About 50 of the members paid in advance a large sum of money, equivalent to payment for ten years use of the field, as it costs other members equivalent to $100 per year to use it. The total sum collected was about $30.000. We had to transport to the field about 1900 cubic meters of gravel for the runways and road, and 310 truckloads of earth before we could saw grass in the field. Then two 7 x 70 m runways were pawed with asphalt, along with the ramp and pit area.

In the year 1990 we bought a new 50 square meter house ($40.000) which we use as a club house. A 6 kW diesel generator is used for heating and interior lights. We take our pride in keeping the site clean and attractive, and have planted about 2000 trees in the lava field near the clubhouse.

Most of the work has been done by volunteers in the club. So if you have 100 members in your club, and each is willing to pay say $700, you can do what we did! This is not more than the cost of a typical model with a motor and radio. We borrowed the money for the clubhouse in a bank in 1990, and the same hard core in the club paid the loan back in 18 months. We have also held several airshows with models and full size aircraft and sold tickets. In the airshow 1990 (see the pictures in the picture gallery) we had about 500 visitors. In such a large club you have a specialist in almost every field, such as a plumber, electrician, carpenter, economist, printer, engineer, mechanist, truck driver, etc., so you can do most of the work yourself if you don't mind sweating a bit. It is also relatively easy to get equipment and material free if you talk to the right person, and usually someone in the club does! The local full size pilots have been more than willing to fly low-pass (full-size aeroplanes such as Cessna, Piper Cub, DC3, Boeing 737, Ultralight) over the field at airshows and fly aerobatics in a full size Pitts, Cap 10, Yak 52 and Sukhoj.

Please visit us if you are in the vicinity.

The summer is relatively short, but luckily in June and July we can fly in the midnight sun. Typical summer temperature is around 15 degrees Celsius. Winter is relatively mild with an average +1C January temperature in Reykjavik. Iceland has only about 260.000 inhabitants, so it shouldn't be difficult to find space for model flying activity!

From September to May we have monthly meetings. We always have some lecturer to inform us about his special field, such as battery charging, aerodynamics, slope soaring, fieber glassing, radio theory, etc. Every now and then we have a visitor from our 1:1 scale friends that fly full-size aerobatic aeroplanes, sailplanes, ultra-lights, etc. We have had a veteran Royal Air Force pilot (the Icelander Thorsteinn M Jonsson, he is still going strong) from WW2 telling us how it is to fly a Spitfire and a Hurricane in a war. Then we have a short video show and coffee with sweet cakes!

About 500 guests did attend the airshow.

Last year, 1994, exactly 75 years later than the historic flight (to the hour), Sept. 3rd at 17.00, a scale model of this aeroplane was flown from exactly the same spot to commemorate the first flight in Iceland. Several hundred people came to see the flight, including the director of civil aviation and representatives of the ministry of communication. Three weeks earlier we took an active part in a full scale airshow, where the AVRO-504 was the main attraction.

The model is 1/4 scale and partly based on a drawing by David Boddington that appeared in Scale Aircraft. The builder Mr. Jakob Jonsson did not build a conventional model, but rather a museum piece. He paid attention to every detail of the original aircraft (inside and outside), and even made most of the metal parts himself in a lathe. The cockpit is almost a replica of the original with a compass in working gimbals, handmade brass ignition switches, etc. Even the head of the pilot is a replica of Mr. Christian Faber the pilot that flew the plane in the year 1919. Jakob carved his head out of wood by using old photos as a reference. The pilot can rotate his head, as a servo is in his body! The radio and batteries are concealed in his body too. The rudder pedals and the stick, etc. move with the control surfaces when controlled by the radio. The only problem is that now some people want to keep the model in a museum, but I think Jakob wants to keep the model himself and fly it.

This model of AVRO-504 is probably one of the best made replicas of this aircraft. It is impossible to describe in a few words. It is simply magnificent.

Picture Gallery, Aeromodelling in Iceland