Chris Bishop

Got into model flying and aviation when I was 13, started with electric round the pole plus a bit of free flight and control line. Didn’t start RC until I left school. Was soon flying all types of RC models including helicopters, which were very much in there infancy during the mid seventies.

Developed a passion for RC thermal soaring and got involved in thermal soaring competitions in my late teens.

Soloed in full size gliders at 16 and had my Private Pilots Licence soon after my 17^th birthday thanks to the Air Training Corps. I got my first flying instructors rating/job by the time I was twenty one and have earned a “crust” flying ever since then.

Moved to Gloucestershire in 1979. Having lived in the flat lands of East Anglia the Cotswolds were a great discovery and became my flying playground as I got hooked on slope soaring, as well as continuing to fly thermal soaring competitions up until the mid eighties.

In the mid eighties I met Jeff Edwards who I helped finish of his private pilots licence. He was then the Chairman of the Pineholt Model Flying Club on the old Brockworth Airfield. He persuaded me to join and thus began my association with the club that is now the GMFC.
I did my first stint as chairman of the then Pineholt Model Flying Club during the mid nineties.

The club lost the use of the Brockworth Airfield and moved to a site at Hempstead with the move came a change of name to the Gloucester Model Flying Club, which remains today.

In the mid nineties I was persuaded back into thermal soaring competitions by Phil Sumner and over the next decade was to engrave my name on nearly every major soaring trophy in the UK. I also got very involved with running competitions and ended up doing a stint as Chairman of the BMFA Silent Flight Technical Committee as well as serving on the BMFA Full Council.

A change in my work patterns in 2005 lead me to retire from thermal soaring competitions. In fact I nearly gave up model flying altogether but then I discovered the electric revolution. Although I had flown electric models since the mid nineties the arrival of brush less motors and Lipo batteries lead to a range of models with power/weight ratios and performance that one had thought impossible, I was immediately hooked

Becoming Chairman again in 2006 was a great privilege, and I hope all being well to steer the club over the next few years.

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