Modellbau Bodensee
19 - 21 November 2004.
Held at Friedrichshafen

Friedrichshafen is in the far South of Germany on the North shore of the Bodensee aka The Lake of Constance. It is as far south as you can get before getting your feet wet or crossing the border into Switzerland. I saw the show advertised in the German model press and thought this could be an interesting weekend away. I mentioned this idea to Andy Schafer and warned him that it would involve hours of looking at model gliders, picking up a few bargains and drinking the local beer, but he took very little persuading! The best bit of news was discovering that Ryanair fly from Stansted to Friedrichshafen for just £31.00 return! Well it`s just gotta be done!! and 24 hours later saw us booked on a flight and into an hotel thanks to the Friedrichshafen city web site.
The exhibition centre is situated on the North side of the airfield and easily visible from the airport terminal. Once we had booked into our hotel we took the free bus laid on from the town centre to the show. On arrival you have to be impressed
by the size and quality of this new facility, only 3 years old I belive. 7 huge halls 5 of which were taken up for this show which included boats, cars, trains and planes, we headed straight for hall A3,... Flugmodellbau!
Anyone who has been to the Dortmund Intermodellbau will know the amazing range of products on display there and to our delight we found all the usual suspects here too. After one lap of the hall Mr Schafer declared it "Game on!!"
The list (glider biased of coarse) included.- FVK, Multiplex, Graupner, Blue Airlines, Aero-naut, Simprop, EMC Vega, Thommy`s, Franken Modellbau, Jurgen Schmierer, Emcotec, Top Rippin, Plettenberg, Hacker, Kontronik, Nessel-Electronic and Lenger. Some notable additions for us were Krause and Rodel.
I was there to have a close look at the 5m ASH 26 from Blue Airlines. This model had caught my eye at Dortmund the year before, with its clean lines and very strong carbon skinned wings it needed a second look and sure enough Ralf + Tanya were soon one ASH26 kit less. Infact their whole range is well thought out with above average components and include a Swift, Pilatus B4, ASH 26 and 6m ASW 20.
Andy Schafer was very taken with the professional looking stand by Krause. Not suprising when you see this many scale gliders so well presented, he started to weaken. New models are a 1/3 scale DG 300 and a 3.5 scale Duo Discus with winglets. The distinctive v tailed H101 Salto in 1/3 scale was Andy`s choice, once again a good quality kit with plenty of carbon in the wings, Mr Krause almost looked happy.
Soon after this it was nice to meet up with Chris Garrod of the SSS SSS (Swiss Sub Section) and his friends from the IGG. Thanks Chris, we would never have got back to the Hotel without you! As you can see from the photo my job was to hold on to the boxes! Also in attendance were Ekkehard Herrman, Thomas Budzus and Mark Hauss, just like Caen all over again!
So to round up well worth the trip, much fun was had, much beer was drunk and much talking was done, not to mention the negotiating at Friedrichshafen airport to get 3 rather large boxes on the plane, oops!!
Highlights for me were.- The excelent indoor flying display held in the main foyer. Amazing skill! The fab selection of gliders on display, these included a 7m ASH 25 from Lenger, 6m all carbon DG800 from Thommy`s, 4m all glass Fox from Bruckmann, 6m ASW 20 from Blue Airlines, 6m all glass Duo Discus from Rodel and the Krause collection.
The retractable electric glider motor that pulls the prop back into the fuz though the nose, you gotta see it to belive it!!
The Lack of ques.
The Beer
Watching an acro glider display in a perfect blue sky with smoke on the wingtips from the window of our 737 as we waited to take off, honest!
Getting us, our boxes and bags back to the UK for £31!
Roll on next year!
Philip Hoegger