Just a little story.

In my yonger days my buddy and I would take planes out of the trash at the club field (we were members), take them home and fix them. Sure they weighed 25% more due to all the CA but if was fun and we didn't have a lot of money. Time is what we had.

Here's the point/story. A guy crashes a 60 size low wing sport plane. Broke the wing in half, firewall, tail, etc... He takes out the radio, engine, etc and puts it in the trash. We show up later and take it from the trash. At the time of the trashcan diving we didn't know who owned it. The next week we're at the field flying with it. Perfectly rebuild and safe (we had a lot of practice), 6 inch shorter wingspan, patched-work monocoat, a ton of CA and we're having a great time.

Dood (about 40 years old) comes over to us with his buddies to vouch for him and demands we give it back. We were very intimidated and gave it back after taking our stuff out but what the nerve of this guy. He didn't even fly it ever after that. I bet he just put it in his trash at home. We were only 20ish and everybody knew we didn't have a lot of money. Sure it was his plane but he had a lot of planes and a radio for every one of them. Since that I've given better planes away than that (before the crash) in perfect condition. What a jerk.

In addition at other times the same group of guys would tell us we couldn't fly because our plane was not safe because the tire was worn or something silly like that. We had no choice because their "click" pretty much unofficially ran the field and had marked their teritory.

After a couple years I leave the club for unreated reasons. Collage, new familly, kids, etc...

15 years later I join the same club again with my son and the same guy is there. He doesn't remember me and has even exchanged a few words with me telling me how I should help my 10 year old son learn to fly. I smile and respectfully say, "I'll try that, thank you."

[arg typos]