BuiltWithNOF

MIKE ROACH’S SOPWITH AVIATION COMPANY

FIRST PUBLISHED 5 Feb 2007

LAST UPDATED 3 January 2012

PLANS PAGE RE-PUBLISHED 10 DEC 2010

The first model aircraft I remember making was a Keil Kraft “Cub” given to me by my uncle. I painted it a wonderful shade of red, which must have weighed as much as the model...needless to say I can’t remember it actually flying, but I do remember whizzing it round and round on a length of thread.  I must have been 6 or 7 at the time.

The next model I remember with any clarity was another KK design, the “Senator”. Here I am aged 10, with my sister Viv, on holiday in Coverdale, one of the Yorkshire dales, in the summer of 1954.  Every boy wore shorts and sandals like that then! The Senator flew, but not for very long - just look at the prop!

A while later, after Combat flying wings, a KK “Spectre” stunter, various gliders and scale models, modelling abandoned me while I pursued the usual compulsory adult activties. One afternoon I was laid up with some sporting injury and my wife brought me a copy of RCME which had as a free plan Clive Smalley’s “Orange Box”, a 60” span RC glider. A week or so later it was flying in Farnham Park and I was teaching myself the art of radio control!

Since then I have pursued my overriding interest in Sopwith aircraft, but not completely ignored other manufacturers. You can see where my aeromodelling has reached on the pages of this website:

Contact me at roachfoxwoodZZZZZ@aol.com (take out the Zs first though!)

Current Project: The Short C-Class flying boat “Clio” as requisitioned by the RAF in 1940. This model is 58” span and built from Depron, partly as a design exercise to see what pitfalls there might be in the bigger version on the right.

The model is complete.

Next? Inspired by watching four Solent models flying at Chilliwack, I’ve drawn up a C Class boat to the same 100” span. The plan is huge, but simple construction and light weight will, I hope, produce a model that is realistic in flight and can be flown off water and grass.

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