West Rand
Aeromodelling Club
WEST RAND AEROMODELLING CLUB – MEMORIES AND MILESTONES BY TIM STANLEY
This is a short record of some of my memories of our illustrious club. As we all know, ours is an incredibly special pastime. The average man or woman in the street does not understand the calling that brings us together, to recreate in miniature the wonders of the flying machine. This account starts with the awe of a small boy and ends with the unmitigated enjoyment of the present. This is also in some small way a thank you to my late father, Haydn Stanley, and serves as a ‘memory-jogger’ for my 50-plus years as a member of WRAC.
WRAC was born at an inaugural meeting held on the 22nd of June 1949 at 20h00. It was agreed that a regular program of Sunday afternoon flying would be followed. The entrance fee was 10 shillings and sixpence for seniors, and 5 shillings and sixpence for juniors. Flying was initially at Phil Binet’s father’s farm near Sterkfontein Hospital (yes, where the mad people go).
My earliest recollection of a model aeroplane was when I was about four or so. It belonged, kind of obviously, to my Dad. It was a control line mid-wing of about 24-inch span. It had orange wings and a blue fuselage. The engine was a 1cc ED Bee, and I particularly remember the wheels which were cut from plywood, with short brass tubes glued in the centres as bearings. I also remember the lines. They were green in colour, and were woven, rather like our modern-day Dacron. Dad flew it on the United Tobacco soccer grounds, after thrusting a screwdriver into the grass to mark his ‘centre’. I don’t really remember the flight well enough to tell you anything about it, but I do remember the smell of the ether-based fuel, which Dad kept in a mysterious dark brown bottle with a glass stopper.
There had not been any regular flying until now, at least not in my brief lifetime, and one evening Dad told Mom that he had contacted a couple of people, and they were going to get together for a flying meeting. There followed a period of furious building in the following weeks, and one Saturday morning we got into the car with a picnic basket and flasks of tea. Resplendent in the boot was Dad’s first RC model – a converted free-flight biplane called ‘Sporty’. It had the ED Bee up front and boasted a home-built transmitter and receiver. Dad had splashed out on an OS rubber-powered escapement. This was strictly rudder-only, and essentially ‘slightly-assisted-free-flight’.
At the field, which was about one kilometre south-west of the present-day Ruimsig Golf Course, we met what were to be our fellow club members. It was March 1964. I had started school, and so would have been almost six years old. There was a large tree, under which the cars parked, and the ladies sat. The track that led up to the tree served as the runway, i.e. you ran down this as fast as your legs would carry you, in the hope of hand-launching your model into the wild blue yonder. Phil Binet, Jack Greig, Henry Wood and Dick Bullen were there initially, and we were subsequently joined by Lou Peach, Dick Lancashire, Colin Steyn, Bob du Plessis and Alex Nowosielski. Membership was R1-00 for seniors, and R0-50 for juniors (me) which Dad generously paid.
The aircraft that flew at that time can be seen on the club videos on YouTube. Search for ‘WRAC History Episode 1’. These were kindly put there by Martin Meyer. What is memorable is that the successes were fairly few and far between. There was a lot of engine-flicking. The modellers of today are used to high-quality glow motors and electric starters. All easy-starting stuff! Diesel motors were the norm. They could be temperamental, and although capable of swinging a large prop, did not put out a lot of power. Flights were usually short, and often resulted in prangs.
Model repair was frequent and was often carried out at the field by the more enthusiastic club members. Glue took a long time to dry. You used mostly white glue and pins. Special joints were done with the aid of Dad, as I wasn’t allowed to use his Ambroid cement. 12-hour epoxy was available in the form of Araldite, but was awfully expensive.
Dick had a Carl Goldberg 1/2A Cessna, which he flew for many years. Also single channel, it was replaced by another 1/2A Cessna. Those were the days of one man-one aeroplane. Dick had a large homebrew Cessna hanging in his flat, above the dining room table, which took years to finish. Colin Steyn built a pretty little biplane called a Graupner Kapitan. Due to an over-filled tank, it flew away on its maiden flight. I was horrified. But not as horrified as Colin was. Due to my age, my aeroplane collection now consisted of a chuck glider and a rubber-powered all-sheet home-designed monoplane. Most of my time was spent running after the ‘grown-ups’’ models, so I had more that enough to keep me busy. I remember one memorable occasion as it was the only time that Dad let me hold his homebrew transmitter. He had built a Piper Cherokee, powered by a brand-new Max 35. It would not do an ROG, so he had to hand-launch. As his hands were now full, he couldn’t hold the transmitter. So he gave it to me. You can imagine the outcome.
Henry ‘Woody’ Wood built a Veron Robot. I remember it for two reasons. One was the smell of burning glow fuel – it was the first glow motor I had seen in action, a Max 15. The other reason was that he could not get the paint to dry, so he was using the oven in the kitchen, much to Auntie Vivette’s disgust.
Phil Binet was the control-line king. He had held the South African control-line speed record. He could also launch a chuck glider at a terrific pace. It would literally whistle on its way up. Sadly, he only started flying RC models in the 1990’s.
Bob du Plessis was also a very competent CL pilot. He built his own sports car, which had a Volvo engine in it.
As the move to RC was made, motors were becoming more reliable. RC equipment, however, was not reliable, and so the objective of a successful flight was still only occasionally realised. Initially, all receivers were of the regenerative design, meaning only one person at a time could fly. This wasn’t really a problem as most of the flights tended to be quite short! Radio went through the following stages: Single channel – rudder only, single channel rudder and motor control, Galloping Ghost (pulse proportional – look it up on the Internet), then full proportional, either 3- or 4-channel depending on finances available. It was a wonderful moment if your model actually made it back onto the field after its flight. Due no doubt to the unmitigated enthusiasm of our members, everyone ultimately gravitated to proportional (all on 27MHz). The members also slowly increased their number-of-landings-to-number-of-flights ratio.
