British sense of humor

Hi

That would probably be the Germans who said that!!! 8^)

Regards (from the UK) KGB

Red wrote about British sense of humor

Hi Red,

When I read this very funny piece my mind immediately went back to my earliest RC experiences in the late 60s. The place, Epsom Downs, Surrey (in the UK). Picture this, a breezy summer Sunday afternoon on the huge grassed area located in the center of the world famous Epsom Derby horse race course. This center area was littered with parked cars belonging to swarms of picnicing families, there were kites flying everywhere and amid this mayhem a small group of RC flyers trying to fly their models. Once in the air dozens of lookie loo's would swarm around the pilot and many times completely surround him. when he wanted to land he had to call it and pray the spectators would clear a wide enough strip to allow a landing. Admittedly, apart from one model that hit a kite string I never saw a major accident at that location.

How they managed to avoid hitting anyone was a complete mystery to me. I no longer live in the UK so cannot attest to whether this summer Sunday ritual still takes place or whether theyve formed a club and now do it safely.....but for sure thats how they did it back then.

For the most part the picnicers and kite flyers seemed blissfully unaware of the danger they were in.....Thinking back to this craziness and remembering it was the Brits brought us Fawlty Towers and Monty Python.....yah, I'd say they have a sense of humor :)

Rob

Several years ago on the now moribund model jets email list run by Bob Parks, a Brit named Gerard Jones commiserated with a guy who was getting complaints from the neighbors about the noise of his ducted fan engines. Jones wrote: "There's a crazy man on my left who screams loudly in the middle of the night, and the mad bloke on my right pounds on the wall and shouts obscenities, but I don't let it bother me. I just ignore them and go on playing my bagpipes."

ROFLOL!!

Tnx Geoff, that about made my day, and it's been pretty darned good to begin with!

Abel

Here at the local tourist boardwalk (this is no joke!), a Scottsman in a kilt was playing the pipes and taking requests. The sign over his kettle read, "Ye gotta pay the Piper sometime, so ye might's well pay the Piper now." I asked him to play 'Lock Lomond', the famous Scottish ballad. "Nay" said he. 'Tisn't written for the pipes." Yet he could play 'Amazing Grace' with ease. Go figure Bill(oc)

Speaking of pipes and keeping with the topic of RC, I wonder when someone will try to do their free style to accompaniment of a good piper. Now that would be real cool. :-)

Red S.

Not being a piper, I can't say with any authority, but some differences in the tunes that *might* account for it:

- The melody of Amazing Grace is contained entirely within a single octave, while Loch Lomond includes the second scale degree of the next higher octave.

- Amazing Grace is purely pentatonic, while the Loch Lomond melody, in addition to the pentatonic scale, also includes a flatted seventh.

Rob, that was about 40 years ago and yes, it is very different now. The kites fly at the Tattenham Corner end of the Downs, and the only place parked cars are ever seen is in the car park - also at the Tattenham Corner end. I'll take your word for it that in the 60s you could park wherever you wanted and have a picnic, but it's certainly not allowed now (except for Derby Day itself!) Indeed, vehicular access onto the Downs is only possible through locked gates or possibly by driving a large 4x4 over the boundaries. The few people that do picnic on the Downs rarely move more than a few yards from their car in the car park leaving wide open spaces towards the grandstand end where the flying takes place.

Definition of a Scottish Gentleman: Someone who can play the bagpipes, but doesn't ;-)

Just replace the tuned pipe with a chanter pipe from a bagpipe! And then the neighbors would REALLY complain! :-)

Hi John,

Glad to hear it, Actually, I have very fond memories of "Epsom Downs" I recall standing awestruck next to the pilot of a model Spitfire as it made low passes over our heads. In retrospect that turned out to be one of those pivotal moments for me. So impressed was I, that I decided right there and then that flying RC was what I wanted to do. I wondered why everyone seemed to surround the pilot but quickly figured it was actually the safest place on the Downs to be while the planes were in the air.

They were flying all over the Downs in the late 60s early 70s......I witnessed more than one verbal altercation between the two factions when kite strings had been cut and following one crash where a Cub became entangled in a kite line.

the Tattenham Corner

Chuckle, at that time it was a free for all.......you drove across the race course to get to the center area through a wide opening (just after the last bend to the home straight) at Tattenham Corner pub, most sunny summer Sundays there were vehicles parked absolutely all over the downs. At the time I didnt understand how hazardous it was up there but with a few decades of RC now under my belt .....It gives me the willys

Oh for sure, there was an armada of cars driving all over the downs on Sundays I still have photographs of my old Austin A60 station wagon parked there.

Most of the RC flying then occured in an area just above the center of the racecourse on the upper part of the slope, there was no marked or mown runway at that time. The landing strip du jour was determined arbitrarily by wherever the first flyer to arrive decided put down his flight box . The guy who owned the RC shop near Worcester Park station could often be found on the Downs giving midweek flying lessons to newbies.

Ah, fond memories, halcyon days

Rob

Access is still via that same point - though now with a gate that closes at

8pm in the summer and 5pm in the winter. The crossing takes you onto a road that runs just inside the racecourse for the length of Tattenham Corner as far as the car park where further access onto the Downs (by car) is blocked off by a locked gate.

We're now a little further to the west than before, with a mown strip.

I wonder if that was Mick Charles, who sadly passed away two or three years ago. He was world scale r/c champion sometime around 1963 or 64 when the championships were held just down the road at Kenley. His shop was in New Malden when I first moved to the area in the early 80s, it moved a couple of times and is now at Ewell and run by his son Dave.

Hi John

I'm so pleased to hear folk are still flying there and have things better organised, it was certainly a hotch potch during the 70s. I recall there seemed to be no hint of a club back then, however the flyers seemed to know each other quite well.

Yes I believe it was Mick , I couldnt afford a plane or a transmitter back then but he did allow me to take the sticks of his trainer for a few seconds, from then on I was hooked.

I know Ewell very well, spent 5 yrs attending Ewell Technical College.......If you have contact with Micks son please pass on regards and condolences from an old aquantance of his dad.

John we seem to be wondering Off Topic ....so I'm gonna take this to email.