked near to each other I at once spotted the photographic opportunity.
Lining the three up together, I lay down and sighted through the viewfinder, as I have done a thousand times before. Little did I realise that this action was to give rise to a new saying, for the chosen spot turned out to be the site of an ants nest. Leaping and hollering in a fashion calculated the raise the eyebrows of even the most laid back Frenchman, I slapped myself silly, all the while thinking:’ the ants in France crawl mainly up your pants’. Ah, the things a roving reporter has to put up with.
Having once slept through an entire French lesson at school without discovery, it will come as no surprise that yours truly is a uni-linguist, and it’s always difficult at this event to grill the pilots the way I can back home. So, during the lunchtime festivities in the marquee, I was interested to note that the guy next to me was grilling the feller opposite and writing a load of stuff down on his notepad. Gads! A French version of me! So intense was his concentration, he didn’t notice me leaning over his shoulder and cribbing shamelessly, something else I learned at school. Thus did I learn that the owner/builder/pilot of the nice orange Fauvette I’ve been photographing for the last three years is one Andre Lambert and his model flies on the same set of Quabeck wing sections as most of my machines.
As the day wore on, the tug attrition rate intensified; one tipped over and landed on its tail, another lost its tuned pipe in the sea of crop and yet another split a gusset of some sort, leaving one young guy with his Red Bull. (Red Bull: a Rosenthal kit that has proved a very popular machine for tugging). Hour after hour he plugged away, knees slowly bending until he had to sit down to fly, fatigue pulling him ever lower in his chair. Eventually he had to draw the line, and he drew it in front of my Minimoa, drat him, still there’s always next year.
Once again, the Caen Aeromodelles Club had provided a splendid weekend for all their guests, and as Sid, B.S. and myself headed once more for the Tunnel, we vowed to do it all again next year, assuming we could get all the ants out of our fuselages first.
©2006 Chris Williams
All images by the author. First published in the much missed Quiet & Electric Flight in 2006. Read the next article in this issue, return to the previous article in this issue or go to the table of contents. A PDF version of this article, or the entire issue, is available upon request.
