Chobham Common anyone?

[Londroner]

Anyone live near/fly from Chobham Common in Surrey? Seems to be a lot of open space.

 

[HSK]

This was a great place to fly, but the Surrey Wildlife Trust made it "unlawful" to use quadcopters there now. So just a heads-up to anyone who wants to fly there...

 

[Londroner]

This was a great place to fly, but the Surrey Wildlife Trust made it "unlawful" to use quadcopters there now. So just a heads-up to anyone who wants to fly there...

That's annoying. Do they control the whole of the common?

 

[Renni Aire]

Gosh, this thread brought back memories. When I was a kid, Dad was big into his model aircraft - the house always had a whiff of the smell of "dope" (the stuff to "tighten" tissue paper), and every weekend we would be at Chobham Common to fly. Well, as I remember, a lot of the time the glow engine wouldn't start, so no flying. But many happy hours were spent chasing after the plane, legs scratched from the heather and gorse (I always wore shorts) - this was in the days before RC, well, before RC that we could afford anyway. Back then there was the tank factory off to one side (Vickers I think) - thinking back, despite the obvious secrecy about the place, they were always very obliging about returning lost aircraft. Then somebody built the M3 through the middle, so that was the end of free flight - we moved onto boats. But, there used to be a runway for RC aircraft didn't there - has that gone now?

Happy days, simpler times. Technology has moved on, but I don't ever remember anybody yelling at a hapless pilot because their plane had crashed near them etc - we could do with some more tolerance these days, I sometimes think.

Right, feeling old now - still got our first single channel RC I think, wonder if it still works - if it does, it will probably cause enough interference to bring today's modern world to a grinding halt!

 

[westonmavicpilot]

Gosh, this thread brought back memories. When I was a kid, Dad was big into his model aircraft - the house always had a whiff of the smell of "dope" (the stuff to "tighten" tissue paper), and every weekend we would be at Chobham Common to fly. Well, as I remember, a lot of the time the glow engine wouldn't start, so no flying. But many happy hours were spent chasing after the plane, legs scratched from the heather and gorse (I always wore shorts) - this was in the days before RC, well, before RC that we could afford anyway. Back then there was the tank factory off to one side (Vickers I think) - thinking back, despite the obvious secrecy about the place, they were always very obliging about returning lost aircraft. Then somebody built the M3 through the middle, so that was the end of free flight - we moved onto boats. But, there used to be a runway for RC aircraft didn't there - has that gone now?

Happy days, simpler times. Technology has moved on, but I don't ever remember anybody yelling at a hapless pilot because their plane had crashed near them etc - we could do with some more tolerance these days, I sometimes think.

Right, feeling old now - still got our first single channel RC I think, wonder if it still works - if it does, it will probably cause enough interference to bring today's modern world to a grinding halt!

Haha yes I used to fly R/C planes from Chobham common - the 'runway' was on top of one of the slight hills not too far from one of the little car parks. There was no official club but every weekend there would be a few people up there with anything from simple 3ch trainers right up to massive scale spitfires etc etc. The public, horse riders, ramblers, dog walkers and flyers etc etc would all share the common with no drama's apart from the occasional shout of ''DEAD STICK LOOK OUT'' when everyone would stop what they were doing and look around for whatever was silently coming in to land. Happy times back then, no animosity at all.....I bet if you took a drone up there now a park ranger would leap out of a bush within seconds of take off or Joe Public would be straight on you. Ironic if you think about it....modern drones pose far less threat to anyone compared to the r/c missiles we used to fly there!!!

 

[Sleat]

I am trying to find the logo for the Addlestone Model Club from back in the 1970's.
My father in law used to fly from Chobham Common - it is his 90th Birthday in Feb 2021 and we are trying to put something together for him relating to the model planes.