Jeremy very well done. "You Canadians are O.K. - A - ". In reading your post I felt a lump in my throat. Why you may ask, because I too wanted to be a pilot in the service. Due to a head injury when I was 3 years old, I was denied even being able to enlist. I sat around wallowing in my misery for 2 years bouncing from job to job, When I met my wife to be. "GOD I LOVE THIS WOMAN"

She gave me new inspiration and a new outlook on life. Long story short she restored my passion and love. She enroled me in flight school to get my private license, then she supported me in buying my very fist full scale airplane a Cessna 120. One thing led to another and now I am a commercial airline pilot no its not flying mach 2 or being on the cutting edge of technology, but none the less it is flying. It is what I love to do it is me.

With a wife and daughter and one more on the way. My hobby has taken 4 th. place in my life. When turbines first started to come on the scene I could not wait to get my hands on one. After a year of saving my monthly model allowance, I bought one. I was so excited I checked the tracking information on it daily sometimes twice a day. It finally arrived and the work began 4 months later it was ready my pride and joy. It even got to stay in the house.

I take it out for it's maiden flight fire it up and taxi out. "The entire club is here to see this being the first one to jump into turbines!"! I start feeding in some throttle and she starts to track down the run way. As she starts to rotate the feeling that I got was a sense of I finally did it I am a fighter pilot flying a high performance piece of machinery on the cutting edge of technology. In more ways than one that instant summarized my dreams and my life. There she goes trim her out and fly the patch.

I enter the pattern and state my intentions on landing, I am on final when some one starts to yell go around! Lost in the moment and in seventh heaven I heard the yelling but a combination of emotions and confusion I proceeded. She touches down and starts to roll out as it goes by me I see that there is an airplane in the middle of the runway so I punch the throttle to go around as it started to rotate I tried to force it off the ground to soon. I had a power on STALL and in she went.

It was a new guy who came in to land so that he can watch the turbine land. He thought he had enough time to get his model. Yes he would of had enough time if his engine would of kept running. The poor guy felt awful and offered me his trainer to compensate for the accident. I tried to explain to him that it was not his fault and I should of been more aware and alert.

To this day that fellow and I are best of pals. Yes it did hurt to see my pride and joy bite the big one, but you know it is all a part of this hobby. I cant afford to go out and buy another one so I am slowly repairing this one and saving my allowance to buy another.

What really gets me is that after the crash I heard some of the members saying, If I put that kind of money into something I would never fly it. My answer to them was then don't build it and save your money. Another member said well at least you can afford to build another one. I told him no I cant I am going to rebuild this one. What I am getting at is that only a few of the members knew what this jet meant to me but a good portion of them saw me as mister money bags flying his turbine and 30% airplanes. These members did not know the significance and sacrifice behind this project. I wonder how they would react to this.

I learned a long time ago not to judge some one on there appearance or classify them into a status bracket, because 9 times out of 10 you are wrong. When you get to know an individual you learn a lot about them and you learn a lot about you.

So keep them flying and here is to keeping the dream and passion alive.