Story follows, not verbatum but close enough to convey the hilarity.
This is a true story !!!!!
Customer: I cannot get my engine to run. What's wrong?
Hobby shop: Well, what is it doing. ?
C: I think the starter isn't turning the engine fast enough.
HS:If you are running it on a 12v battery, it is going fast enough.
C: Yeah, it's a 12v battery. The engine just spits fuel at me.
HS: Is the needle valve set about 2 1/2 turns out?
C: It's way out.
HS: What engine is it?
C: OS 40 LA.
HS: Do you have the tank feed line connected to the engine and the
pressure line to the muffler fitting?
C: I have it hooked up like that, but there is nothing on the needle
thingy.
HS: There is no tubing connected to the needle valve???
C: No, the tank goes straight to the front of the engine.
At this poing, HS gets out an OS 40 LA engine and points out the carb
and the needle valve.
C: There is no tube from here to there, the tank is hooked to here (
points to the carb nipple ).
HS: ( rolls eyes and sighs ) You MUST connect the tank here (points
to needle valve inlet, and connect an extra piece of tubing from here
to there ( nv outlet to carb inlet ). Then the engine will probably
run.
C: OK, I'll hook up the tubing and see what happens.
AREN'T NUGGETS FUN???????????????
David
Long conversation with customer at hobby shop about trying to get an
OS 40 LA started, condenses to find that the customer had the tank
connected DIRECTLY to the carb nipple, NOT the needle valve !
The first guy never stands a chance . . . .
How many have run across the guy
that has trouble making his covering stick? And when asked . . . "You did
remove the backing didn't you?" the response is "What backing?". Or the
poor guy that actually go in the air with backing still on the covering and
left a large chunk of it floating down.
I'll give this engine story a 10 however.
Red S.
I've actually seen that happen. Trainer type plane with a few flights on it.
Instructor even got it back on the ground in one piece.
remove my-wife to reply :-)
It's almost as good as the guy who came our with the wing beautifully covered,
except he'd neglected to shape the rectangular balsa leading edge into an
airfoil. It DID fly, but was a little squirrelly at low speed.
Dr.1 Driver
"There's a Hun in the sun!"
I won't tell you about the NOT so newbie who covered his IFO with the
backing to the provided 'covering'.
Nah, you wouldn't believe it and Fred would dance another jig.
Maybe this sounds familiar...Last year I saw three experienced flyers at my
club trying to help a newbie with his trainer....it would get up to speed
but wouldnt get into the air. For an hour they worked to solve the problem.
Finally someone (me) walked over and pointed out that the elevator was going
down when the stick was pulled back. Everyone laughed but one older guy was
clearly embarrased that he hadnt noticed it.
A big 4* went in hard at my field, nothing left but shreds hanging in
a tree. Post-mortem revealed the receiver antenna still securely
wrapped up in the twistie, just like it came out of the box! Funny
thing was, he got a couple flights out of it before the crash!
Also saw a scratch-built 40% DR109 take off on it's maiden flight with
ailerons reversed. The pilot had the wits to get it up high, where an
emergency in-flight radio reprogram was done by another pilot! Since
one aileron at a time had to be reversed, at one point both were going
the same direction. The reprogram was successful and the landing was
perfect. Talk about a pucker factor.
Mark
While flying his rudder-elevator-throttle only trainer
one morning, the pilot commented that it wasn't handling
real well. Upon landing, another pilot noted that the
wing was on backwards! (trailing edge first). A pretty
forgiving model!
Dave
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