South Yorkshire Times September 3, 1949
Conisbrough Flying Saucer
People looking into the field leased by the Conisbrough St Peter’s Youth Club on Tuesday evening were surprised to see what appeared to be a circular object, flying in circles at increasing and decreasing heights.
The object was a model plane, powered by the usual diesel engine, but the design was of a rather using unusual type, certainly not one seen before in the district.
It was a plane of the “Flying Saucer,” kind, built, adapted and flown by one of the youth club members, 18 year old Alan Johnson.
Circular in shape, the plane has a diameter of 2 feet, runs on a mixture of mittanse and Castor oil, was a 4 1/2 CC diesel engine driving it, and a fin behind the engine. The model is controlled by two wires held by the flier.
Alan calls this , and another ordinary model which has just completed on the lines of the American championship type, a “pure speed job,” and he estimates the saucer’s maiden flight at a speed of 60 mph, and is expecting nearly 100 mph from the other.
However, just to prove that the saucer is incapable of speed only, Alan took her through 56 loops in her first flight, including several sets of five consecutively, a qualification for competitions, and no mean feat when it is realised that the plane loses altitude at every loop. For a maiden flight it reflected great credit on both plane and flyer.
Alan, 6’4″ and 13 stone, has been building these model since he was 12 and flying powered models since he was 15, and is only one of the great number of enthusiast in South Yorkshire who regard control line flying not as an expensive game (the engines can cost well up to and over 7 pounds), but as a sport and a science.