Hendon 2005 A report by Chris Bland with some pictures from Robin Woodhead.

This was the first time that the LMA has had a display at Hendon since 1989. The event had been organised by John Greenfield with the intention of adding another event in the South of England for those members who lived locally and need an excuse to visit this tremendous museum. Although only 1.5hrs from where I live, I had never been to Hendon before so I was particularly looking forward to the day.

The museum is quite close to the center of London and I must admit I was expecting the usual annoyance of sitting in traffic jams or slow moving traffic. However, the museum was surprisingly easy to get to; only a few miles off the motorway. By the time I arrived at about 9.30am is was clear that there had been a reasonable number of members who had made the effort to turn-out to this inaugural Hendon/LMA event. We had been allocated quite a bit of space at the rear of the main hall, however we overflowed this space and had to place models around a few of the main museum’s exhibits. To me, this added to the enjoyment and tended to act as a magnet to attract visitors into out main exhibition area.

The museum itself is great and contains things to keep a whole family interested. There are some interesting interactive displays and a fun area for children to experience some of the mechanics of flight. The museum is also much larger than you might expect and there are some interesting exhibits seemingly hiding in several buildings.

I am afraid, some of my photographs suffered from hand-shake as it was quite dark in some parts of the building. Luckily, Robin was able to come to my rescue and sent me some pictures of models I missed.

Lets start off the pictorial record with three general views of areas where we positioned our models…

Requiring a large area was Colin Strauss’s model of a C17 Globemaster.

The model was built by a team for a television series called “Super Models” and took approximately one year to design and build. The wingspan of the model is 6.2m, it is 5.9m long and the height to the top of the fin is 1.87m. Its take off weight is 120kg. The model was built mainly from balsa, but incorporates many glass and carbon fiber mouldings. It is covered in glass cloth and epoxy resin. Four JetCat P120 turbines with 12kg of thrust power the machine. Sixteen battery packs and 20 servos are used, along with 5 PCM receivers. It has many special features including the ability to drop cargo, a smoke system, an on-board air compressor and a data link to a ground based computer. This model was certainly some undertaking. It flys very realistically. By the way, it was for sale for the right price!

John Greenfield had brought along a few of his models. Here I am concentrating on his helicopters. It is a shame we didn’t get the little electric ones flying, maybe next year John.

Well under construction of one of two Marauders.

Two Hunters. The one under construction is 68″ wingspan and being built from a Mick Reeves kit.

Here is John Ricketts with his scratch built, 29% scale, Chrislea Super Ace. It has a wingspan of 125″ and will be powered by a 30cc 4 stroke glow engine. The structure looks complete and John told my he will soon be covering it with doped nylon.

Steve Holland’s latest project will be a big yellow one! He and I had walked around the museum together and I dropped by foot in it when I said “look at that big biplane ultimate sort of thing over there, not very attractive is it, who would ever want a model of that?” Steve looked and said “I quite like it, it’s just like the big yellow thing (an Aerokot) I’m building”. Oops!

Here is the instrument panel for his big yellow thing. Looks like some effort went into producing that.

Dave Horton continues to make progress with his Honey Bee.

The mosquito attracts close inspection.

Derek and Neil Whitfield have been busy for the last few months building a Lincoln which Steve Holland is doing the design and producing the drawings for. It’s coming along well….more my sort of thing.

Another very nice model is Colin Hammond’s Herc. It is for sale, and I’m jealous of whoever ends up getting it.

Two excellent WWI models.

Well that was just an introduction to what was available to see. Next year, I hope to see the rest of the museum and I might even take a few photographs for you to view.