This already sounds like an unlikely combination for a good flying model and an eventual all-up weight of 54 ounces just about finished things off. However, that OS was a strong performer (no silencer either) and I always did like to fly fast, so it was fun to fly. It never made it into a flying contest, but I did enter it in the 1959 Model Engineer Exhibition, where it received a Very Highly Commended.

Photo taken at 1959 Model Engineer Exhibition and published in February 1960 'Model Aircraft'.

The name 'Iroquois' was a follow-on from Bob Palmer's use of Indian (sorry, native american) names. The 'Calamity Jane' had been christened 'Cherokee', so I continued the use of tribal names. Some years later, the Bell company stole the name for their 'UH-1' helicopter. Fortunately, the people who had to fly it preferred 'Huey'!

There was to be an open international control-line contest at the Brussells World Fair in 1958 and I had serious intentions of attending, which meant I needed a more portable model. The main lure here was that the Benny Goodman Orchestra were also appearing. For various reasons, most of which I've forgotten, I didn't make it. Sadly, I never did get to see Benny, either.

In retrospect, this was the first model that I ever built with a wing-mounted undercarriage and I feel that it must be significant. At the time I convinced myself that it must be that fuselage, so I pulled it apart and rebuilt it as a 'Nobler'. Yes, you guessed, no difference!

The resulting model ('Nobler 3') was actually surprisingly successful. Though it never actually won anything, it was second in the Gold Trophy in 1964. Experience does suggest that a good flying model is less successful than one that you have to struggle with. I have built two other models which were basically 'Noblers' with wing-mounted undercarriages and they both had this characteristic, though to a lesser extent.

This model had a few other innovations, why try just one thing at a time? First off it had a vented balloon tank. Mike Burch, later known as an R/C aerobatic flyer, was responsible for this idea. It used a metal bottle top with vents and feed pipe soldered into it. The tank was filled by holding the model tail down. The vents were then sealed.

The second innovation was what I called 'non-linear flaps'. Today, these would be called 'exponential flaps'. The basic idea was that when the controls were close to neutral, there would be more flap movement than elevator movement. As more control was applied, the elevators moved more than the flaps. The result was a model that was very slow to respond in level flight but would make very sharp turns.

At the first attempt, I got this wrong and the response varied from very sluggish to just sluggish! Increasing the elevator movement corrected this, but there was a point in the middle of the movement where there was a marked jump in the response.

Finally, the model had a kicking rudder. This was not the same as the well-known Al Rabe design but moved outwards when both up and down were applied.

In terms of overall results, this was the most successful model of the series and came fourth in the 1965 Gold Trophy and topped the team trials that year. Over a three year period it was flown in 15 events and won 5 of them (less comps in those days).

That funny control system was no real problem until you flew a conventional model which immediately 'felt' better. More problems were caused by the fact that the very light model began to show serious signs of wear and tear and the OS was wearing out.

The inverted engine on number 'VI', with the head enclosed by a scoop meant that there was very little flow of air, with the outlet severely restricted. It was flown in just one contest, a 1969 Centralised meeting, and got a third place. Thirty two years of hindsight is a wonderful thing!

No.	Model No.	Name	Type & Mods	Motor	No of Flights	First Flight	Written Off	Comments
1	7	Iroquois	O/D	OS 35 Max 1	?	?	Scrapped 9/7/62	Enormous fuselage. Flaps part of wing section. Too heavy for small size
2	9	Iroquois II	O/D	AM 35	?	?	Scrapped 9/7/62	Take apart model. Still have plan
3	16	Pedagogue III	O/D	OS 35 Max 1 & Merco 35	43	?	24/2/63	2 wins. This was the only one. The number '3' was to continue the Iroquois series, although there was no outward resemblance
4	20	Iroquois IV	O/D fus. Nobler wing and tail	OS 35 Max 1	5	?	Rebuilt into Nobler 3	Turned much tighter insides than outsides. No change when rebuilt so fus not responsible
5	24	Iroquois V	O/D. Fully sheeted surfaces	OS 35 Max 1	75	?	Scrapped 2/2/69	5 wins. Exponential flaps
6	35	Iroquois VI	As 5 but inverted engine	OS 35S	35	?	28/9/69	Expo flaps