Today I went to the Aerodrome Flight Club Field outside of Camilla, Ga. They have a great field and are a fantastic group of guys who are alot of fun to be around. Even when things went "off center"....

Here's the scoop: I took the Falcon to get my friend to check it out, and to make it short, the "old style" of mounting a single servo in the center of the wing for the ailerons is (a) a massive pain to setup and (b) NOT reliable (in my friend's words). So he did not feel comfortable putting it in the air.... oh well.... (I'll tell you one thing: That 30 year old Webra 10ccm glow engine PULLED LIKE A TRACTOR ON NITROUS OXIDE!!!!! I was REALLY blown away by it, even though it hasn't been run in 15 years!)

BUT what he did have was an old Tower Trainer 60 that he thought I might be interested in, but he didn't have an Rx or battery pack for it with him. We settled on a "trade" deal with an old DVD cf and I talked him into using my Tx, Rx, and battery to get it flying and have some fun, especially with the Falcon out of commission. Quite frankly, this TT60 is a rather ugly plane that spent YEARS in a garage being neglected (wrinkly mylar, kinda ratty looking), but it flew PERFECT (like "look ma! No hands!" kind of long distance level flight). It has an OS .60 engine and Futaba servos so that worked out nicely with my Futaba Tx/Rx setup. The plane is an all wood + balsa and covered in mylar so it's SUPER light for a 60" wingspan plane with a monster OS MAX .60 on the end. In other words that plane would HAUL!!!

We hit the flight line and he "put it through it's paces" just to test it (he hadn't flown it in a couple of years himself! > he's got about 8-10 planes, so flying a "trainer" is just a little boring for him, I guess...). Then he decided to get one of the guys to "buddy cable" me to it...

The "instructor" guy has trained probably 100 people so he knows what he's doing and talking about, plus he's a great guy so I was good with this. He got it up, trimmed it out, and went through a few figure-eights (and a SWEET, PERFECT double aileron roll followed by a Split-S! just for kicks) pointing out this and that about how it flies and how to MAKE it fly. Then he flipped the switch and POOF! I'm in control. Everyone commented that I was doing REMARKABLY well and kept joking that it was really the instructor flying it and not me. I was making nice smooth turns with just a touch of elevator to keep the altitude up and not messing with the throttle b/c that .60 engine on a 6 1/2 lb plane was SCOOTIN' even at 1/3 throttle and I was making nice, smooth turns with very little over-control issues. A couple of "oh, sh**" moments (of course) where he took over (always b/c I held the aileron stick just a LITTLE more than I should have, but mostly to calm me down than anything else ). And I have to say, that flying that plane was just about better than sex! No kidding!!!! I loved it THAT much!!! It was a FANTASTIC feeling and I AM TOTALLY IN LOVE WITH THIS SPORT, HEART AND SOUL FOREVER NOW! It was just a beautiful experience that I can't really describe fully. I guess the best way to put it is just to say "It was Magic and it resonated within me"

Then the world decided I needed an attitude adjustment: he let me get it a little too far down field and over the pine-tree forest...... A BIG gust of sudden wind hit it RIGHT in mid turn and I was at a little too low of an altitude and INSTANTLY the plane went "wings vertical" and it disappeared down into the forest with alot of crunchy sounds...... I was utterly MORTIFIED, HORRIFIED, and wanted to become invisible all at the same time!!! Here I am, a first time guest at a club, with a bunch of guys I've NEVER met, flying a plane that isn't even MINE, and I go and crash it into the woods!!!! [:@] I was so embarassed I couldn't even stand up. I just sat down and put my head in my hands and cussed myself blue for five solid minutes. The instructor thought some of my "colorful phrases" were pretty funny and he kept telling me that it was really HIS fault b/c he shouldn't have let me get that low and that near the trees, especially during the FIRST time I'd EVER touched the sticks on ANY PLANE, but I still felt like a TOTAL IDIOT and a major screwup and cussed for a while longer until I got tired of cussing.

About 4 of us headed off to the woods to see where it went. I wasn't exactly dressed for hiking in dense forests (sandals and shorts!) so the briars were almost as much fun as the FIVE ticks I pulled off of me! I have a feeling that tomorrow my butt is going to look like I lost a fight with a cheese-grater b/c of the "red-bugs" (chiggers to those outside the south). They leave itchy, painful, LARGE red :welts and burrow under your skin to play havoc....Can you say "Un-Fun"? I'm really looking forward to this because there's nothing more impressive to a prospective employer like DEMANDING a Zen Level uncontrollable "butt scratching" during an interview

After about 10 minutes, someone found the elevator on the ground > it had sheared off (but it sheared cleanly, if that means anything). Unfortunately the plane was 50' up in the top of 2 interlaced pine trees about 15" to 18" diameter each. I took a good look at it using someones digital camera zoom and I was shocked to see almost NO damage! Sure, there were a few rips and holes poked in the mylar, but other than that it was just sitting up there like someone placed it there on purpose!

The guys immediately and with NO reservation or hesitation said they'd handle it Monday with a big, long PVC pole to dislodge it (apparently the trees are full of gnomes that hate planes... so to them, it was just another Sunday). I told them I'd drive over and help, just tell me the time, but they absolutely wouldn't let me (not b/c they didn't want my help, but b/c it's a 2 1/2hr drive for me and they didn't want me to waste the gas doing something that would take them 10 minutes at the most. As it turns out, the guy on the other end of the "buddy cable" is also a top-flight builder and volunteered to re-cover the mylar ON THE WHOLE PLANE FOR FREE!!!!!!!! The complete and unsolicited offer to find it, retrieve it, fix it, and do a GREAT job recovering the all the mylar was nothing short of wonderful and extremely kind. They're "just good people" (btw, that's the highest compliment a Southerner can give ).

I'm still completely mortified, horrified, and utterly embarrassed at the fact that I dumped someone else's plane into the top of a pine tree at a club field where I was a 1st time guest and a TOTAL"stick virgin". But the open, honest, willingness from EVERYONE to help to make everything right was really special. I still want the plane (especially if they can knock some of the "ugly" off it! Guys, there are some SERIOUSLY tacky looking birds out there and this trainer got built by a blind man!) and I am really looking forward to visiting again next weekend, even though it's a 2 1/2 hr drive. They want to hook me back up to the buddy cable and continue to train me!

Well, there you have it. My VERY FIRST TIME behind the stick > even with a buddy cable < and I STILL managed to wreck SOMEONE ELSE'S plane! Thank GOD I live in the South and there isn't a shortage of "Good People" here

But as a "First Flight Story", this has GOT to be a chart topper and I still feel terrible for what happened.... But I can say I've learned a valuable lesson about what happens when you hold the aileron stick off-center for ANY more time than 3/4 second!!!

All around, I met some great people and got to (at least for a little while) taste the magic of flying. I just wish it would have ended with me BRINGING THE PLANE HOME! (the guy who actually owned the plane said to heck with it and don't bother retreivig it, but it's got MY receiver and battery inside it and I can't afford to loose those because, being unemployed, my wife ain't letting me drop a single penny on ANYTHING!!!!

I guess it's just another day in paradise on the flight line [sm=tongue_smile.gif]