Tore's Story

On ModelFlight #18, I did a personal profile of TORE LOODIN, founder of Stockholm's Radioflygklubb. Tore's mention of something of the way the club was started really intrigued me, and here Tore reminisces a bit more about his club. 

The now 35-years-old Stockholms Radioflygklubb has a somewhat unusual background. When I was a beginner and just able to start, do a looping, a weird roll and land the model in one piece - one-channel flying, I wished to take part in the Swedish championships for one-channel R/C. To do that, it was necessary to be a member of a model club. 

However, the only R/C club here in Stockholm at that time wouldn't let me join, as their name was "Starfliers" and I was apparently not a star! In a desperate mood, I then gathered four other "blueberries" and started a new club which we named "Stockholms Radioflygklubb" (SRFK) and had it registered in Sveriges Modellflygförbund (SMFF). In the rules we stipulated that everyone who was interested enough to pay the club fee would be acknowledged as a member. This was just like putting yeast in a dough - it rose to 200 members in a few years!

In the second year of the club's life, we arranged the first combined scale and pylon competitions in Sweden. On this occasion we first flew scale and then the pylon heats. As no-one had a pylon racer, the scale models were used and the pylon part was actually won by a Piper Cub! SRFK than became the largest R/C club in Sweden and initiated the first official scale and pylon rules in Sweden. We also initiated two world Pylon Championships here in which several Germans, English and one French competitor took part. The first Champion was the Swede Rune Svenningsson and the second was Göran "the Swede" Karlsson. We also arranged the Swedish Scaledays at our R/C field Barkaby, gathering about 100 participants from the whole of Scandinavia.

I had the honour to be the Chairman of the club for fifteen years and retired to be an honorary member. As it is not easy to be idle, I have since arranged our first R/C Oldtimer and Mini R/C meetings in co-operation with Södertälje Model Club. If you want some fun for yourself, you have to organize a platform for this fun!

Apropos fun: several years ago we arranged Schneider Cup Races at Lidingö, an island and town situated as neighbour of Stockholm. In one race a flying boat Sceptre - you know, that one with a Delta configuration with the motor on top of the fin - took part. This Sceptre did a fairly hot landing, whereafter it immediately took off and vanished completely out of control! We searched for it in the direction in which it had vanished. Arriving at a little lake in the middle of the island, we met some people in bathing costumes carrying the lost Sceptre. They told us that it had done a nice landing on the water a couple of metres from the bathers! We thanked our God that no-one was hurt. It turned out that the battery had vanished through the bottom of the model on that initial hard impact with the water, whereupon the Sceptre, relieved of the ballast and radio contact, had merrily lifted off as a homesick angel. So, the floor under the battery should be stronger than 2 mm balsa! I would not have believed it if I had not seen it myself!

O.K., my master the Siamese Caesar, is trotting between the screen and the keyboard, announcing that enough is enough, s-o-o . . .

Have a nice flight!