FRED arrives in style at LAA Aero Expo 2011
Eric Clutton is fond of saying that FRED may have been designed in the 1960s but is really a product of 1930s technology, since the reference materials which Eric could find at the time were all from that era. Steve Slater and friends underlined that fact by displaying Steve’s FRED G-BMSL with his 1933 Austin Seven at lat year’s LAA Aero Expo in Sywell. Steve, an unabashed fan of low and slow taildraggers, is not only a FRED fan, he edits the Luton Minor fan site www.lutonminor.com and serves as the current chairman of the UK’s Vintage Aeroplane Club www.vintageaircraftclub.org.uk. Enough from me, I’ll let Steve tell the story.
"The FRED and 1933 Austin Seven combination at last year’s Aero Expo event certainly drew a lot of comments in the UK Light Aircraft Association marquee, with a lot of people being good enough to comment it made a refreshing change from all the ‘plastic fantastic’ hot ships that dominate home built aircraft today. I guess a few people felt the same way about the car too!
I’d owned my 1933 Austin Seven for about 10 years and the FRED for about five although they hadn’t met until the eve of the show. The FRED was housed at Sywell in Northamptonshire, where Matt Boddington and I were also rebuilding the ‘Biggles Biplane BE-2c replica, although I live about 65 miles further south in Buckinghamshire.
We decided though that the combination would be a great attention-grabber for the LAA display, so I duly spent about three hours, trundling through quiet country roads to get to Sywell. The old Seven doesn’t cruise much faster than 35mph and as the Seven stands for the number of horsepower available, you can imagine the speed falls as rapidly as that of a climbing FRED if a hill gets involved. The term leisurely progress applies to both car and aeroplane!
Having got to Sywell, Matt, Paul Ford and I made a ‘jury rig’ steel frame to fit to the Austin’s spare wheel carrier in the absence of a proper tow-hitch. It was fine for the show, but I wouldn’t wish to drive anywhere, I’m not too sure the Austin’s cable-operated brakes would be much use with any added weight!
There are two post-scripts to the show. A week or so after the event, I hitched a ride in a friend’s J-3 Cub to go and retrieve the Seven. As he lives close by me, we decided to have a race home.
After swinging the Cub, I swung the crank on the Seven and headed south. Three hours later, I arrived back in Chesham, just a few minutes after Andy, who of course had to fly back to his airfield at White Waltham, arrange to put his aeroplane to bed and the drive home too. Mind you I suspect he also fitted in a drink in the flying club bar too!
The final postscript is a couple of months after all this I sold the FRED. I got a call from Tim Darters, who was keen to find a folding wing aircraft to operate from a farm strip in Northamptonshire. The FRED clearly fitted the bill, because in the last year, he’s flown it more hours than it did in the last decade. I’m not selling my Austin Seven though!”
Thanks, Steve, for sharing the FRED and Austin story and thanks, Graham Tiller, for contributing these photos. I hope to get in touch with Tim Darters to share his thoughts as G-BMSL’s new owner in a future post.
Photos: Steve Slater’s FRED G-BMSL and 1933 Austin Seven at Sywell in 2011 courtesy of Graham Tiller.
