I discovered that ‘large’ is designated by weight, not size,
but some of the models were massive.
There were at least two that were apparently half scale! That is a pretty serious bit of kit to be
flying, and it’s unsurprising that large model aircraft come under the scrutiny
of the Civil Aviation Authority. These
are not the kind of toys you mess about with in your garden but serious
machines which can do real damage if things go wrong. Models weighing more than 20kg must be
inspected on behalf of the CAA before they can fly. The inspection process includes the build as
well as flight-testing, and all must be approved before permission is granted
to fly in public. Oh, and the build can
take a long time.
The DC3 seen here took
around 18 months to complete.
It was a real privilege to see so many large models on
display, and of such a variety. It was
also useful to be there early and see some of them while they were still in the
hanger where I could get closer to them.
There were WWII bomber replicas, fittingly considering the location, but
also powered gliders (brilliant display flying!), biplanes – including the very
lovely Dragon Rapide, fast jets (brilliant display number 2!) and airliners.Sadly the latter didn’t fly
on the day, but it looked impressive even on the ground!
In many respects, once the aircraft were in the air and
therefore with no points of reference for size, you could hardly tell they were
models! The pilots are extremely
skilled, and display their models to their best. I was interested to discover that, especially
with the ‘warbird’ models, the flying itself is scaled appropriately, as well
as the aircraft. This means that models
of aircraft which would not have been especially speedy at full size do not
whizz about unrealistically in their scaled down forms.
On the Monday the wind was strong and gusty, creating a few
interesting landings including one aircraft ending up upside down, and some pilots therefore decided to keep their aircraft on the ground. There was a still lot of flying though, and
all in all it was a very interesting and entertaining day with some beautiful
models on display and some very complex flying.
The LMA is a long-standing association with over 800 members. They have a number of events during the year
and more information can be found on their website: www.largemodelassociation.com
The icing on the cake for me though, was the extra special
treat of seeing (and hearing) the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’s Lancaster
‘City of Lincoln’ overfly ‘Just Jane’.
Wonderful.
 |
| The real deal - Just Jane and City of Lincoln |
The next event I hope to attend at East Kirkby is Props and
Pistons. Better pack the ear plugs…
