Dumb stuff we have done

[Mike Griffin]

Some time ago, I was having a conversation with Eric Rule and we got to talking about dumb things we have done over the years that relate to building and flying model planes.  I told him a story about how I built a wing, installed the bellcrank and then sheeted right over it without installing the pushrod.  He one upped me by telling me he once built a wing and completely forgot to put a bellcrank in it.  We laughed and shared a few more.

Soooo, I thought it might be fun to swap some "dumb things we have done" over the years when building or flying.  I will start it off by sharing a couple of the bonehead things I have done....besides the bellcrank thing.

I am notorious for building wings and forgetting to put the tip weight box in.  So I started putting one on the workbench in plain sight so I would no forget it and STILL for get sometimes to do it. 

One day while flying alone and launching off a stooge,  I managed to get the stooge line completely wrapped around both ankles and had to do lazy eights until the plane ran out of fuel and then I had to hop like a bunny to try and land the darn thing.  You will only do this once.

OK, anybody else want to share any not so proud building or flying goofs?

Mike

[Larry Fernandez]

I done so many dumb things that I don’t even know where to start.

Larry, Buttafucco Stunt Team

[Dennis Leonhardi]

Oh Boy!  I’m gonna claim the title of “Dumbest” here ...  A flying memory I’ll never forget:

I grew up in Owatonna, a small (but modern & classy) town in Southern Minnesota.  We were fortunate to have an area we could fly in provided by a major business in town, land they weren’t using.

It ran north-south with a residential street on the east side, and railroad tracks running along the west side.

One Sunday, the engine in my good friend Tom’s airplane decided to fly off on its own.  That was completely unexpected - OK, we were just kids, but Tom was an excellent builder.

The bad news is it landed on the lawn of an elderly woman, perhaps 25-30 feet away from her as she worked on her lawn on that residential street.

When the excitement subsided, the police were convinced it was something of a freak accident.  We decided we could resume flying a couple of hours later.

I would fly literally anything I could beg, buy or steal (OK, not that) and had a Sterling Mustang that had seen its better days.  The wing-fuselage joint was “iffy”, but ...

Sure enough, a short time into flight the fuselage with a Fox 35 up front decided to venture off on its own and ended its journey on the roof of a small railroad building along the track.

Several of us started walking toward the building and then stopped to watch as ... a police car drove up.  When the officer asked how things were going, we all of course assured him everything was under control, and we were having a great time.

Had he pulled up about 2 minutes later as I retrieved the fuselage from the roof ...  Thank goodness we’ll never know!


Dennis

[James Holford]

Going into Stunt is my #1

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[Mike Griffin]

I done so many dumb things that I don’t even know where to start.

Larry, Buttafucco Stunt Team

We need details Larry.  Cmon…..fess up.  LOL

Mike

[Mike Griffin]

Going into Stunt is my #1

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

That made me belly laugh Jamie. 

Mike

[Mike Griffin]

Oh Boy!  I’m gonna claim the title of “Dumbest” here ...  A flying memory I’ll never forget:

I grew up in Owatonna, a small (but modern & classy) town in Southern Minnesota.  We were fortunate to have an area we could fly in provided by a major business in town, land they weren’t using.

It ran north-south with a residential street on the east side, and railroad tracks running along the west side.

One Sunday, the engine in my good friend Tom’s airplane decided to fly off on its own.  That was completely unexpected - OK, we were just kids, but Tom was an excellent builder.




The bad news is it landed on the lawn of an elderly woman, perhaps 25-30 feet away from her as she worked on her lawn on that residential street.

When the excitement subsided, the police were convinced it was something of a freak accident.  We decided we could resume flying a couple of hours later.

I would fly literally anything I could beg, buy or steal (OK, not that) and had a Sterling Mustang that had seen its better days.  The wing-fuselage joint was “iffy”, but ...

Sure enough, a short time into flight the fuselage with a Fox 35 up front decided to venture off on its own and ended its journey on the roof of a small railroad building along the track.

Several of us started walking toward the building and then stopped to watch as ... a police car drove up.  When the officer asked how things were going, we all of course assured him everything was under control, and we were having a great time.

Had he pulled up about 2 minutes later as I retrieved the fuselage from the roof ...  Thank goodness we’ll never know!


Dennis

Dennis this got me to really laughing because you painted a great mental picture...I am still chuckling as I am writing this.

Mike

[Dave Harmon]

I had just bought a new Frog 15 diesel and put it on some forgettable airplane....musta been about 57'.
After a couple of nice flights the engine suddenly quit.
It turned out that one of the motor mount bolts came out of the fuselage and went into the radial exhaust!!
The piston chomped down on the bolt....and that was THAT!
Of course this completely destroyed a great engine.
I guess I didn't realize that a diesel vibrated a lot more than a glow engine...even a Fox!
I probably forgot to tighten the bolts because the other 3 were very loose.

