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The Guided Mite Voltij Osmose 50

Aeromodelling is one of those interests that seem to be passed from father to son. It’s more than just an interest, it’s an engineering skill.

From an early age of around five years old I always remember standing next to my dad learning the craft of ‘don’t do this and don’t do that’. I remember those nights where the room was filled with the smell of clear dope and balsa cement and the window was wide open and control line ruled! The days of two-strokes, where noise didn’t matter, the smell of ether made you want to fly more and you sat watching the telly peeling dried balsa cement off your fingers.

Looking back over the years from when my grandfather showed me some Bonner Duramite servos to the present day, there is one model that has always been at the back of my mind – Vertigo II, which has hung in the garage since I was young and collected layer after layer of dust.This is the model I never had the ability or nerve to fly – until now.

Not to be confused with some American models of similar name, Vertigo II resulted from a series of successful low-wing aerobatic r/c models designed by Frank van den Bergh between the late fifties and mid sixties. 

After placing 3rd at the 1959 British Nationals at RAF Scamptom, with his yellow ‘Sky Duster’ and with other more significant successes behind him, Frank went on to produce the more functional looking ‘Sky Dancer’ with simple clean lines, tricycle u/c, an un-silenced Merco .49 and his reliable ‘Orbit 10 superhet’ radio.Frank flew Sky Dancer to 1st place at each subsequent year’s British Nationals up to 1964 and took 4th place at the 1962 World Champs at RAF Kenley and 7th place at the 1963 World Champs in Belgium – Quite a consistent and sustained performance at a time when ten and twelve channel tone-reed superhets were the ‘state of the art’ and the development of multi-channel fully proportional control was only just beginning to emerge.

Vertigo II appeared in 1967, with strip ailerons, counter-balanced rudder, a 55in span x 10in chord with 15 per cent thick symmetrical airfoil and even simpler lines and construction than it’s predecessors. Vertigo was not aimed at competition flying within the narrow co