MODEL PLANE CONTEST

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27308, 26 March 1954, Page 7

MODEL PLANE CONTEST

A.T.C. FIXTURE AT WHENUAPAI

SOUTH ISLAND TEAM LEAVES WIGRAM Twelve South Island representatives flew from the Royal New Zealand Air Force station, Wigram, to Whenuapai yesterday to compete against teams from the North Island in the Air Training Corps’ national model aeroplane contest today and tomorrow. Their prize, if they win, will be the de Havilland Trophy, valued at more than £2OO. Southern area cadets in the team came from Blenheim, Kaiapoi, Christchurch, Ashburton, and Dunedin. For many of them, their trip in a Bristol Freighter of No. 41 Transport Squadron was their first flight; and all of them were highly excited by the prospect of three nights and two days away from home. For the contest, the unit of 12 cadets will be divided into four teams. The contest itself has four sections (simple gliders, rubber-powered mpdels, freeflight petrol-engined models and, a new addition, a section for petrolengined models flown from a control line), in which each district will have two contestants and a reserve. Commanding the team is Flying Officer E. K. Dee, of Christchurch, formerly a member of the war-time Pathfinder Force, and now an A.T.C. officer. With him will be Corporal J. Young, an A.T.C. instructor attached to the Southern Reserve wing. The members of the team are:— Corporal R. C. Langin, of Blenheim, the captain, who is, in model aeroplane circles, South Island senior and junior champion of champions in open competition and also. New Zealand junior champion; Sergeant P. E. Riddell, Corporal I. JL Pettit, Cadets L. H. Davis, A. Dumpleton, and P. T. Wylie, of Christchurch; Cadet I. G. Candy, of Kaiapoi; Corporal B. Lane, and Cadets G. Lane, B. Burrows, and J. French, of Ashburton; and Corporal P. A. Duncan, of Dunedin.