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Leader Magazine
SUMMER 1962.
AEROMODELLERS AT THE BRITISH NATIONAL.
The British National is a series of contests held annually to decide who shall represent Great Britain, in each class of aeromodelling, in contests held with other countries. This year it was again held at R.A.F. Barkston Heath near Grantham in Lincolnshire, the airfield that is used by Cadets from Cranwell. Travel down was by mini-bus. The party consisted of 10 Junior Leaders from the various companies and Sgt. Bott.
The journey, amid the busy Whitsun traffic, passed uneventfully, taking about seven hours, and on arrival the first things we heard were the buzz, scream and whine of dozens of model engines being tuned and run in. The camp site on the perimeter was already crowded with hundreds of tents of various sizes and colours, all very neat and very well organised.
After setting up Camp and being briefed for the jobs of the morrow, we walked around looking at dozens of models of all shapes and sizes and later, those who wanted, went into Grantham.
CROWD CONTROL AND A RAFFLE
At dawn the next day, the first engine began to run and out we got, washed, had a meal and left behind the duty cooks who prepared the midday meal and brought it out to us. Off we went to our duties, which included crowd control, and organising car parking and later the volunteers J/Pte. Stock, J/Pte. Gibbs and J/Gnr. Peck sold raffle tickets for the S.M.A.E. and collected about £18. The raffle, which had some wonderful prizes, was in aid of raising the fare for the British Control Line Team's visit to the World Championships, held this year in Russia.
Our first job concerned scale models in three classes, radio control, control line and free flight. The radio control event was amazing, the standard of modelling was very high and to see these miniatures of full sized aircraft twisting around the sky was a real eye-opener. The control line and free flight were also wonderful events and our job of controlling a very enthusiastic crowd was at times quite difficult.
Models in these classes ranged from World War I types to the latest Viscount airliner, complete with four engines and a first rate performer.
At midday we had a break for a meal and then continued until the event was finally fought out at about 5-30 p.m. After tea, we had the evening to ourselves.
THE SECOND DAY
The following morning, after a good night's sleep, we woke to the smell of bacon being cooked by the duty tent. After breakfast we went off to control the radio single control event, a competition for models that are purely acrobatic and not built to any particular design (one aircraft took three years to build). Not everything went right and two or three models took some hard knocks, one in particular which was a complete write-off after diving in from 500 feet. One wonderful model flew away, never to be seen again. The competitors in this class ranged from a Captain U.S.A.F., to a 14-year old boy, who unfortunately failed in the last heat.
Next day saw us packing up and returning to camp, tired, but really impressed with a wonderful week-end at the Nationals.
J/Pte. GIBBS, 'B' Company.
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