Kurt Bauerheim, known worldwide in the R/C aerobatics scene for his third place at the FAI R/C Aerobatic World Championships in Corsica in 1967 and his competition model Kompromiss:
Here is a short report from his son Wolfgang Bauerheim:
I was not only able to observe my father’s career and development “on the side”, but for many years I also stood next to my father as “co-pilot” and “announcer” of the programme – i.e. the individual flight figures to be demonstrated in sequence at competitions – to the judges and was present “up close” at many competitions.
My father (born in 1928) started flying the Graupner Mustang tethered model “out of nowhere” in 1959/1960 (I was born in 1949, so I was 10 years old). He did this in many, many training sessions.
In this respect, I had the honour of experiencing not only my father, but also many of his competitors at the time (from Fritz Bosch, Walter Schmitz (who was a bit of a student of my father – the two got on well) Käseberg, Gast, Blauhorn, Metternhausen, Galinsky, Neckar, but also Giezendanner to ….etc.) in competition time and again and being able to judge their flying performance, strengths and weaknesses.
Interestingly, thanks to my sports studies, I can now appreciate very well why my father was able to fly certain figures with particularly good coordination and clearly better than the competition.
Incidentally, I have never seen anyone (apart from my father) who managed to fly his model inverted over the concrete runway in the style of a limbo dancer so low at the end that you could hear the tail unit grazing the concrete…his knife-edge flight – the V-shape of the wing at the time – was also impressive).
You may also be interested to know that RC1 model flying was already being practised “professionally” in 1965/66.
Fritz Bosch, for example, was an employee of Simprop Harsewinkel (Claas agricultural machinery) and, as a figurehead, had plenty of time for training…not just in the evenings and at weekends.
A “competition set” of machines for the season also consisted of 5-6 aeroplanes (with different weights and aileron configurations etc.).
In Corsica, for example, the big problem was that my father only had wings with flaps with him and you went to the start (which you would never do today) without knowing the local conditions, i.e. without having been there beforehand.
In fact, due to the wind conditions there, the use of flaps caused a major problem because the flight behaviour/control behaviour was very aggressive.
In other words, it was very difficult to fly the aircraft cleanly under the wind conditions there – the location of the aerodrome – wind from the sea. At the very least, it would have been important to know what to expect.
You may think that of course a son sees his father as the “greatest expert”, but I assure you that I have seen and studied many, many over the years and can certainly allow myself an objective judgement.
Kurt Bauerheim was a really, really great figure, someone who could really do something in this business. To let his potential lie fallow at the age of 40, after having come so far in just a few years, is still a mystery to me and others.
But my father was really of the opinion that at the age of 40 you were too old for this sport (in model flying)……that’s no joke, he really saw it that way.
Manfred von Brauchitsch once said of Rudolf Caracciola, the former Mercedes superstar: “He was a sober, no-nonsense, cold, ice-cold driver.
Incidentally, my father was anything but a show-off. That’s exactly what my father – who was very similar to Caracciola in his manner – was. He was sober, matter-of-fact, with a lot of sense but also very self-critical, certainly never satisfied with himself.
Always endeavouring to make things even better.
Sincerely
Zurich, in the year 2024 Wolfgang Bauerheim
Kompromiss
Technical details:
Wingspan: 1.78 metres
Length: 1.34 metres
Weight: approx. 3.8 kg
Engine: 10ccm
R/C system: 4-6 channel
Thomas Ott`s Kompromiss, seen at the Retrodays in Pfäffikon / Switzerland
