So there I was

after my minutes silence carrying on with my winter hobby and an ole pal dropped in

Tom I hope you keep him away from any ale we don't want him plastered

Ready Stuffed

Tom,

You seem to be going backwards? I am sure the fuselage was at a more advanced stage of completion in your previous photo of it.

Do you know Tom Banks from Rose Hill, you may well, as he also was a biker?

He is on this site, though has not posted since 2017, so I don't know if he is still with us.
( I'm sure that if you do, you will know his user name, so I need not give it on here.)

Anyway, I only ask because in his youth, he was someone who scratch-built flying model aircraft.

I knew Eddy Banks from Rose Hill, I might know Tom Banks by face but not by name , anyway I find the fuselage the more tricky and time consuming section to make so, I'll start it and when it starts to frustrate me I start on another section, Wings or tail plane then fall back on it later, This one is a 'West Wings' kit and to my mind, the balsa wood they supply is too thin so. carving the components is very trick and often they break, Its not helped by the fact my hands are not so nimble as they used to be and my eyesight isn't either making the job more challenging,

I only ever attempted such once, and it was after Mr Banks had showed me one of his constructions.

It was kit-built: a balsa and tissue-skinned Focke-Wulf.
(If building today, I would skin with one of the synthetic materials, (plastic). They are not lighter than the raw tissue, but are lighter than doped tissue. I used to buy the stuff to use as an etchant resist for manufacturing printed circuit boards. (Cannot summons to mind the proprietary names used by the manufacturers)

Anway, back to the Focke-Wulf. Having completed assembly (doped with Banana Oil) instructions said to launch it in a shallow downward glide, so that centre of gravity could be trimmed if it showed any tendency to pitch or droop.

I did as bid, and it glided problem-free, but when about a foot above ground---

I don't know if a breeze caught it, or what is known as 'ground effect', but it was off again, finally coming to rest by colliding with a distant post.

It was totally wrecked!

Never returned to making them.

You have described in almost detail what happens when I've flown mine and I wondered how James Steward ever trusted that German model plane builder to get them out of the desert in Flight of the Phoenix ,

I once made one of those balsa models, and in the kit there was a plan, a template on a sort of greaseproof type paper, and you started off making one side of the model using the printed template on the paper, and yoo pinned on to the template paper, I think they are called the frame sections of the aircraft and then glooed the stringers on to the frames forming the basic shape of the plane, and there was a lot of cutting and sniping of the balsa wood, and there would be balsa sections missing, so I would go to the craft shop, which at that time was an earlier version of this shop in Mesnes Street.



From there I would buy pieces of balsa wood and make parts for the model, from the shapes and information given in the template drawing.

After many months the plane fuselage was finished, and to make the aircraft skin, I used tishoo, stretched over the aircraft frame, which was glooed and stiffened into place by dope, after that painting it.

I never got round to fitting an engine and RC equipment to the plane, and it spent may years hanging down on string from my bedroom ceiling

I have flown in a kit-built plane.

It had been inspected and certified, both at stages, and end of build.

It was built by a friend of mine in France, although she had moved to Manchester by the time I had got to know her.

And, get this.... She was a Nun. (She did not wear the habit)

Another friend tells me that she became UK's first female commercial airline pilot, with Jersey Airways, but I have not verified if it is correct. I do hope so, as she was indeed a lovely person.

A flying nun, Cool

TTS.

Was the shop 'Oliver Sommers'? Many decades since I was on Mesnes Street, but I used to buy my camping stuff, shooting gear and model railway stuff from JJB or from Oliver Sommers.

No, the original Oliver Somers shop was down near to the junction with Standishgate, and then in later years they bought another bike and sportd shop at the other end of Mesnes Street, which was located a few shops up from the craft shop.

I always thought those tiny glow-plug engines, intended for model aircraft, quite impressive: if I see one for sale on ebay, I may well buy it.

Do you remember 'Jetex'?

I do remember Jetex, but in the early 1970s something happened, and model shops found it difficult to sell the Jetex pellets, through some sort of regulation change, so they stopped selling them.

I miss the art shop,I used to get all my oil paints there..the Range sell them but they’re out of my way now.

Just done some Google searching, and alas, I think what I had been told (re first female commercial airline pilot) is not true. A number of names crop up depending upon which criteria is invoked, but I do not find her's amongst them. (We did not have WWW back when I had been given that information)

Sad really. It would have pleased me had she attained such a distinction.

One of those people that I wish I had not lost contact with.

Its coming on now,,

So they still use that blueprint type paper system

yes but they are hard to find at a reasonable price, I got this on off facebook marketplace for £15, The model shops are asking £40 upwards, The later ones are laser cut and easy to carve but, this one is not and you need a good bit of patience to cut out the components, when the weather is shit as it is at the moment and. one is stuck indoors, Its a Godsend, I'll buy them all day long at £15,,,,

Tom,

Don't spend all day at a sitting down hobby, or the weight may well pile back on.

It did for me, and is proving harder to shed this time round.

I'm never still for too long Ena. My patience span is soon outlived and then I go into my shed and do other more manual tasks, At the moment I'm working on my Christmas display, I'm constructing a reindeer which , I intend to have moving parts and I like to make it from bits and pieces I already have, The body is from an old fermentation bucket, the head is from plant pots, the horns will be fabricated from some bathroom grips that I replaced in the summer, I go walking if its raining, biking if its dry and I weight myself every week and if I gain any weight, curtail my eating, I like to stay south of 12 st because, as you say. Its not easy to move if you lose control,

I'm a little confused.
Why would a man who "hates Christmas with a passion" be making a Christmas display?

control tower to tango papa, are you receiving over, tango papa to tower, copy. tower to tango papa, are you ready to take off, tango papa to tower, negative, some work to finish yet over, tower received and understood, over and out,