[Dwayne]

I've done the stooge thing a couple of times, and just last summer I didn't notice that I had the prop backwards on a plane. 

[John Park]

I once built a wing, installed the bellcrank and went to thread the flexible leadouts through the holes in the ribs - only to find I'd forgotten to cut any holes.  In my free-flight days I also, on two occasions, built two identical tapered wing panels - i.e.two right-hand instead of one right and one left.  Several modellers of my acquaintance admit to having done the same thing - but only once!

John

[Mike Griffin]

This is good stuff guys.  Keep em coming.  I am beginning to feel normal again. 

Mike

[Leonard Bourel]

Ya I can relate to all these things. I have glued at least two tip weight boxes into the tops of wings and my favorite was the time I was building my first green box nobler and glued the wing in upside down and realized it just after the epoxy had dried. I almost cried that day!

[Peter in Fairfax, VA]

Taking off without a pre-flight check to make sure controls aren't reversed.  Followed by taking off with controls known reversed with the idea that I could think my way through reversed controls.

[Avaiojet]

Built this scale cockpit from scratch using over 300 separate pieces.

That's about as dumb as one can get.

[Glen Peterson]

Our club does a demo during a small air show at an airport that we hold our meetings. I had a new Magnum that was flying great up to the time of the show. With each flight it seemed to hunt more and more. All the best minds of course were giving advice. I was quite dejected because I could not show off how “great” I was or the new plane LOL.
When I got the plane home, I found the screw to secure the slider for the leadouts had come loose and fell off. That was a new line on my checklist.

[pat king]

After I had learned to fly, I was still in the Air Force, I built a Riley Wooten Quicky Rat. We didn't know from any "pull test".  After much abuse it was cranked up to about 110 MPH on a flight when the wing pulled completely out of the airplane. The pushrod pulled half of the elevator and horizontal stabilizer off the airplane. Fortunately shortly after the wing and lines (read most of the aerodynamic drag) departed from the airplane the spinning airplane caused the engine to stop. I have no idea how fast that thing could have gone without the wing and lines.

Pat

[Mike Griffin]

I have a low headroom ceiling fan in my shop and I have taken the end off of a few wings by forgetting it was there.   I cant count the number of times I have glued my finger to something on the plane when using thin CA. 

Mike

[John Hammonds]

Well, Not building or flying but....

As a much younger person and for reasons known only to myself I was once casually flicking the prop on a diesel combat model while riding to the the local flying site on a crowded bus.

I can see you are all ahead of me at this point so I'll say no more other than F!"£$ng hell an Oliver Tiger Mk IV is bloody loud in a confined space.

It would have been a very long walk home if my dad hadn't agreed to come and pick my up (After he had finally stopped laughing).

TTFN
John.
 

[Jim Carter]

   Well, I've got a sequence of pictures that ought to fire up the imaginations as to how this came about … on 60' lines!!   

[Dennis Leonhardi]

Mike, Thanks for tossing this out.  Guys, Thanks for your stories!  Best darned comedy club around!

Upside down wing ?  I'll never feel the same ridding a bus again …


Dennis

[Dick Pacini]

I was practicing for the '75 NATS with a new airplane that had trike gear.  Almost from the moment my flying buddy let it go, I realized the needle was no good and it never got above a fat 4 cycle.  Rather than spend 7 or so minutes trying to keep this hog in the air, I set it down and taxied around on the pavement.  I hollered to my buddy to rag the prop when it came by, which he did perfectly.  At that moment, the whole nose snapped off and gyrated until the prop was gone, allowing a shaft run for a few seconds until the motor set up solid.  Now, we had used rag brakes many times to stop an engine and never had this happen..  I was able to repair the plane but it came out overweight and was never right. I converted it into a tail dragger in an effort to lighten it up a bit but it was no use.  I still have the plane hanging in the basement.

[Mike Griffin]

Mike, Thanks for tossing this out.  Guys, Thanks for your stories!  Best darned comedy club around!

Upside down wing ?  I'll never feel the same ridding a bus again …


Dennis

Dennis I think that it is important that we laugh at ourselves every once in a while.  We don't do this often enough.

Mike

[Gerald Arana]

Some time ago, I was having a conversation with Eric Rule and we got to talking about dumb things we have done over the years that relate to building and flying model planes.  I told him a story about how I built a wing, installed the bellcrank and then sheeted right over it without installing the pushrod.  He one upped me by telling me he once built a wing and completely forgot to put a bellcrank in it.  We laughed and shared a few more.

Soooo, I thought it might be fun to swap some "dumb things we have done" over the years when building or flying.  I will start it off by sharing a couple of the bonehead things I have done....besides the bellcrank thing.

