A team of 6 seniors and 3 juniors is preparing to represent GBR at the World Space Modelling Championships, taking place in Zrenjanin, Serbia from 22 to 28 August, 2025.
The team has spent months designing and building model rockets in preparation for the event. The WSMC brings together the world’s top space modellers to compete in across 8 categories including altitude, duration, remote controlled precision flying and scale modelling.
The team will compete against participants from other 16 countries. Beyond the competition, we are very much looking to rejoin with our friends from around the world and make some new memories and lasting friendships.
We are starting with team processing, motor distribution and return of scale models for judging on Friday afternoon. For now, we have some air travel to get out of the way before inspection of the hopefully undamaged kit and final touches before the contest.
The first success of the contest is always simply arriving in country with all the competitors and their luggage. Therefore i am pleased to report a 100% success rate for both competitor and model arrival. With everyone in country, next order of business is model unboxing and checkover to establish what damage air travel has inflicted on our delicate models. The results of this assessment left three members of our scale team with some significant repair activities to acoumplish before model turn in that evening. Racing against the clock, Sharon, Andy, and Slawomir were able to repair the travel damage, and restore the models to tip top showing condition befor the 21:30 deadline. This included one expedition by Ian Lewis to find a can of silver spray paint in a provincial serbian town. We can confirm serbian for “silver” is сребро (thanks google).
The sight of a full room of space scale models is a feast for the eyes. With every detail down to the bolts and rivets faithfully reproduced by the steady hands of model makers from all around the world. Having a full team of british entries lined up with the best of the best was a fitting reward for the team who have worked so hard to perfect their prototypes…and undo the damage that travel inflicted on their masterpieces.
These beautiful creations will be judged over the next three days, while the other classes of the world championships are flown. After judging, the models will be returned to the competitors who will then prepare them for flight, hoping for a better result than the early Nasa prototypes, of the first flight of Ariane 5!
Now with Scale models submitted, the competitors attention turns to the altitude and duration based classes. Tomorrow is free practice where we will have the opportunity to familiarise ourselves with the flying field, and understand how to locate the illusive Serbian thermals. Watch this space for the next update!
Eryk Jaszkim
