Hugh Pritchards Fairey Battle.

Hugh is a retired? farmer, living on the farm at Rhydyclafdy. He first became interested in aero modelling as a schoolboy. Im not saying how old he is, but he is probably the most experienced builder and flyer in the club. He has tried most types of model flying spending quite a lot of time on Free Flight. He also likes the slopes and probably spends more time than anyone at the power field, some of the time cutting the patch. He has made two Fairey Battles this article is about the second one I dont know what the first one was like but Im sure Hugh has had an attachment to the Battle since childhood, living close to Penrhos where they few from.

One of Hughs earliest memories of the Battle was when his Father took him to see the wreckage of S 2026 which crashed on 24th. of May 1940 taking off from Penrhos. The crew of three survived. There were Fifty Battles based at Penrhos, belonging to 12 Observer Training Corps from RAF Benson.

These are the drawings that Hugh worked to. They are 1/72 scale. He converted them to 1/12 scale giving the plane a 54 Wingspan. His original idea was to build a scale slope soarer and his construction method will be appreciated by the PSSA flyers. He started with a balsa box section core running the length of the fuselage. To this he glued Polystyrene foam which he labouriously shaped to the contours of the aircraft. The wing is one piece, also carved foam. The foam was covered with 1/16 balsa and finally finished with dope and nylon.

Hugh couldnt find suitable 1/12 scale crew, so he carved his own out of solid balsa. The detail of these and the canopy and the aged paint finish are superb.

As I said, the original intention was to build a scale soarer, but while he was adding weight to the nose, (the finished model weighed four and a half pounds) he thought he might as well fit a motor, so he electrified it. Flight trials didnt go so well it suffered a similar fate to the original S2026 crashing on take-off from Penrhos. Hugh doesnt think that the proportions help powered flight (the surface area of the tail section is too small.)

So, it was repaired and converted back to slope soarer and, I understand, flies very well. Thank you Hugh for bringing the Fairey Battle back to Penrhos. Anyone fancy doing the same with another model? If I ever get round to it, I would like to build a Westland Wallace biplane.