Never ever let a three year old have the controls of your plane either. I was doing okay with my instructor up until the point where I added my kids names to the cockpit windows of my Hangar 9 Arrow. I went through about a dozen touch and go patterns last night and was on a go round for another flyers deadstick. It was after sundown and the illumination was very good but the distance was a bit much. I turned inverted and cruised quite comfortably for around two or three hundred feet....still further and further away.... My down elevator turned a nice invert into a slow roll....which turned to a slow dive... WHICH at 3/4 throttle turned into a fast dive.

A loss of recognition of the english language and two extremely slow thumbs turned into what I can only expect was a spectacular seeding of the back forty just over yonder rise in the field. Wing leading edge broken in three or four places, airplane about 16 inches shorter, engine half a cylinder deep in the ground....I'm only really disappointed that it was over the edge of the hill cause I'm sure I would have come up with something far wittier to say than ' Oh Poop '. Lesson learned - "If the plane is going down, pulling the right stick back is the first thing to do".

We had a pylon race today which I volunteered for. I happened to be marshalling my instructors plane on the number one pylon which he didn't cut once . After making sure he knew his very good timing I asked what it takes to earn my wings. He replied "the last lesson will be stall and spin recovery, then you're done". We all had a good chuckle and the new Arrow (ARF) will be ordered on Monday. Keep smiling and having fun....

Ryan