Every Monday evening, passersby in Phoenix Park will notice a crusade of model aircraft taking to the sky, as members of the Leinster Model Flying Club demonstrate their unique hobby.
“We fly on Monday evenings, and then there’s guys who fly during the week as well,” says Stuart Batt, secretary of the club.
Founded in 1972, the club now has 47 members, mostly adults, although some participants invite their children along to partake in the fun.
“You get people from all different walks of life – bus drivers, taxi drivers, accountants, solicitors, all sorts of men from different walks of life who just are interested in the hobby and they rub up their hands and say, yeah,” says Batt.
The planes used by the club members range from smaller, nonelectric models to larger units controlled by transistors.
“There’d be like small planes that you could hold in your hand up to ones which could be 3ft wide, 4ft long,” Batt adds.
Among the longest-standing pillars of the club is Frank Boughton, who remembers the model plane scene before it relied on modern technology.
“It’s gone from rubber bands and tissue to high-tech computerised stuff,” says Boughton. “I was born in 1947, so I’ve been involved in the models, I suppose, maybe from the mid-1950s, building keel craft models, which were just boxes, bounce wood.
“I would be probably one of the last groups that would be interested in taking a plan and cutting timber and putting it all together,” he adds.
The Leinster Model Flying Club is one of the last of its kind in Ireland.
“There were a couple of clubs in Dublin. They’ve largely gone now,” says Boughton.
A model aircraft belonging to Stuart Batt, secretary of the Leinster Model Flying Club. All photographs: Nick Bradshaw 
Frank Boughton 
Stuart Batt at home 
Father and son Eddie and Nathan Kenny from Clonee 
A model aircraft 
Leinster Model Flying Club at Phoenix park 
Leinster Model Flying Club