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The Sandy Gunn Aerospace Careers Programme presents:

Model making for future pilots and

engineers
By Mike Booth, owner of Supermarine Works

If you go right back in the history of design and

Maximising the miniature:
engineering, things normally started with a drawing and,
mostly, quickly turned to a scale model to check out all Some of the earliest aviation
necessary parameters before committing to the whole full- pioneers experimented with their
size project. Even the Wright brothers did this to perfect designs using large-scale models.
one of the earliest flying machines. Concept models still Even today the principle of
rule the day in the 21st Century. Armed with all modern concept modelling, be it virtual or
tech and software the future has never been brighter for physical, is a vital part of
anyone choosing a degree or technology course in model engineering developments.
making. The pace of development has been, and continues
Inventor of the Jet engine Sir Frank
to be, staggering.
Whittle, Astronauts Neil Armstrong
and Tim Peake, the Wright
brothers, plus numerous actors,
singers and sports personalities
enjoyed, or made development use
of, their model making in their
spare time.

Modelling covers everything from

physical plans-built wooden
machines, through plastic static
model kits, to high technology
composite radio controlled vehicles
and digital 3D computer design.

In January 2021 advanced

aerodynamic design theory was
To focus on careers in model making, the need and the used to set a new world air speed
application to aviation engineering in the 21st century, I record for radio controlled models
could do no better than compare my own experiences over when a composite glider set a
the last forty years and beyond, by way of a personal measured speed of 548mph in an
voyage. exercise that saw the airframe
subjected to a constant G loading
of 60-80G peaking at 120G. It is
I would class myself as 'old school' with hands on skills that
hoped that the same design might
have developed with practice, but today the possibilities
be able to sustain 580mph later
are endless with the incredible accuracy and speed of
this year, a speed greater than the
anything CNC or 3D modelled that could be 3D printed cruise speed of the Boeing 787
overnight whilst you sleep. I'm constantly amazed by those Dreamliner.
younger than I that have created items and, as work
demand increased, I've needed to enhance my work
production using modern technology. The rate things are
changing today, the possibilities are endless.

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Before I could write, sometime in the mid 1960s, there were

model aircraft kits on the kitchen table. Back then youngsters
became part of the 'Airfix generation'. My late grandfather
had been a DeHavilland engineer in the 1930s and 1940s
working on Tiger Moths and Mosquitos and one of my uncles
was a keen 'balsa basher' with all things aeroplane. Add to
that my father's epic kite building skills and the five year old
me didn't stand a chance.

The shear excitement of creating something that would or

could fly was beyond excitement. The hours of assembly,
learning to be patient, followed by the mostly successful free
flight gliding and then sometimes ages looking for our fallen
craft in the fields, trees and hedges below our hills was
nothing but pure fascination and joy as I grew up.

My father and I built in our garage a hang glider for me to fly in 1974. Materials and knowledge
consisted only of a spruce handrail and one TV programme on the subject! Sadly once built father
decided it was too heavy and worried about his enthusiastic son’s potential to break his legs; we
never flew it. To prove the point, however, the 1/3rd scale model we built from our design, made
from cane and polythene, by luck or chance flew perfectly on our local hill. What could have been!

What I didn't appreciate at the time was that this free course in basic aero engineering, materials
use and skills, was setting me up for a life-time passion and the most rewarding and fulfilling work
that you could ever hope for. Although a commercial artist by training it wasn't long before studios
were asking me to make prototype models of anything from the first paint match pots to the very
first CNC machines for metalwork.

Opportunities grew, not just along with my own skills on a parallel graph line, but also the need for
model makers in all sorts of areas rapidly expanded in the 1980s. Eventually I found myself creating
and carrying out the finishing work for Airbus in the form of their own promotional desk top models

www.acp-aa810.co.uk
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for dispersal around all commercial airlines’ executive offices and travel agents’ windows. With high
volume demand, and armed with paint, glass fibre moulding and finishing skills, I founded my own
model making company, producing hundreds of Spitfire
replicas through the 1990s.
The history of aeromodelling:
It wasn’t only the aerodynamics of aviation that I worked
The Chinese can be credited with
with. Through my client relations I was invited to be head
flying kites from around 1000 BC,
pattern maker for Crosby Composites at Silverstone and
but in Europe it wasn’t until
produced the master patterns for hundreds of carbon fibre
Leonardo da Vinci started
components for rally, touring car, motorbike and F1 experimenting with imitating bird
racing. Even with the pandemic that has swept through all flight around 1500 AD that
our lives recently I have under my belt Hollywood movie modelling really took off.
commissions and dozens of static Spitfire display models. I
could go on. Sir George Cayley began to
develop kites with tail feathers for
You can see how the die was cast; inspiration and the sheer stabilising flight with various
pleasure of finishing something to a high standard has weights in the 1800s. Using models
never left me. Apart from ticking all your creative boxes, on test rigs he managed to pioneer
aerofoil sections and increase his
the shear variety of work will be something you'll never get
knowledge on stability.
bored with. There will always be a need for a model maker
'hands on' to finish something, but there never was or will Frenchman Alphonse Penaud
be a dull day if this career line is your chosen path. Even if developed model demonstrations
it isn’t, the knowledge and understanding you can gain in Paris, flying conventional flying
from experimenting with building and flying models is machine rubber powered models
extremely valuable if you see yourself flying, designing or in 1871.
constructing aircraft in the future. Go to it folks, there
won't be a bored hour in sight. In the early 1900s alongside the
Wright brothers, famous designers
such as Fairey, Sopwith, Handley-
Page, A.V. Roe and others were all
avid model designers and all
members of the British Model
Flying association. These men
would go on to design some of the
most revolutionary aircraft the
world has seen.

Mike Booth is the owner of Supermarine Works, a World- A wartime ban on petrol model
flying saw a boom in the 1950s and
class commercial model and pattern making company. He
1960s. Plans built aircraft filled the
supplies bespoke models to enthusiasts, public events,
bedrooms of children all over the
and the film industry, and currently produces the most
world. As rudimentary remote
accurate ¼ scale static display or flying Spitfire aircraft. A control systems developed, so did
big figure in the model aircraft world, in 2012 Mike the complexity of the models.
managed to complete a cross-channel flight with one of
his ¼ scale Spitfires to celebrate the anniversary of the The Covid lockdown has seen a
type’s first flight. Crossing from Calais to Manston, Mike boom with model makers, with
flew the Spitfire from the passenger seat of a following Hornby, one of the oldest
microlight aircraft. His Spitfires are available as kits or as manufacturers of kits, reporting a
fully-built finished assemblies. 33% rise in its on-line orders during
the pandemic.
www.supermarineworks.com

www.acp-aa810.co.uk