1971 and a good start to the season for team ETA with a first at the Midland area and third place for French/Bedford. Friday evening was spent with Ann but on this evening on arriving home Mum said “We have had a visitor, Alan Cooper, he's returning to racing, he hopes you and he can be friends”. I must admit I had forgotten Alan so this announcement came as quite a surprise. His pilot would be Jerry Green (the last time I spoke to Jerry was at High Wycombe in t962. When I told Ken he said he had refused engineering work from Alan and he didn't want to speak to him at race meetings.

Elliott Automation proved to be a great rally for our Feltham club though. All three models in the finals and I heard one of the organisers say its going to be a Feltham benefit this year. I thought we could win this race but about half way through Dave Rudd made a pit stop and on taking off he backed into me and the models touched. The engine note changed and my model lost speed eventually finishing in third place. When we checked for damage the racer had a series of cuts along the top of the fuselage and the prop had been split which only opened in flight hence the loss of speed.

London Gala and we placed second at Hayes. We all felt our days at Hayes were numbered. Originally the council laid two tarmac circles - one for team racing the other for the radio flyer's but our site would flood in the winter. This damaged the surface and was made worse be the local stables riding their horses over it and wrecking the surface. Fortunately for us the R/C flyer's had been banned from flying on their site when one of their models flew into a house. Each year the housing estate was getting closer to us and we were getting complaints about the noise but we used the R/C site for several years.

The end of the race season and I was looking foreword to the Southern Gala to be held at RAF Tangmere. The first job of the day was to give the racer a whizz to check out the settings, usually one flight, we were in the first heat of the day and turned in a fast time witch held good for almost all day. We didn't have to race until the last heat in round two, so if our race time held good we needn't fly again until the finals and we could preserve the engine for the race. Two heats to fly and Green/Cooper knocked three seconds off our time. Jerry said to Ken “Beat that” and of course their result meant we had to race in the last heat and we turned in a sub five minute time beating Jerry. We were back in the finals! We had a text book race and with Ken turning in very fast pit stops we won the Southern Gala And Jerry placed third. Honour Satisfied.