This fits in that "Ripley's Believe it or Not" column. About 25 years ago, I built the Midwest Pattern Master and flew it wearing out two engines. The plane was a great flyer. I just didn't realize what a great flyer it could be. On it's last flight a friend was also flying a Chipmunk all decked out with smoke and also a real nice flyer. We were the only two at the field. As he circled left doing a knife edge, I was circling right when the 1 in 1000 chance of collision occurred. After the loud thump followed by silence, his plane went down in glory. At the time, that was about $350 in 1990 dollars. For some unknown reason, my Pattern Master was still flying albeit a little squirrely. I knew something was wrong so I kept level flight and did a slow descending turn, with no engine on, gliding towards the main part of the landing field. As I bled off speed, I noticed that the right wing started to dip causing the plane to veer slightly to the right. I compensated with aileron and a bit of rudder. At landing speed, as the plane approached the ground, I couldn't hold any more left aileron as the plane settled down on the field and it cartwheeled ever so slightly. The plane landed and I walked over to see what happened.

The propeller was broke; the front nose wheel was gone, pulled out; and the right wing had a big bite taken out of the leading edge about 1/3rd out from the fuselage. A closer look at this 1 inch by about 4 inch rectangular hole in the wing revealed that not only was the leading edge missing, but also the main spar. All that was holding the wing together was the trailing edge, the aileron and the remaining Monokote covering that wasn't torn off! The Chipmunk bit a sizeable hole out of my wing with it's wing tip. It just sliced through it!

What I realized afterwards was that as I turned and bled off air speed, the lifting pressure was holding the wing up tight against any remaining structure enough to keep it flying. As airspeed bled off, so did the lift and the wing started to droop and then turn the plane. Fortunately I was able to save it for another day anticipating a future rebuild. It was stored away with many other now relic RC stuff.

Well, time flew by and life happens until this year when I had the opportunity to get back into flying RC airplanes. I'm building a bucket list 1/5 scale airplane, but I thought I might resurrect that pattern plane that I had so much fun with i.e. fly in the Summer and build in the Winter. The plane was just rebuilt and refitted with the latest radio gear, a Taranis system and I now have her ready to fly again. See pictures. She's not as pretty as she once was. There's a lot of oil soaked Monokote and a few minor dings, but I'll bet she will fly as well as she did back then. I'll just have to learn to fly her all over again. I managed to scavenge some old Irvine .40 Mk II engines from the internet as I wanted to just drop in a newer engine without redoing the whole front end with a new and different motor. Since I built the front end like a bullet nose, it's pretty tight up front.

I trust those that built and have flown this model can appreciate a well designed kit and nice flying airplane. Even one that can survive a mid air collision.