[304065]

I HATE these things. When I was in law school, in an effort to avoid any serious academic exertions, I went down to the hobby shop and bought a beginner plane with a four-channel radio, .40 engine, electric starter, all the garbage you need to get started. Lovingly assembled the thing in about three hours and took it out to fly. First flight, PIO, nosed it in, broke the prop. Put on new wooden prop. Second flight, stalled it just out of ground effect, must have been a rigging problem. New prop on that flight too. Last prop in the box, airborne, crash, this time broke the engine mount. Finals came, had to put hobby on hold.

Next spring I get a "dura-plane" which is basically a square-section PVC tube with an aluminum C-channel tail boom, spring gear, engine mount made of out Kydex so you could jump up and down on it like that ape from the Samsonite commercial. The whole job held together with rubber bands and thick ACC. You see, somebody figured out that beginners to model aviation do nothing but crash their planes, so this is built for maximum durability.

First flight. CG out of limit aft. Climb under power to about 100' and stall. A/c coming STRAIGHT down toward parking lot. Friends, JP included, dive for cover. I stay at the stick and ride it in. A/c hits the pavement, narrowly missing JP, at approximately 130 MPH. Pieces of magnesium muffler, bits of wooden prop, hunks of square-section plastic tubing go flying EVERYWHERE.

I pulled the remnants out of the engine out of the wrecked fuselage, and threw the entire assembly, dripping with a pink mixture of nitromethane and castor oil, into the nearest trash barrel. Gave all the stuff, radio, engine, starter, hobbyist box to my brother-in-law along with a new airplane Kit for Christmas.

He's an engineer, but I think he's had the wisdom to leave it in the box.

Flying one of those dangerous, high-pitched toys is WAY harder than flyign a real airplane. And a lot more dangerous.

You can have 'em.