Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No! It’s … a drone?
Drones are everywhere these days. Unlike the big military drones that serve as spies-in-the-sky and carry weapons that, fired by an operator thousands of miles away, wreak utter devastation, much smaller drones serve a multitude of domestic purposes. They give us a bird’s eye view of just about anything while allowing us to keep our feet firmly on the ground. Want to see what the view of Guelph is like from the top of a tower on the Basilica of Our Lady Immaculate, without having to climb up there? Send up a drone with a camera.
Drones are used to deliver everything from pizza to vital organs for transplants. Airports use them for bird control. They are used to fight forest fires, count livestock, and check powerlines. Drones are used for mapping and in rescue work. Of course, hobbyists like to send them skyward just for plain old fun. And that is really where the whole unmanned-flying-thing started, years ago before there was such a thing as a mechanical drone; when, in fact, if you said the word “drone,” people would think you were talking about a male bee.
Seventy-nine years ago they were called miniature planes – models to some – and Guelph had become something of a hot-spot for them.
In September of 1945, the Second World War had only recently ended with the surrender of Imperial Japan on Aug. 15 (formally on Sept. 2). Nazi Germany had surrendered on May 7. Aircraft had played a major role in the conflict, from the German blitzkrieg of 1939 that began the fighting, to the American dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan in 1945 that brought the war to an end. It seemed almost natural that military aircraft would be among the models favoured by enthusiasts: British Spitfires, American Mustangs, Lancaster bombers used by most of the Allies.
It was fitting, too, that the place to go in Guelph if you wanted to watch the miniature planes take off and land was the drill square of the Ontario Agricultural College. During the war, the OAC had been used as a training school for wireless (radio) operators for the Allied air forces. Trainees were sent there from all over Canada and the British Commonwealth. Now, crowds gathered there to admire the model planes engage in stunt-flying as the air filled with the hum of their motors. The spectators might have been perplexed by the planes’ operators since the models were gasoline-powered, and gas was still rationed. How could anyone have even a little bit of gas to spare for what were, to many people, toys. However, the operators of what were officially known as control line gas model airplanes took their hobby pretty seriously.
The president of the Guelph-Kitchener Flying Club was Allan Farr. He was originally from Fort Erie, but he and his wife had moved to Guelph more than two years earlier and now lived on Suffolk Street. He had won a trophy and seven other prizes in contests in Toronto, Hamilton and London.
“What we’d like to do is to get a backer for our club here, so that we could hold contests in Guelph,” he told the Mercury. “We’re always on the lookout for new members.”
Farr’s group had 15 members, the oldest of them being Carl Wilhelm of Kitchener. He had just returned from service in Europe, where he had flown missions over enemy territory. Farr and Wilhelm were certain that membership in their club would grow as more RCAF veterans returned home and were discharged. If flying was in their blood, model airplanes provided a way to meet the need.
“Gas model planes have a wing spread from 28 inches (71.12 cm) to six and a half feet (1.98 m),” Farr explained. He owned four planes, the largest of which was five feet long (1.524 m). They were all built from kits. For realistic effects, the planes had wing and tail lights and landing lights that ran on rechargeable batteries. And since they were in Canada, the planes’ usual wheeled landing gear could be replaced with skis.
Even if you were willing to use some of your gas ration to fuel the model planes, wartime and early post-war conditions still posed problems. Most of the planes’ motors were manufactured in the United States, and there was a stiff duty on them. High import duties also applied to the balsa wood the aircraft bodies were made of, which came from South America. Wartime demands on the rubber industry meant that all new tires, even tiny ones for miniature planes, were in short supply.
“We could do with a few rubber wheels, too, if we could get them," Mrs. Farr said.
Farr had helped with the war effort by having one of his model planes tow a “Buy Victory Bonds” banner behind it. Now he hoped he’d be able to get a beacon for the northwest corner of the OAC drill square so his club could do some night flying. He also wanted to get gas balloons they could use for “balloon busting stunts.”
Farr and the other members of the Guelph-Kitchener Flying Club would quite likely be amazed to see what people today can do with their miniature airplanes’ descendants, the drones.
