OBITUARY FOR RENÉ BARTLOMÉ

René was known far beyond his home model flying clubs—MV Bern and MG Thun—as a welcome point of contact for anyone facing challenges related to the construction and operation of model airplanes. His interest in airplanes, which had been sparked at an early age by his brother—a military pilot—developed over time into an intense passion for the largely independent design and construction of scale model airplanes. He typically drew inspiration from military aircraft such as the Morane-Saulnier D-380, the AT-6, the Hawker Tempest Mk V, and the DHC-1 Chipmunk, as well as the powerful sound of their multi-cylinder piston engines. His passion for model aviation, however, was not limited to building. René was an enthusiastic pilot. From tethered flight to slope soaring and F3A competition flying, all the way to manned gliding. Over many years, René spent countless hours of his free time and vacations as an active glider pilot in his ASW 12. Through his many years of work as a repair technician and as an inspection expert for man-carrying gliders, he acquired an enormous amount of knowledge about the construction and operation of countless aircraft types. His widely known and popular “services” as a tow pilot for the model gliding community were in particularly high demand. Countless times, he stood ready with his tow planes—which he had, of course, built himself—the Ercoupe-415 and the legendary Stinson L-5 Sentinel, to tow the gliders to their launch altitude. With the Stinson

Last November, René successfully completed his 5,000th tow flight.

René enjoyed sharing his in-depth knowledge of model airplanes and their internal-combustion engines by writing build reports for model-making magazines, posting in relevant forums, during spontaneous encounters and conversations, or simply by offering advice and assistance in response to specific inquiries or when visitors came to his workshop. It is not just this exchange that we will miss. We will miss René as a clubmate and friend with wide-ranging interests who was always ready to help.