Articles & Stories

A Hong Kong Story

Seeing the 'Radar Company' address in Aeromodeller, a schoolboy - a carpenter's son not long out of short trousers in the mid-50s, wrote a letter to Lai Kwok Poon in Hong Kong asking he send a clockwork timer for free-flight model engine cut-off. This was a strange envelope to address: it could have been to a 'Martian' for little was known about the big world. The timer duly arrived and was put to work. This lad could never have imagined that he would one day walk into the Radar Company shop and meet the greying long-bearded Chinaman who owned it. But some years later he did.

Hong Kong Island sits in the South China Sea like a pendant below the Kowloon Peninsular. Inland the 'New Territories' spread to the (then) Chinese border. Nine hills surround the peninsular. Kowloon gets its name from the Chinese 'Gau Lung' that means 'Nine Dragons'. Small boats ply the harbour waters to and fro Hong Kong Island; 'Star Ferry' is now a visitor attraction.

From one of the hilltops overlooking Kowloon, not far from 'Lion Rock', we flew model sailplanes and could see below aircraft making their approach to Kai Tak Airport. Aircraft had to fly low over Kowloon towards a big painted 'Checker Board' fixed to a hill, then do a timely RH Rate 1 turn to line up for the runway. This was mostly OK, but frightening in bad weather... recall sights of 747s being blown sideways while passing over the runway threshold's busy roads in Typhoons. Oooh!.

Holes in the floor of our ancient MGB let the rainwater out fine. How daft to drive Sue to Church in Tsimshatsui (Downtown Kowloon) in an open top MGB under an umbrella to keep her dry! Unforgettable, as too our little Chris lying in the back looking at the crystal stars and trying tell us about them as we quietly purred about Repulse Bay. The car took us to the hills, away from the pollution below.

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On hilltops we were welcomed by all the Chinese aeromodellers there, despite us being "Foreign Devils", and we made lasting friendships. Our models were mostly plastic covered because dope blushed in the high humidity. On leaving Hong Kong, I gave my models to Alan Sine, a fine Chinese friend. He became the owner of the Radar Company. So here a strange and unimaginable circle was closed. Mr Lai retired, to live in Canada.

The '75 picture is of Alan launching his Graupner Cumulus over Kowloon. This was taken with a 35mm Minolta SLR on 400 ASA Kodak film using an orange filter to try reduce humidity effect. It was later 'home processed' in the Northern Ireland RAF Bishops Court Hobbies Workshop and the print was stuck onto a plywood sheet. Twenty-five years on this yellowing pic was PC scanned to provide this new image on the left.

Peter Frost.

Xernes

This note is about a model flying wing: the Aeromodeller Plans Service XERNES

About 1958 rainwater dripped onto the bench in Dad's homemade Wyvern Ave conservatory. The dog didn't seem to mind much but us LEMAC lads did because here we were trying to make a 'different' model -- a flying wing. We began building it but this job didn't go well and the model was never completed. For some reason I kept the plan. Twenty years passed into 'Star-Wars' time.

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Xernes is a 'Flying Wing'. Looking now at the Dec'67 MAP Plans Service Handbook, I see she was designed by L C Harris, in the early 50s. The plan cost four shillings and sixpence. It specified 3/32" reflexed balsa ribs, quarter sq balsa spars and leading edge.

Fresh back from Hong Kong about '76, in a RAF married quarter in Northern Ireland I made a little workshop under the stairs. Service life caused frequent upheavals and I was surprised to find in one of our boxes 'me old Xernes plan. And I had a brand-new Futaba M R/C system to hand! I got to work...designed a 'fuselage pod' to sit between the wings and, keeping the wing accurate, I carefully and lightly strengthened its structure: I made a laminated T/E and set in 1/8" sq geodetic rib supports. Perhaps then there were electronic servo mixing doins, but they were out of my reach. I made a paxolin sliding servo tray, running in fuselage plywood slots, to control the elevons. Tissued and sanding-sealed, the little balsa fus shone in white enamel, and orange transparent plastic wing covering made the model's structure nice to see against a sunny blue sky.

Northern Ireland is mostly a quiet and delightful place. Ballyhornan Bay, a little south of Strangford Lough, looks over the Irish Sea. Sunday mornings, when the breeze came from the east, sun in our eyes, I'd throw Xernes off the cliff and we'd see her fly like a seagull for hours 'till roast beef beckoned.

A row of cottages spanned the bay atop the cliff. Here elderly folk came to look and chat as Xernes swept by. "To be sure, Ive not seen like this ever before...". Then we'd drive back and 'Sign In' by the barbed wire gate to our military home.

Peter Frost

Memories

About 1957 most of us cycled to LEMAC Club Meetings on Friday nights, there were few cars then. Us youngsters went racing from the Club's Derby Road place on our bikes around the "Green" then back, breathless before the Club Meeting.

Found in a field trying to start 'me Ron Moulton's Rascal's DC Sabre when I thought all was lost, Martin came along. His whisk got the engine going then he took me to LEMAC. On tip-toe I watched Club meetings in a smoky upstairs room in the Youth Centre's main building on Derby Road.

Our seniors decided we should have a Clubroom of our own. Outside the main block adjacent to Derby Road a smelly brick building was used as a cycle shed. This became our new Clubhouse. Somehow we got Council permission to make this our Place. Then lots of us Hobbits got to work chiselling inside for plaster sticking and digging a trench for a power cable over weekends and evenings.

When done, we'd made a meeting room downstairs, and above a room to make models on nice benches. We got metal lockers keeping balsa and dope. There, together after our schooldays, we made C/L Peacemakers and Razor Blades for our AM25s. We got to know Free Flight models too. Oliver powered Dixielanders made way for ETA29 and Dooling powered APS NigNogs that screeched into the sky.

Sometimes after our meetings we'd go fly rtp Jetex models in the main building hall. This was OK for a time but then we were told not to because the hot jetex jobs in their ali cigar tubes burnt the oak herring-bone wooden floor.

Often we got a coach to take us to model flying Rallies on weekends. Mum's squidgy cheese sandwiches, and smelly oil dripping from models on the rack overhead. Then, maybe, we'd see Mike Kendrick with his polished Oliver Tigers and Black Ghosts sizzling in Combat.

Us youngsters got to know about electronics too. Club elders showed us how to solder and read circuit diagrams. Small fingers easily made Hill R/C Rx and sparky Transmitters with their whining HV Converters. A ED Hunter powered Junior 60 getting airborne from lumpy fields by Wilsthorpe Road... a 10 foot whip aerial atop a 12" cube metal box... about 27 Megacycles.

For many Long Eaton lads LEMAC helped forge a future in Engineering. Happily I was one. Thanks.

Peter Frost
Flt Lt RAF (Rt'd)