[color=#FF0099]Gentlemen (JR, Bruce, Alan, Bill, Dick, etc),
Greetings and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! I hope it is a healthy, and prosperous one for all of us! I just caught up on the thread....hysterical stuff as usual... had a nasty computer virus, [:'(][:@] so I've been out of touch, but I'm BACK NOW!!! ......besides, I've been in my closet trying to pack for the trip down-under!!!!
Been flying of course. Even flew on Christmas Eve! Made Christmas trees for Joel and Ray with airplanes on them of course, and Fockers as the star on top!
.......and then there was today (or yesterday I should say) New Years Eve! Got to the field just after a mid-air (should have taken it as an omen)....
I was holding the tail of my "running" Funtana on the taxiway, Terrence had the radio, and David (in the first pilot cage with a student up on a buddy box), hollered heads up to me. [X(] A plane was on the ground and headed towards me and my plane, I scurried out of the way still holding the tail of my running plane, Terrence grabbed the wing of the runaway plane with his free hand and held on while it tried to turn on him, and the owner threw something on the prop to stop it.....but we aren't finished yet....David then immediately said "where's my plane?". He had started "looping" it to warn me and lost sight of it, so there we all were in chaos till Terrence spotted it out in the field "landed and listing"..... again...I should've considered it an omen, but we took off anyway and the Funtana flew beautifully until......
...long story short, I pancaked my Funtana 40 on the runway when landing (no damage, just ripped off the gear) .....and then proceeded to dead stick my SkyRaider twice....the first was a beautiful dead stick landing on the runway.....the 2nd....I should've just put her on the ground....but no, not me.....I always have to make it to the runway....so there I was, too low when I dead sticked and ended up cartwheeling and ripping of half the horizontal stab and elevator. Joel fixed it at the field, and I have to put a piece of balsa on the corner of the elevator in the morning...
A first for me....I never came to the field with 2 perfectly good airplanes and left with 2 not so perfect planes before!!! [:@]
David and I are going to do tandem take-offs and landings as well as play "tag" tomorrow with my SkyRaider and one of his old teaching trainer planes...so she "has" to be airworthy by mid-day (weather permitting)
Bev