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Category: Archive 2013

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1. Martyn Cowley Remembered
2. Stafford's Models
3. Don Zink's Letter + Martyn
   
4. SEN 1766
   

Martyn Cowley Remembered

23-Oct-1948 – 17-May-2013

John Cooper remembers....

I first met Martyn when I was about 10. I'd just got my first engine and it wouldn't start. As I walked home from school I heard an engine running at a neighbour's house – the family had just moved in across the road a few days before. A quick knock on the door and Martyn's mother directed me to the garden and Martyn solved the engine problem for me. That was the start of a 50 year aeromodelling friendship.

Martyn was into both free flight and control line in those early days and most Sundays were spent on control line on Midsummer Meadow in the morning and free flight at the Northampton club field in the afternoons.

Come the mid 1960's and Martyn passed his driving test (and had the near permanent loan of his mother's Mini!). That expanded his horizons further and most weekends were spent at contests, still both CL and FF. In those days we had no model boxes and the Mini regularly took 4 of us to contests - load the back seat passengers, tightly pack 20+ FF models around them, then drive carefully (to protect models, not passengers! )Arrival at the field involved a lengthy unloading and on wet days the rear seat passengers just got wet rather than disturb the models.

With experience came bigger competitions, culminating in the first overseas trip to the 1973 World Champs at Wiener Neustadt. Martyn's car (an Escort by then) took Martyn, Gary Madelin and myself off for 3 weeks FF heaven. Planning for the trip was minimal, we all assumed that the others would have a map and ended up navigating around Europe using a free A5 map from the ferry company brochure.

At the start of 1975, Martyn, Dave Brawn, Andy Crisp and Steve Marriott were all based around Oxford and decided that a new FF competition orientated club was needed. Biggles Free Flight Team was thus born with membership by invite only from the founders (a pint of beer bribe was usually sufficient to get an invite! - a recruitment practise that caused formal questions to be asked in BMFA Council)

Each summer now involved a European adventure. Bulgaria (1975) when Martyn took enough Marmite sandwiches to last the full 2 weeks, Pierre Trebod each year and Denmark (1977) where Martyn placed well in F1C, albeit after much panicked last minute activity finishing the models on site. In 1979 the World Champs was in the USA (Taft) and Martyn travelled with Mike Fantham and Steve Marriott. To try to emulate the view of America picked up from films, they travelled in the largest, most ostentatious rental car they could hire - 22ft long and massive rear wings from memory. It was obvious from then on that Martyn wanted to live the American dream and it came as no surprise when he moved there in the early 80's.

My involvement with Martyn then faded drastically for many years (no e-mail or cheap flights then) with just occasional meetings at World Champs or when he came back to visit his parents. His continuing enthusiasm for all aviation matters still shone through though.

In 2001 the World Champs were again in the US (Lost Hills) and I enjoyed myself so much that I've been back once or twice a year since then. Martyn was invariably present at these contests and we often teamed up for timekeeping, enabling our friendship to continue. In 2005(?) Martyn damaged his knee and this ended his F1A and F1H career. Despite this he still visited Lost Hills for the February and October contests and was an invaluable assistant to the UK contingent - either by chasing our fly-offs on motorbike or by lending us his Mongoose pedal bike.

Our final meeting was at Lost Hills this February, where Martyn was as keen as ever and spent time imparting his knowledge of Lost Hills dawn air conditions to Gary Madelin and myself.

A much missed friend - trips to Lost Hills without seeing both him and his VW Camper van (registered BIGGLE5) won't be the same.

Martin Dilly writes....

Martyn always managed to communicate his enthusiasm for things aeronautical and was, I think, one of the two most effective editors Aeromodeller ever had. He only held the post from Feb. 1978 to Oct. 1980, but managed to include a wide variety of types in the magazine and to cover important stuff in depth, like the three part follow-ups to World Champs. Steve Higginson, the current Aeromodeller editor has had Martyn’s enthusiastic help to steer him towards useful UK contacts and get the title back onto the news-stands again. This was very, very sad news.

From Mike Fantham....

Martyn trained as an architect but, perhaps through the influence of his maternal Grandfather who was at Farnborough, an interest in all things aeronautical eventually guided his life.

I was in Denmark, reporting for Aeromodeller, when Martyn represented Great Britain in F1C at the World Championships in 1977 and I was Team Manager when he placed 5th in F1C at the 1978 European Championships in Germany. Martyn's F1C successes included the UK Nationals and the Pierre Trebod classic in 1977. Later we mainly knew him as a glider flyer and he flew F1A and F1H, holding the USA record in the latter class for some time.

Martyn was not just a Free-Fighter he did a lot of Control-line flying and was involved in the 'Wonder Wings' kits, bringing foam based Control-line and Free-Flight kits to market in the 70s. The 'Wonder Wings' team gave displays at the FA cup final at Wembley in 1977 and 1978.

The high point among so many happy memories for me was the year 1979 with a trip in Martyn’s blue Ford Escort MK2 estate to the Dutch ‘Nationals’ at Rozendaal heath near Arnhem. We did another comp near Tilberg on the same trip. He was great company and full of fun. Later we were at Poitou and the Pierre Trebod in France. The year came to a climax with our first trip to California in the autumn for the World Championships at Taft. Travelling with Martyn and Steve Marriott we flew in the warm-up event at Taft and the Sierra Cup after the Champs. At the champs itself, I was Team Manager and Martyn was doing the Aeromodeller report – he was the Editor at the time.

Martyn was the Aeromodeller Editor in 1979 when Paul Macready's team came to try for a man-powered cross-channel flight in that summer. His editorial director was the late Ron Moulton who was also heavily involved in the Royal Aeronautical Society's Man-powered Flight Committee. The story of the historic flight of the Gossamer Albatross on June 12th 1979 is told in a ten page report in the September 1979 Aeromodeller magazine. The credits are Ron, Martyn and Pat Lloyd, the Aeromodeller draftsman. Martyn was captivated by this giant model aeroplane and its enthusiastic, hands-on team that included many model flyers. Martyn never really shared his private thoughts but I think this was the catalyst that led to his 30+ career at Aerovironment, Paul Macready's company in Simi Valley, California. By the time my brother and I visited Martyn in California in October 1980, we found him helping to build the Solar Challenger, the first solar powered aircraft to fly across the channel from an airfield near Paris to Manston in Kent.

Living in California, Martyn's modelling interests were maintained and he went on to represent the USA at the 1997 World Championships in the Czech Republic, placing 43rd in F1A with a score of 1290 + 153.

Martyn became a key player at Aerovironment and whilst he never spoke in detail about some of the projects, I think I can see his influence in some of the battlefield UAVs that even use a DT system to land safely in rough terrain.

Our thoughts are with Martyn's parents, his friends and colleagues in the USA, in the UK and all over the World.

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