Alan Carr

I’m a retired Civil Engineer who first started attending and occasionally competing in F3B (F3E as it was then) in 1992. In all that time I’ve never been competitive but have always travelled home from competitions thinking how much I’d enjoyed the day even though I’d spent most of it sitting at one of the bases.

We used to get to see a lot of RAF stations in those days.  I think I visited my first comp. at RAF Scampton where Steve Mettam sold me a Bluebottle fuselage and gave advice on building a glass-on-foam wing and I was hooked.  I competed for the first time at RAF Swinderby, with my Bluebottle “powered” by a Webra 7 on 10 cells and did about 10 laps, completed the duration and thought I’d never look back.

Next outing was at RAF Church Fenton where I was going rather well until my motor overheated and threw off all the magnets from the armature and that was that for the season.  In the ‘93 season 22 competed in 10-cell and 9 in Open, a complete reversal of the present day when Open dominates.

I now fly in the F5B-1000 Class although I fear that I may be alone in this class in 2009 if Tony Wilson goes with the big boys in F5B.