“What do you do in your spare time?” I asked a new colleague.

“I fly”, he replied.

“You fly”! He did not look the flying type… No sign of a large moustache, no large white silk scarf round his neck.

“Actually I fly model planes” He explained that to fly a radio-controlled scale model aeroplane with full house, that is rudder, elevator, ailerons, flaps throttle and retractable undercarriage takes a lot of skill and concentration. “Indeed”. He went on, “in some ways it can be more difficult than the real thing… In a full-sized plane one always faces the front which makes left-left! And right-right! But with a model, it can come towards you – which means you are facing the back, so that left becomes right and right becomes left… This of course makes things a bit trickier. And of course things like, altitude and flying speed are judged without instruments.

I was impressed but he hadn’t finished yet.

He also explained that the transmitter used to control the model has two sticks. One has the same function as a joy-stick in a conventional plane; if you pull it back the plane goes up; if you push it forward, the plane goes down; if you move it to the left, the right wing goes up; and if you move it to the right, the left wing comes up… The other stick is your throttle and rudder; if you push it forward the engine goes faster; if you pull it back, it goes slower; and if you push it to the left or right, the rudder will act accordingly.

Now; this information really got me going and of course I asked a thousand and one questions…

Five weeks later I announced that I’d like to give this flying a try. He then suggested I join a club for tuition and to save breakages!

But I decided that I’d have none of that!

“Have them see me a raw beginner” I said “No just give me advice on flying and some technical books on the subject. I’ll practise on my own, and then join a club”.

“Well he said “On your own head be it. What kind of plane would you like”?

“A glider I said – it only needs a rudder to go left and right and an elevator to go up and down”. I felt that this would present me with the least problems.

So, a month later, there I was on top of this hill with rain coming down and a good breeze in my face. Transmitter in one hand, a seventy two inch wing span glider in the other hand, and a head full of flying theory.

“Now I said to my self just chuck it out into the wind and steer it about – that should be simple enough.

With an air of abandon I chucked it out - off it went, nice and smooth.

“This is the life”. I thought to my self, when suddenly, the plane started to twitch;

I scanned my mind for technical data and up came the answer – low battery power causes twitching… What does one do about it.? “Another quick brain – scan” of technical data gleaned from the flying manual; up again came the answer – get transmitter as near to the plane as possible, and keep eyes on plane at all times.

I rushed forward, keeping my eyes firmly on the plane. One can only guess at the damage shock can do to a person – when he finds him self thirty – odd feet further down the hill covered in mud, having run at full speed right off the edge with eyes firmly skyward:

Well, back at work I explained to my amused colleague and after answering a few simple questions, it turned out I’d forgotten to pull the transmitter aerial out; result – a broken model, not to mention what I must have looked like to anybody watching…

It was then I decided to join a flying club and to go through the beginning stages. It was a big saving in materials, not to mention the old adrenalin.

Now when I went to power flying – well that’s another story.

Willie.