I am notorious for building wings and forgetting to put the tip weight box in.  So I started putting one on the workbench in plain sight so I would no forget it and STILL for get sometimes to do it. 

One day while flying alone and launching off a stooge,  I managed to get the stooge line completely wrapped around both ankles and had to do lazy eights until the plane ran out of fuel and then I had to hop like a bunny to try and land the darn thing.  You will only do this once.

OK, anybody else want to share any not so proud building or flying goofs?

Mike

Mike, I too wrapped the stooge line around my ankles. After two or three wraps I thought "What the 'L am I going to do?" So I inverted my plane and unwound the line. Problem solved!

Jerry

[Gerald Arana]

Well, Not building or flying but....

As a much younger person and for reasons known only to myself I was once casually flicking the prop on a diesel combat model while riding to the the local flying site on a crowded bus.

I can see you are all ahead of me at this point so I'll say no more other than F!"£$ng hell an Oliver Tiger Mk IV is bloody loud in a confined space.

It would have been a very long walk home if my dad hadn't agreed to come and pick my up (After he had finally stopped laughing).

TTFN
John.

Now that's funny!

Jerry

[Mike Danford]

Seems I’m not so special after all...

I’ve got three of these stories under my belt!

1.  Covered the wing without threading the lead outs, out...

2.  Tied my ankles together with the stooge line.

3.  Ground looped while trying to shut the plane off by landing while still powered... 

Ah, these stories are quite a lot like a trip down memory lane!!  Oh wait, anyone else forget to glue the elevator hinges?  The control horn kept the elevator from actually departing, but didn’t prevent the inevitable crash!

Tools

[Peter in Fairfax, VA]

Flew on green box Nobler on .012 lines which were kinked.  They broke. 

[Ken Culbertson]

Oh wait, anyone else forget to glue the elevator hinges? 

Elevator - Never     Flaps? well that's different.   Now tell me that you electric types never forgot to swap the motor leads when you changed from a pusher to a tractor prop?

Ken

[Dennis Leonhardi]

Elevator - Never     Flaps? well that's different.   Now tell me that you electric types never forgot to swap the motor leads when you changed from a pusher to a tractor prop?

Ken

Always knew some here are kinda ………   backward?


 

[Ken Culbertson]

Always knew some here are kinda ………   backward?


 

Careful now, I have seen that one from a former National Champion who will remain nameless.     My personal claim to shame was forgetting to check my controls and taking off with them locked on full up.  Who says that you can't do a 5' radius.  I was able to fix some alignment issues when I rebuilt the nose.  Ever forget to hook the plane into the stooge before letting it go?  Nobody did that.  And for those of us that predate thongs, there was a reason they printed "UP" on the EZ-Just and Hot Rock.

Nobody

[Steve Dwyer]

I was in my freshman year in high school in 1961 when my English teacher decided we should practice our public speaking by bringing in a prop to use for demonstration. I had just completed my Frank Baker design scratch-built ME109 so I decided to use it for my presentation. We were to follow a format but I quickly realized after a brief discussion about the construction I was getting off-topic with the many questions about flying. It was a fairly large 48" model and thinking it would be cool I had placed a good size decal on one wing of a girl in a bikini kneeling with arms over her head that was very visible. I could see from the look on the teacher's face she was not pleased with the attention the decal was getting. The teacher was a spinster old gal never married I recall with little sense of humor. One of the guys yelled out why didn't I put a decal of a nude girl on the plane instead. The class went out of control and the teacher said, Mr. Dwyer, I think that will be enough please sit down. My grade for the presentation I recall was not good, stupid of me I guess.

Steve

[Mike Danford]

My prop was a Sig Fokker with a Fox 35... hehe, I started it up in the classroom!  I knew it was gonna be loud, but I kinda underestimated just how loud in a small closed classroom.  And kinda underestimated just how smoked out we were gonna get.  And perhaps didn’t think about how THE REST OF THE WHOLE SCHOOL was gonna freak out by the disturbance.  No muffler whatsoever... it was awesome!

Freshman year as well...  Ms Gordon’s class.

Tools

[Steve Dwyer]

I love it, that certainly topped my presentation.

[Ken Culbertson]

I love it, that certainly topped my presentation.

It is nice to be reminded that we all were Freshmen once and would probably like to be one again, but given what we do for a hobby, most of us still are --- and loving every minute of it!

[Dwayne]

Dennis I think that it is important that we laugh at ourselves every once in a while.  We don't do this often enough.

Mike

Ahmen to that my friend. 