We moved to our new field where Pinehaven Hospital now stands, in August 1966. Meetings were changed to every 2nd Sunday. Dad had graduated to Galloping Ghost, using the new (and fascinating) Rand LR-3 actuator, together with a home-made transmitter and receiver. I had built my first CL model – made from an old stabiliser, and sporting Dad’s (by now well-used) ED Bee. In ’67 we were joined by new members – Stan Jackson, Ken Phillips and Jimmy Bullock. By now Dad had moved up. He was taking 3 aircraft to the field!
1969 saw the addition of Tony Taschner, Pottie Potgieter, Jan ? and Anthony Henderson. I now had an A2 glider, in addition to my other models. Also built was a free-flight high-wing Cox Pee Wee .020-powered model of own design, which I wore out. The .020 engine cost R3-65, and came on a tear-off card. Dad and I became members of SAMAA, numbers 380 and 381, respectively. Dad kindly forking out once more. Pottie was one of our pilots that regularly made the field, and he flew Galloping Ghost. Jan had a Goldberg Shoestring, and also the club’s first twin. He flew proportional. Anthony flew an H-Ray very competently, without any ailerons.
High School was the thing in 1970, and also saw an upgrade in models. No RC yet but a couple of nice C/L models – I remember a Keil Kraft Skystreak, with the now really run-in ED Bee. I still have the ED Bee by the way. By 1972 I had built my first superhet receiver from an article in RCM and E, and had scrounged 2 escapements and a transmitter from Dad. I rebuilt a pranged model I was given, and was ready for RC! The model flew well when the motor ran properly, and had many successful flights. By this time most of the WRAC members were flying proportional (except me). In a moment of weakness, a Voodoo was added to the CL collection. We were also joined by George Strutt in 1970, who was an accomplished flier. Also, young Mark Nowosielski had been born, and was to become the club’s second junior member.
In 1976 I was called up to 1 Special Services Battalion in Bloemfontein, and so modelling took a back seat for a while. 1978 brought my first proportional set. A second-hand Kraft 7-channel, no less! The flying meetings that could be attended were filled with flying odds and ends. In the meantime, the club had sort of stabilised, with the flying-every-second-Sunday working well. Alex had bought a bus, which he drove to the field. The idea was to use it as a clubhouse. Unfortunately, even in those years there was a group of individuals who believed in reappropriation of other people’s property. The bus was stripped by them within the next two weeks, making it totally unusable as a clubhouse.
The runway at the field was a section of the road that led into the property. This created a problem as off-road motor cyclists would occasionally try to ride down the middle of the runway while we were flying! In addition, hang glider pilots would jump off the top of Muldersdrift Hill and would regularly invade our airspace. There were several interesting hang glider accidents. Luckily, none involved our aircraft. Once we cut a piece off a hang glider to make a splint for the pilot who had broken his arm. He moaned like crazy about the damage to his glider, while we bound him up.
In 1986 we were joined by Billy Swanepoel. The new big thing was ‘Oldtimers’. Fun to build and fly. No ailerons, so you relearned a few of the old single-channel lessons. Peter Lastrucci also joined us regularly. In addition to his scale models, he was flying a helicopter! A very brave man!
From January 1993 until November 2002 our membership was H Stanley, T Stanley, Alex Nowo, Mark Nowo, Stan Jackson, Phil Binet, George Strutt, Peter Lastrucci, Billy Swanepoel and Rob Matten. Only ten members, but we did a lot of flying. Alex and Mark Nowo emigrated to the USA, which was really sad. They had been with us for so long. They were two of the most enthusiastic aeromodellers we had ever met. Sadly, both have now passed on.
In 1999 Dad informed me that Peter Lastrucci and I had been made Life Members of WRAC. A great honour indeed, and something that I cherish to this day.
At the Pinehaven field we flew mostly Oldtimers and Scale. The big wheels did a lot to improve our take-offs and landings on the small, rough runway. The grass was cut fairly regularly, but the finished result was nothing like we have today. Dad and I were into homebrewing beer and would often take a bottle or two of our latest ambrosia to share after flying. Stan Jackson found this quite amusing as he was one of the directors of SAB.
In 2003 we were forced to leave our field. We had been there for 37 years! We moved to our current field in the middle of 2003. Members of the club at that time were H Stanley, T Stanley, P Binet, S Jackson, G Strutt, B Swanepoel, P Lastrucci, R Matten and I Binet.
I was doing a fair amount of full-size flying by now, and had tapered off somewhat on the modelling. I only made it occasionally to the field to do some model flying.
There were a group of chaps using our field on Saturdays, and it was decided that the Saturday and Sunday groups of flyers be incorporated into WRAC. This turned out to be a particularly good thing. We now have around 19 members and fly every Saturday morning, weather permitting. More often than not we make it back to the runway!
There is an immense knowledge-base in our club, of which we are justifiably proud. The standard of flying is pretty high. And the quantity of hanger-talk is also pretty high. As a bonus, we are regularly visited by Dick Lancashire and his lovely wife Petro. I have known them since 1964 – 56 years! Dick is also a Life Member of WRAC.
In conclusion, I would like to list the deceased members that it was my immense privilege to have flown with. They are Haydn Stanley, Dick Bullen, Phil Binet, Alex and Mark Nowosielski, Stan Jackson, Henry Wood, Tony Taschner, Lou Peach, and Jack Greig.