1.  Engine man Steve Rothwell shows off his vintage combat 'Ironmonger' designs whilst waiting for hostilities to begin at the Albury Nats. Steve featured in some of the best bouts of the day. No prizes for guessing the type of engine used... his own R250! The fact Steve was actually using engine no.1 in combat certainly raised the eyebrows of the engine collectors!

2.  Ray Fairall, a resident of Rathmines, on Lake Macquarie near Newcastle NSW built this nice replica of a Sabre Trainer.  It is constructed like a vintage teamracer with spruce leading and trailing edges, an internal tip weight and vacuum bagged 0.75-Ounce epoxy fibreglass on the wing and tailplane.  All this is an attempt to make it more durable than the ones Ray built and flew during the late 1950's, which all had a very short life.  The motor is a 1957 Taipan red head 2.5cc diesel, almost identical with the engines sold under t he name Sabre, a year earlier.

Ray built this Sabre Trainer in anticipation of a "Gordon Burford day" scheduled for 2007 by the Ku-Ring-Gai Model Flying Club of Sydney.  One who attended the 2006 event wrote "The Burford Day last year was the best attended flying day I've ever attended anywhere" and hoped it would become an annual event.  But at the time of writing the Gordon Burford day for 2007 has been re-scheduled to an unspecified date.

3.  John Hallowell's new 2007 Classic B racer code named Aurora as it looked when ready to ready to test fly. Fitted with an MRS B25R Mk 4, all up weight of the plane is 21 oz.  The number 23 on the fuselage r epresents the 23rd Class B racer John has built.

4.  A close-up view under the hood of John's new racer shows it has a Rothwell engine plate and shut off with the latest Stuart Robinson tank valve and wheels.

5.  This picture was taken in early 1960 at Albert Park (Vic). The model is an OS 29 powered B Class Team Racer built by Les Squires who is wearing the dapper white coveralls and tie. The image was converted from old 35mm color slides and sent in by Les' son, Barry. He's the proud 2 year old with the box spanner in the first picture and considered by dad to be qualified to change props and generally clean the plane at that age. On this day, he remembers being told off by a gentleman for touching the plane, but good old dad came along in time to tell the man it was quite ok, Barry was his mechanic! The rubber bands visible in the photo were an emergency measure occasioned by a hard landing. Barry believes the photo was taken by friend of the family, Tony Farnan. Les turned 80 in 2008 and still loves modelling and control line.

6.  Another shot of Les Squires repairing the leading edge of his "Grassfire" after the accident on that fateful day at Albert Park.

7.  Harry Bailey's nice Stockport Warlord, a 1967 British design.  Warlords came in several variants.  Plans for them and numerous other vintage combat models are available from Tim Hobbins... see our plans page for details.