Tightly organized flight operations

After last year’s DIY model aircraft meet was canceled due to COVID-19, the event was able to take place again this year. The announcement noted that there would be no demonstration flights with spectators on Sunday, as restrictions were still in place regarding the number of people allowed at a table, the mask mandate, etc. The food service offerings would be reduced.

But it was precisely this weekend that those restrictions were lifted. The MG Huttwil reacted on the spot by setting up the festival food stand as usual, which meant the usual wide selection of food and drinks. Thank you—you did a great job. The well-coordinated team led by Organizing Committee President and event initiator Christian Eggimann succeeded in attracting 82 pilots with over 140 models! to the Huttwil Model Flying Club’s field in Oberaargau. A new record! The registration portal had actually been closed since the Wednesday before the event.

The weather forecast for the weekend was excellent, even though there had been severe thunderstorms during the week that caused enormous damage. Huttwil was lucky and remained largely unscathed. Due to the large number of participants, flight operations were tightly organized so that anyone who wanted to could fly their model. It’s a tradition at the blueprint and home-built model gathering that models are sometimes “just” on display—and in some cases, they aren’t even fully built yet. It’s precisely with these “works of art” that you can see the inner workings and study the construction and the enormous effort that went into them. If you have any questions, the builders are happy to provide expert answers—and that’s how the typical shop talk on Huttwiler Berg, the mecca of model builders, comes about!

Thanks to the sunny weather and the mild evening, everyone who had traveled to the “Grüebli” in RVs and the like stayed together well into the night on Saturday. The atmosphere was excellent; there must have been a huge gap in the model aviation scene, given the large number of model-building enthusiasts who made the trip from Germany and Switzerland. Sunday lived up to its name—

During the COVID-19 pandemic, model builders made the most of their time and created numerous new model airplanes—a small silver lining to this trying pandemic! The variety of models was enormous, ranging from those that fit in a shoebox to very large aircraft on a 1:2 scale, and from slow, quiet electric-powered models to fast aircraft with the distinctive sound of four-stroke engines or model turbines.

Let’s look forward to the next gathering in Huttwil in 2022.

Photos: Beat Eichenberger and Markus Nussbaumer