I can remember going to the "flying field" which was literally that, a field. The standing rule was show up Sunday afternoon about 2:30. Usually 5 or 6 people would
show up. 3 of those had airplanes. The radios were either galloping ghost or reeds. One guy wouldn't be able to get his engine running. Another guy would have
radio problems so wouldn't fly. The guy that got his engine running created alot of excitement, he would "hand launch" his high wing cabin balsa and silk airplane with a running start and up. up, up it would go. Then it would crash badly. We would all walk out and help pick up oily pieces and walk them back to the row of cars parked in the grass. That was a good day. The crashes varied, sometimes a wing would fold in the middle. Sometimes the plane would just dive into the ground engine screaming! The smell of hot nitro and caster oil in the air. The local druggist mixed our fuel for us.
Radio failure or fumble thumbs? Who knows? One time a very accomplished builder and flyer showed up was flying a 48" wingspan high wing with a .19 engine. It looked something like a boxy Cessna 150. He flew it alot. He had a red box citizenship radio, and the rudder hinges were black electical tape.It was a beautiful blue day he was laying on his back with his transmitter on his chest. The little engine was buzzing along at half throttle or less, the model was a black sllhouette high up aginst the sky. You could see a faint trail of caster oil smoke behind the plane up there, in fact it was so high up that was about the only way to find it if you looked away, as the engine sound would fade in and out with the breeze. Suddenly there was a strange noise, then utter silence! The engine had quit ! Then Look ! Something dropped off the plane!. It dipped a couple of times and then went into a flat spin. We all watched in amazement as the little blue and red plane came spinning right down and touched on the nose wheel and stopped, It was unscathed. The engine was Gone! We formed a line to comb the grass for the engine which we found in the weeds.