Thanks, Robert.
As it happens[X(]I have a funny, flip-side story to that. Back when I still lived in Maine, I was at a meet where I met a guy who was a newbie, and he didn't have a lot of money, but he wanted so badly to fly. He had built a plane using no balsa at all. He had taken a clear plank of cedar, and he had run it through a table saw and made (as I remember) 3/16" square sticks, and had built the entire plane from that stock. The other guys in his club ridiculed the plane, and made fun of it, calling it "kindling." He was a good-natured sort, and took that name and ironed the word KINDLING onto the side of the plane. None of them would fly it, said it wouldn't fly. None of them even touched it. He brought it over to me and said the guys in my club told him to bring it to me, and told him that if anybody could fly it, I could.

The plane looked quite good. In fact, it could have been a Sig Kadet, looking at it, except for the wider wingspan. I hefted it. Not bad at all. I checked out his linkages. He had done a good, careful job, better than a lot of guys I know. He even made old-style stick-linkages from the cedar, and had hand-planed them into rounded sticks. It all checked out, so we started the glow motor, and it was a pretty used motor, but ran okay. Everybody watched (and his "buddies" jeered), and it took off and flew beautifully, and I flew it around for a while, trimmed it out, and handed it back to him, and stood with him, helping him to learn how to fly. The next fifteen minutes were the best of his life, he said. Then, the motor quit, and he said, "Oh, my!" and handed it to me. I brought it around to prepare for landing, when the plane suddenly lifted 20 feet. A thermal! I banked around and caught the thermal, again and again, and again. The plane went from 100 feet to over 300 feet without an engine. I kept it up there another 15 minutes just chasing thermals, and when I had to bring it down, it landed beautifully.

It rolled out right in front of us, and I said (loud enough for his jeering buddies to hear) that it was one of the nicest planes I've ever had the privilege to fly. I dared anybody else to take any other plane up and do the same as Kindling had done. I knew no gliders were there, of course.

That fellow was SO proud that day, and he should have been. Talk about some fine, careful work. Not a mean bone in his body. And how often do we really get to see that look in a newbie's eye, the same look that was in our own so many years ago?

I've often wondered whether he pursued his flying after that. I hope so. To me, the joy of flying is what it's all about. I have a limited number of friends I've accumulated over the years, a select few scattered across Maine and the rest of the country, but each of them truly LOVE to fly. I know we'll always be friends, and I know that as long as our (now older) eyes can see the planes, we'll be flying. And when we can't see them up there anymore? You'll probably find us at the work tables, helping the newbies to sort out their problems.

~ Jim ~