My buddy Bob had a K&B Ready to fly, all aluminum, folded aluminum sheet, delta wing, with trike gear. It even had some other brand, probably K&B, .049 engine that ran surprisingly well. I had a Cox TD-3 that I wouldn't fly because I was afraid, I'd crash it. I was actually 12, Bob was 13.

One Saturday Bob & I decided we were going to learn how to fly those "String" airplanes. Bob lived at the end of a Cul-D-Sac near San Dimas, and wouldn't you just know it the circle and line length were perfect. Of course, we didn't think to bring our arm's length into the calculation. Bob had a dozen props and a pint of Thimble Drome fuel that his mother had given him for Christmas, or maybe it was his birthday.

We got everything all set up, we'd both seen the older guys set up and work with the pit and launching the planes, so we thought we knew how to do all that......really. Any way, it was about 10:00 AM. no traffic in the Cul-De-Sac. Since it was Bobs airplane, and he was much bigger than me, He got to try first.

That little K&B .049 started up pretty easily for us. All the times we had started it up and run a tank through it just to be amazed that it ran, just like a real engine. First attempt, the engine was screaming, we didn't know that it would lean out once airborne.  Of course, we never saw it airborne long enough for it to lean out, at first. Yep, you guessed it. Figure 9s. We went through a dozen props in as many attempts.

It was about 1:00 in the afternoon, we were sitting on the curb, trying to figure out what we were doing wrong, when Bob's Mom, yep, she was a Single mom, and Bob was the oldest of two children. His sister was, at that time, in her "Bratty" stage, so we mostly ignored her. Anyway, his mom came out to see how we were doing and let us know that lunch was ready. Bob told her we'd broken all the props and couldn't fly (Like we'd even made a lap yet.) ANYMORE, until we could afford to buy some props. Kids allowances were much smaller in those days. We figured it'd take 2 weeks if we both saved up all of our allowance to buy, maybe, 5 or 6 props.

We told her our sad tale while starting to gather all our stuff. She told us to go in and have lunch, and try to think out what the problem was, which we did. After-all, it was about the hottest time of the day in SoCal Summertime. While eating lunch, we brainstormed, well, as much as two boys, 12- and 13-years old could. We finally realized that perhaps we should quit holding full up all the time.

When we went back out, our stuff was sitting by the curb, and on top of it all was a paper bag. Mind you, we hadn't noticed that Bob's mom and sister were not around while we ate lunch. Inside that paper bag was about a half a dozen propellors. She had taken the bratty sister, who would have tried to mess with our minds, and drove into town and bought all the props in that size that the "Five and Dime" had.

2 broken props later, we both managed to fly that sturdy aluminum Delta until the small tank was empty. After that day, I don't believe my buddy Bob ever flew again but look what a ride I've had!

Those were the days.  My brothers didn't know I had a plane.  But local hardware had an AJ Fire baby.  Which I bought and not knowing better mounted my engine to it.  We were having a picnic and everybody was there.  I showed my brothers the plane.  Needless to say lines were hooked up and nuetral set.  I did a lot of reading back then on plane set ups.  My brother Bob started the engine an brother Bill launched the plane. Do you know how fast that goes on 15 foot lines. 9 laps later I hit the ground stopping the engine.  I could not even stay vertical I wa so dizzy.  It was suggested that I get longer lines.  The rest is history.  Brother Howard was laughing so hard he fell down.  I don't think I ever truely thanked my brothers for the support they gave me.