After months of building the Piper Cub, Doug finished it last weekend. He and the boys worked on and off on this since November, and the weather was in full cooperation for a first flight. Doug tuned the engine in the yard, and taxied around with the boys chasing him and the plane. The engine is quite noisy, but everyone was pretty proud of the plane.
The picture above is one of the last shots of the intact Piper Cub. What a beautiful plane! Everyone was so happy...
We drove out to Garipay fields: Home of successful rocket launches, skiing, and now, remote control airplane flying. The plane started right up, and Doug started it into the wind. Apparently there was some miscommunication, because this was not more taxiing; this was the first flight. The plane took off quickly and rolled to the right as soon as it left the ground. Doug corrected the roll, but then the plane went up, before rolling to the right again. At this point it was probably 50 feet off the ground, and doing some crazy tricks. These were not intentional. The boys were silent, Doug was struggling, and I was kind of yelling/groaning in the background. The plane eventually flew straight up and Doug jammed on the throttle to avoid a stall. Good news: Stall avoided. Bad news: The plane was going REALLY fast and never pulled out of a dive. This was, as a result, also the plane's last flight. It hit the ground at about a 45 degree angle with a dull thud. The engine compartment was buried in the ground, and the rest of the plane broke into a number of pieces. The verdict: No salvage possible. The engine can be rebuilt and the radio was ok. We found the fuel tank and the propeller several feet away. Nicholas remarked that the windows weren't broken, and Donovan was sure that the wheels will still work.
Our driveway turned into the FAA investigation hangar.
On returning home, it was pretty clear that this bothered the boys as much as it bothered Doug, so we dug up the most recent Tower Hobbies catalogue for some retail therapy. Doug's goal was to find an inexpensive, "easy to fly, forgiving trainer" aircraft. Within an hour, a new plane was on order. This improved Nicholas' mood. Doug still had to go for a long run.
Fast forward 5 days. The new plane arrived in a giant box. The mood was decidedly more upbeat in the house. It was kind of like Christmas for all of the boys. Of course, the most exciting thing for everyone under the age of 30 was popping the air-wrap packing material. Lilian even got into it, but she can only stomp lightly on the bubbles, and most of the time she just falls over.
Note the package: "Absolutely the best way to fly." Good thing...we know a way that didn't really work.
Not many pieces this time. We've already built character through building an airplane. Time to get some flight hours in.
Construction has started, and the instruction manual is significantly more detailed than the piper cub. Doug takes most of the responsibility for the crash...but the Piper Cub was an E-Bay special, with a 6 page instruction manual that had no words. It was a challenge for Doug to know whether the plane was set up correctly, and the new airplane has lots and lots of tips and warnings for the first flight. Stay tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment