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 Don’t be a ‘Dave’!
I’d like to share a story in the hopes that it may divert someone doing the same stupid thing that I did. Over the winter, I ordered a “Bob Martin EZ Trainer” from Tower Hobbies, and pieced it together. I was careful with its assembly and proud of the finished product as it did look quite good to me. In the spring, I learned about the Thermal “G” Club and took my pride and joy to the field hoping someone would look it over and maybe even fly it for its maiden voyage. Pulling up in the parking lot I noticed a gentleman unloading a model from his station wagon and approached him with a bazillion questions. Mahlon Hirsh is his name and he provided me with answers while looking over my creation. Tugging on the rudder hinges, the rudder fell off in his hand and he said something about gluing them in. Seems the same needed to be done to all the control hinges, oops. He checked out everything else, balance, control throw & direction, all needed attention. Mahlon told me about the AMA and that I would need to join it before being able to fly at the field. It was a week or so before I could get back with the hinges secured. Mahlon range checked, taxied about a bit and took off smoothly. Flying around for awhile, he offered me my first chance and stood behind me, radio in my hand, his thumbs on mine. He made some comment about having to reach around my belly and flew around a while more, his thumbs working my thumbs on the sticks. Snagging back the radio, he flew some lazy eights and lined up for a landing, sliding her back to earth smooth as silk. All appeared too easy to me. He was flying a Lanzo Record Breaker that day and gave me some solo stick time with it after he had gotten it 10 or 15 mistakes high. Needless to say I was enthralled by the time I had left the field and did nothing but glow over it all that night. The next day I was still buzzing about the day before and prospect of becoming an RC pilot. Firing up my trainer and taxing around the neighborhood a bit, I made the decision to take her to the school yard and give it a fly. Arriving with wife in tow, I unpacked my beloved beauty (airplane that is), banded the wing on and flipped the prop. It started and I leaned her out like I’d seen the guys at the field do, taxied around just a minute or so, then pointed the nose into the wind, took a deep breath and slammed the throttle forward. The response was brisk and she rolled across the field gaining speed until, liftoff! Her nose came up and she left the ground with a roar climbing with her wings nearly level into the sky. I remember entering a shallow right bank and went with it until she was 180 degrees and heading back toward me. Attempting to level her, I entered the wrong input and increased the already steep bank angle. This is when things began to deteriorate quickly as during the whole time I was so busy trying to keep up with the controls and fly the model, I had neglected to reduce the throttle and now she is screaming across the sky, upside down nose angled downward,…I yanked back on the elevator and down she went!. Two or three weeks later I returned to the field and met with Mahlon. He asked where I had been and commented about the change in color to my models covering. Explaining to him the above scenario, he lost composure for a bit, and then told the other guys there and they all had a yuk on me. Oh well, I did have it coming. He proceeded to instruct me though and not too long after, I soloed with the same model, a little worse for wear. That plane evolved into a shoulder wing sport and endured my hard landings until I flew the wings off of it one afternoon a year or so after my first real solo flight.
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