Second Flight

By: Peter Jay  

My first flight was with my brother’s plane, where we ended up crashing our plane into a tree over the river, luckily it fell on the bank. Then we crashed into a tall pine tree, where the plane’s wings fell off, and the plane became stuck in the top of the tree. After some time and somewhat of a struggle, hitting the top of the tree with a pipe, we finally removed the plane from the tree. The wings were off, and they had been chopped up somewhat by the propeller that was located above the plane, between the wings. The plane was still in condition to be able to fly again, once we did a little work on it and took it to a safer area. That was until our parakeets pecked it to pieces, but that is another story. For this one, we will just stick with my airplane which we took for the first flight of my plane and the second flight of my radio control airplane flying career.

My second flight occurred several days later. We went to a more open area without any trees around, the high school football field. Surely, we could fly our plane safely there without crashing into anything and destroying it. Well, I took off with my first flight with my own radio control model airplane at the high school. My plane took off pretty fast. I still kept the throttle to high when I flew. It shot up in the air quickly and started flying away so fast, that it was hard to control. I tried to turn so that it would loop back. It was on the other side of the field already though. It took off heading a little to the right of us, so I tried to turn it left. It tilted slightly to the left, then tilted a little too much so that it lost its lift and began to fall rapidly. I turned it back going straight again as soon as it would, but now it was heading away from me again. It could soon be out of range so that I would not be able to control it, or it could keep going straight and land on the high school.

I tried to turn it again, but this time not so sharply. I gradually turned the plane to the left again. It still began to lose altitude, but not as quickly. The worst that could happen is it would crash into the grass. I would go pick it up and fly it again. Gradually it turned, and gradually it lost altitude, still going at full throttle, however. Then suddenly it was going too low. It was aiming straight for the bleachers on the other side of the field. I quickly pulled back on my control to make the plane life above the bleachers. Whack! It was too late. My radio control model aircraft went slamming right into the pole on the top of the bleachers. The radio control airplane model looked like it exploded. The pieces were flying everywhere. There has probably never been a worse airplane wreck than this one was. It flew full speed, streamlining into that pole on the bleachers. My flight time lasted about 30 seconds, before my plane was destroyed.

When I went to survey the damage, the pieces were everywhere. Fortunately, it could all be put back together, except the tail. The tail wings had been split in half, and would have to be replaced. Until then, my plane was grounded. The main wings were chopped up by the propeller a little, but they were still usable. The part that connected the wings together and to the plane was broken in half too, but I was still able to fix that part. It took some time, but in the end my radio control airplane would rise again.

Peter Jay is the Owner/President and CEO of Variety Access – Your online hobby store and more. For more information about hobbies, hobby products, or Variety Access, go to VarietyAccess.com.


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