Yes - I do fly helicopters!
So how did this come about? Well, it was simple: one Saturday evening I was enjoying a relaxed conversation with friends, and mentioned that I was considering either buying a motorcycle or learning to ride. By chance Uli Streich was present, and he immediately invited me to come to the airfield with him on the Sunday. The subsequent conversation took place a very long time ago, but it is still totally fresh in my memory today. To my mind the term airfield could only mean Frankfurt Airport, and I was both amazed and pleasantly interested when Uli explained that he was talking about model flying.
At that time I had never even heard of model flying, but my interest was immediately aroused!
I have very fond memories of much that happened that day, starting with the fact that Uli actually picked me up from my home the following day at 1 pm. Perhaps I had not quite expected him to be so punctual, or maybe I just made a mistake - I can’t quite remember now - but still today we laugh about the gingerbread: I simply had to bake gingerbread after lunch, and although the dough was made, I had not yet cut and glazed the pieces. When I finally returned home again in the early evening, the dough had set rock-hard, and the only way I could have cut it into bite-sized pieces would have been to use a Widia cut-off disc. Since that time I can rely upon being asked politely not to make gingerbread at Advent.
There weren't really all that many such escapades, but every now and then things would happen which are best kept under a veil for the times when friends are swapping anecdotes over a glass of wine. One evening a neighbour rang the bell, and the moment I opened the door he wrinkled his nose, and asked what that dreadful smell might be. The culprit was a goulash, whose hazy spirit was curling up and away from this mortal world. The lesson: the cooking time for goulash is shorter than the time required to fit the glazing panels in a model.
I also feel it incumbent upon me to offer a grave warning about fitting control surface hinges in a wing over the (real wood) living room table when there is no tablecloth on it. I overlooked the danger, and inevitably something slipped; suddenly I was responsible for a very obvious scratch, right at the exposed end. I carefully explained to my husband that it was not really such a disaster: after all, we always kept a bowl of biscuits on the opposite end of the table - on the doily which custom demanded. So we turned the table through 180°, and reversed the position of the bowl and its doily. Alas, this showed up yet another scratch, albeit a smaller one; so I still had some explaining to do.
Have you ever wished that your partner would take an interest in modelling? Personally, I'd never recommend it. The first problem is that you may find you have nowhere to sit down for your Sunday morning coffee, as the dining room was magically transformed into a perfect modelling workshop the previous evening. And you can forget about such trivialities as preparing meals, even when you offer regular reminders to your better half. You will find that your (modelling) wife can wax quite eloquent, convincing you that her hobby is much more important than merely keeping you alive. Your plaintive query about the whereabouts of your promised supper might well elicit the response: page 384 in the big cookery book; you will soon find your role in life downgraded to that of grease monkey.
Now, I could easily lose the plot at this point, and write a treatise about the joys of fitting hinges in wings, or the untold pleasures of rubbing down fuselages and preparing them for painting. But more to the point is the fact that, after two years of fixed-wing flying, I switched to helicopters. In the Summer of 1984, after six months of intensive practice, I took part in my first ever competition flying my Twin Jet.
Over the next few pages you will find a few pictures and documents from my photograph albums which reflect very important events in my personal life. >>>
