On 19th May 2017 I had the following unstarted kits, incomplete airframes and projects, and I am about to order another vintage kit!

Model Aeroplane Kits

Fokker DVII
Stampe Monitor
Flying Flea
SE5
Baron
Supra Fly
ARTF Acrowot
WOT 4
Hurricane

Incomplete Airframes, Repairs and “Projects.”

DB Sport and Scale Auster
KK Outlaw
Stol
North American AT6 (two off.)
WOT 4
Mick Reeves 1/3 scale Sopwith Camel
DSM Aerostar
Majestic Major
Double Sized Tomboy
Roy Scott BE2e

Since then I have built the Baron, a French trainer from the 1970s with which I competed in La Coupe Des Barons in June of this year: http://saffiotipatrick.wixsite.com/vl38/les-barons I also built an aileron wing for it.

I managed to crash my ARTF WOT 4 XL by stalling it on landing and breaking the fuselage in half. If the ground had been a metre or a metre and a half higher the landing would have been perfect! I was going to throw it away because after all it was only an ARTF, but I discovered that the new cost of this model is £183 or €207, $241 US or 16488 INR, so I'm going to have a go at repairing it in a jig!

My normal size WOT 4 also needs a little attention, the engine mount has come loose.

So to answer your question directly, I turned 70 in March.

Including the new kit I will have 19 kits or projects to keep me busy. I participated in an on line survey a few weeks ago which predicted that I was going to die at the age of 84. That means that I have to complete 1.4 models per year to get rid of them!

I hope that this answers your question and explains why I won't be participating in the Build Off.

Happy Landings



PS. I have been doing a fair bit of instructing recently, so over the last year I have assembled two four-channel ARTF trainers , (it's always good to have a spare when teaching novices!) and I have renovated my old Junior 60 as a basic trainer and converted it to fly on electric power.

PPS. The Mick Reeves 1/3 scale Camel was given to me by my club's president who did not have the time to finish it. The Camel's previous owner, was a professional violinist who had once played with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. He was a superb builder who had never quite learned how to fly a radio controlled model aircraft before running out of time by dying first! The basic fuselage stands like a piece of modern art in the corner of my study. It would not have been my first choice but I suppose I'm honour-bound to finish it.