The Rotary Club of West Fife hosted a “Community Exhibition” at the Keavil House Hotel Crossford on Sunday 12th March. The exhibition was the first of its kind in the village and was intended to showcase the many leisure activities available in the village and surrounding area. DMAC was one of the first to book stand space and offered to put on a control line flying display in the adjacent King George V public park. This offer was enthusiastically received by the Rotary and so the club set about gaining the necessary permissions from Fife Council.

The Friday before the weekend saw Bill Grieve burling round the park on the club’s ride on mower cutting the grass to a usable height for model take off. Due to the days of rain previously everywhere was very wet and Bill got soaked from water being thrown up by the mower wheels! Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny so that the stake and rope barrier around the circle was set up easily. The Cairney Hill Scouts arrived at 11:00 and erected a Gazebo type tent for the flyers to use as a base. The forecast for the Sunday was light wind but with a shower just before flying was due to start and this came to pass with the afternoon being grey and very wet underfoot.

Inside the hotel the Rotary club weren’t stingy with table allocation so Mike Rouse oversaw the set up of the DMAC stand. This was the most interesting looking for anyone coming through the door with a good variety of models and accessories displayed. A large screen driven from a lap top computer running a Radio Control model simulator was available and some visitors to the stand took up the invitation “to have a go” A second screen kindly provided by Andrew Thompson Ltd was used to run a slide show to give an overview of the many facets of our amazing sport. After the official opening with Mike Rouse and David Hambley manning the stand a trickle of visitors was received.

It got really busy later on but most of the visitors seemed to be in the hall to see their daughters/grand daughters dance! The simulator was well patronised by visitors with quite a few showing interest in what the sport is about but most were more interested in drones, which of course are model aircraft! Mike Rouse did a great job of manning the stand and talking with people the whole time with assistance from Michael Hambley. During the exhibition the Rotary club mentioned several times over the PA that DMAC were doing flying demonstrations outside. Unfortunately very few people took the opportunity to visit.

In the park after the rain it was dull and with poor light making it hard to see the aircraft below the horizon, it was all but impossible to hit good base heights. The wind was light, however there was still some dirty air coming from the trees, it would be very difficult to fly there if it had been windy. The site was less than ideal, take off and landings had to be done carefully with as little air speed as possible, all pilots did this well with no one sustaining any damage.

There was a decent amount of flying including several combat bouts with Dave Hill, Willy Wallace and John Davidson using both modern “Russian” and Classic British designs of models. Dave Hutchinson and his 10 year old Grandson showed how it should be done with a mini Goodyear Racer. Ian Galt flew his own design “Scotia 7” which is now 3 years old having completed 191 flights, it is powered by a Super Tigre G51 using model technics GN5 fuel. Ian flew the F2b schedule in all his flights. In contrast to Ian’s IC powered Scotia Eddy Burr flew David Hambley’s electric powered PT19.

Thanks must be given to everyone who did their part and a good show was put on by all pilots and helpers. After flying had finished the scouts arrived to take down the tent. Ian generously took another flight and performed the F2b schedule as a display for the scouts since they have put up tents for the club numerous times for years but had never seen models flying.

Thanks must go to Bill Greive and Mike Rouse who put in their usual sterling effort with trailer, poles, rope etc and organising the Scouts for the tent.

Report by David Hambley with additional material from Michael Hambley, Mike Rouse and Ian Galt.

Pictures by the Hambleys.