Hangar Rash

A couple of good ones.

Had a friend that wanted to get into the hobby. He bought a Sag Cadet, spent months building it. Got the plane all assembled and covered with radio gear and engine. Started it up on the floor of his garage to break in the engine. The only problem was as soon as the engine started running, the guys large Golden Retriever who was laying quietly asleep took umbrage to the noise. The dog leaped, landing in the center of the wing. Luckily for the dog, the landing gear folded, stopping the engine before any dog parts came into contact with the prop. The guy was so shocked he just stood there and watched the dog chew his plane into oblivion.

Another guy had used his attic for plane storage. He was looking at a wing, and not looking where he was walking. When he landed on the floor of the room under the attic, he was holding a wing that had been suddenly clipped to the exact width of the attic access hole.

Hi

A flyer I know once went slope soaring and hung onto the model, hurling his transmitter down the slope instead. At least his plane remained intact.

Regards KGB

My email address needs "altering" before use

It'd take quite a blow to keep the tx airborne!

Hi

I think the key phrase is "down" the slope; his Tx didn't stay airborne for very long - a matter of feet!! 8^)

Regards

KGB

My email address needs "altering" before use

There was a report of a similar event in RCM&E in 1970 (I have big collection and a long memory!) in one of David Boddington's articles (Sport & Single, post Button Man), in which a nervous modeller launched his tx and held onto the model at a prestigious show.

Me and a friend was going to try floatflying for the first time, but we didnt have any option other then starting the plane from a boat a bit from land (sea-weed), so we went out in the very small boat with a fairly big cessna type of plane, a fieldbox and everything that goes with it.

the starting procedure and lifting the running plane in the water was a whole story of itself, but I'll save that for later...

Once we got the plane started and in the water, it didnt want to go straight due to a bent water-rudder, so he taxied the plane back to the boat and leaned over the side to correct this, when the boat tilted the fieldbox slided to that side of the boat, increasing the tilt, causing the tranny to go overboard and submerge, fortunatly he got a grip of the antenna and pulled the tranny up, but when shifting grip of the tranny he accidently pulled full throttle, and in that split second the tranny decided to give up, leaving us with a unsteerable plane at full throttle across the lake, fortunatly it caught wind and made a big leap crashing down inverted halfway out on the lake...

He has never attempted float flying after this....

Since I do not have a van or some other big vehicle, I use my trusty Honda to carry my models to and from the flying field. I usually put the fuse in the back seat and the wing in the front passenger seat, while all other stuff goes in the trunk. This particular day I put everything in the car to go to the flying field, I got in the car and started it up. Then I hear some cracks, and immediately I look to the right just to see that my automatic seat belt went through my wing, broke 3 ribs...That ended the flying day, even though I did not leave the driveway yet. Learned to be more careful.

Ciprian

Interesting. I used to fly off of floats alot. Never, once, did I attempt to launch from a boat. A boat was only used to fetch planes which could not be taxied back to the beach.

Normally, float planes are started much like they are at a flying field. They are then carried to, and placed into the water. From there they are taxied out into the wind and taken off.

Your account is hilarious. Who would have thought ...

Jim - AMA 501383

GuW wrote:

"James D Jones" Wrote something like this:

We tryed to start it on land and put it into the water, but we couldnt get it to taxi trough some thick sea-weed (probably there we bent the water rudder too) so we did row it out a bit with the small boat.

I'm still going to try float flying, but at another location where I have a perfect launching site, and a boat for retrieving stalled planes (or I might do it the easy way and floatfly electric...) However, I'm going to keep the radio on land as much as possible ;-)