I've mentioned that an old flying buddy has been offered the use of a rough grass field near his house for C/L. As he hasn't flown for about 55 years, I built a classic British basic trainer, the KeilKraft Champ, to help him get his hand in again. At 20" span, with an ancient Mills .75 diesel and flying on 25' thread lines, it should be the most inoffensive C/L model imaginable and also completely crashproof over longish grass.
Well, last Friday afternoon we put the plan into operation, and if anybody had been on hand with a video camera he would have recorded the most ludicrous farce in the history of model aviation. It started with my first attempt at a test flight.
The Champ has wheels, and takes off fine from short grass: but the rough field demanded a hand launch, and my friend Ginger (he isn't ginger any longer, just grey) was out of practice. He tripped, rolled over like a shot rabbit, and the model, released on slack lines, did a beautiful torque roll and dived straight in.
He did better on the second attempt, and I was delighted to find that the little model flew beautifully at a nice, sedate thirty-odd miles an hour. However, thirty miles an hour on 25' lines (say, 28' from my feet to the model) equates to four seconds a lap, and I soon found that, okay as I normally am with five seconds a lap, four seconds is just a little outside my comfort zone. After ten laps, I was dizzy: after fifteen, I was in deep distress and, this being an unmanoeuvrable basic trainer, did not have the option of a few lazy eights to give me a bit of respite from turning round and round.
What saved me from total humiliation was the little Mills's small-capacity integral tank, meant for free-flight use. I hadn't filled it completely, so it wasn't much over a minute before the engine mercifully cut and the Champ did its usual imitation of a plumber's toolbag, plunging undamaged into the grass while I dropped the handle and reeled around helplessly for a good half-minute like somebody who was drunker than (I swear) I've ever been in my life.
Ginger, warned by this farcical performance, declined to take his turn at the handle, but I tried several more short flights of, say, thirty seconds' duration with some slight improvement before, with much laughter and ribaldry, calling it a day. Next week, if my LHS has the 25% nitro fuel I've ordered, I shall try the Cox-powered Baby Flite Streak - on 35' Spider Wire lines, and capable of aerobatics, it should be a big improvement.
Oh, and the field is quite big enough for 60' lines. I've got the plans for a Super Combat Streak, so that seems like the next logical step: .25 FP-S or an old Merco .29, I wonder...?
Regards
John
Topic: Sorry - No Video! (Read 853 times)
