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THE PATH TO JETEX

Jetex has its origins with three remarkably enterprising and talented young men, in England in the early part of the twentieth century.Two of the three were the Wilmot brothers, Charles Mandeville (‘Bill’) Wilmot and John Wilmot. As schoolboys in the second decade of the century, fired with enthusiasm for the exciting developments in aviation, they produced and sold their own hand-written magazines, The Aeroplane World (above right) and The Aeroplane Monthly.The third young man, initially working quite separately from the Wilmots, was Joseph Naimé Mansour, a talented model-maker whose craftsmanship had achieved early recognition. He had accepted an invitation to contribute to the most prestigious example of the modelmaker’s skill ever created in Britain – the 1:12 scale Queen Mary’s Doll’s House (right), still today a major attraction at Windsor Castle.

With the burgeoning interest in aviation that had already attracted the Wilmots, Joe Mansour turned to modelling aeroplanes. Not content with the relatively heavy stick-and-silk models then dominating the scene (balsa wood was not yet available), he developed a method of lightweight construction using moulded papier-mâché. This he produced by compressing a mixture of newspaper and glue through the family laundry mangle. He then moulded the resulting sheets into very light but strong fuselages. (It’s interesting to consider that the jetex tailored series of the 1950s also used moulded fuselages.)

With his moulded fuselage process perfected, Joe Mansour’s enterprising spirit turned to a scheme for commercial production. So, in 1931 he advertised in Flight magazine for others to join him in setting up a business to develop and manufacture model aeroplanes. The Wilmot brothers, who meanwhile had been experimenting with fuselage construction from very thin aluminium sheet, responded to Mansour’s

advertisement.In what was to prove a typical businesslike move, the trio formed two companies in 1931. One, Wilmot, Mansour & Co., Ltd., held patents which they had been granted, and the other, International Model Aircraft Ltd. (IMA) had the world’s largest toy manufacturer, Lines Brothers, as a shareholder (right). IMA was responsible for production, which was eventually conducted in the large Tri-ang factory in Merton. The Tri-ang football field adjoining the IMA factory was to became a model aerodrome, where customers could learn to fly the models coming off the production line.

IMA’s initial product was to be an innovative model aeroplane with an aluminium fuselage and paper wings – the FROG Interceptor fighter Mark IV (below right). Not only was the Interceptor unique in its method of construction, but its motive power also showed innovative flair. It was powered by a rubber motor which turned the propeller via a minute Swiss-made gearbox, allowing a smaller, more realistic, propeller to be used. The rubber motor could even be wound up by means of a high-speed geared winder built into the model’s box.Moreover, in an era when the rudimentary appearance of model aeroplanes bore little similarity to contemporary full-size aircraft, the Interceptor stood out with its semi-scale resemblance to the Supermarine Schneider racers. With a propellor speed of 2,700 r.p.m., it was quite the fastest rubber-powered aeroplane to be bought – typically, it travelled 300 feet at a height of 70 feet and a scale speed of 240 mph. The ‘FROG’ name came from Joe Mansour, who had coined the acronym from the slogan “First to Rise Off Ground”, to express the advantage his papier-mâché models had over the stick-and-silk machines. Later, it came to signify “Flies Right Off Ground”. A ‘W’and an ‘M’ were incorporated in the FROG logo (below right). By November 1932, the Wilmots and Mansour had achieved their goal of commercial production with over 800 Interceptors per day being produced.