[Steve Dwyer]

Ken,

I agree with you 100% and it's not hard to find ourselves easily back there again. Like when I go to the park on a summer evening and flip over the model tied to the stooge. That distinct aroma will always bring me back to the late 50s in my early teens at a nearby flying field. Something about the fresh-cut grass and the smell of Fox Superfuel late in the day at the East Greenbush Airport that has never left my psyche and I hope it never will.

Steve

[Dennis Saydak]

The dumbest thing I've ever done is to get involved with any hobby. Hobbies are a money losing proposition.
The gov't is trying to shut down the model aircraft hobby because of a bunch of "droniies"  and the government & environmentalists are trying to shut down the shooting & fishing hobby/sports. It's a good thing I didn't take up chasing wimmins like some folks did. Phooey, I don't know what I'll do next! Maybe contemplate my navel for awhile. 

[Ken Culbertson]

The dumbest thing I've ever done is to get involved with any hobby!

Got to respectfully disagree.  I think the dumbest thing anybody can do is not to have a hobby.  Doesn't matter what it is as long as it makes you smile and lets you escape into a world where you are king for a time.  I was infected by the Stunt virus at age 8 and it has kept me sane for 65 years.

Ken+











 

[Steve Thomas]

I made a pair of elevators for an Ares, using the time-honoured method of a sanding bar in combination with different-sized bits of brass tube to get the correct tapered profile. It went really well and I was very pleased with my work, until I discovered that the trailing edges were thick and the leading (hinge) edges were thin. 

[Ken Culbertson]

I made a pair of elevators for an Ares, using the time-honoured method of a sanding bar in combination with different-sized bits of brass tube to get the correct tapered profile. It went really well and I was very pleased with my work, until I discovered that the trailing edges were thick and the leading (hinge) edges were thin. 

So how did it fly?

Ken

[Steve Thomas]

So how did it fly?

Ken

I didn’t bother finding out!

[Allen Eshleman]

I got wound up in the stooge lines.  My whole stooge contraption dragged toward me.  It reached me and I fell down just as the engine stopped.  I landed it laying on the ground.

I am relieved that I am not the only one.

Also, I once accidently put 70 ft. lines on a Nobler which I found completely built with a Fox 35, in a flee market. 
I was flying where I had to carve out a space between two light poles on a paved parking lot.  The outside wing hit one of the poles.  I still have the plane but its repairs have rendered it quite heavy.

[TigreST]

Repost: Built a Sterling Spitfire Stunter not noting the asymmetric wing design so of course built it to fly clockwise.  Gave it away in a ready for color coats condition.   

[TigreST]

Crashed my Twister due to line mix up condition.  Not a proud moment at all.

[TigreST]

From the “Funny (sort of) but dangerous” file.   After reading and seeing those warnings about c/l flying near hydro electric power lines: 

We flew in a school yard that had hydro lines at one end.  We never had a problem and steered clear of them with ease.  On a Sunday afternoon with high humidity and a storm front moving in things changed.  During my Sterling profile P-51/ Fox .35 flight my brother pointing at me and yelling something. “Your hairs standing straight up....what the hell!!”   Shortly after I feel shocks coming through the Easy-Just handle cable.  I was in the magnetic field (or something) of the hydro wires which were 50 to 75 ft away.   We did the rag in the prop to end the flight.   That shut down the flying for the day..,then the storm hit with act of God type rains and light show. 

 

[frank mccune]

               
          Hi All:

          For some reason, I just can not keep my fingers out of spinning propellers.

          I have stopped using plastic props and bought a pair of “cutter’s” gloves to prevent being cut by a prop.  Of course if I do not wear the gloves, that is when I experience a senior moment!

          Aren’t the Golden Years great. Lol

                                                                                              Be well,

                                                                                              Frank McCune
.

[Avaiojet]

Well there you go. What an idiot I am. 

I went an cut two extra ribs by mistake on my altered Smoothie wing for my

TEXACO 13.  Both left and right sides. the mistake is on the bottom, the fix will be easy and won't show.

I think I'm burnt out. Is there a way of telling? 

[Peter in Fairfax, VA]

Regarding "feeling" a storm coming, that is normal, even without any power lines nearby.  The same effect that causes lightning also influences the charge on the lines.  When the lines pick up enough charge, it jumps from a hot rock handle to your hand, as you experienced.  You can prevent this static buildup by looping some copper wire from the adjusting piece of the handle so that your hand touches the copper, grounding out the static.

However, the signal that that a storm is coming could be considered valuable, as getting struck by a serious bolt of lightning kinda, sorta, maybe, should possibly be avoided.

Peter

[Avaiojet]

Bingo! My gaffe is fixed! Well, almost, I'll clean it up during the prep before I cover the wing with silk. Eventually this wing will be cut in half.

That's a long way off.

[TigreST]

Regarding "feeling" a storm coming, that is normal, even without any power lines nearby.  The same effect that causes lightning also influences the charge on the lines.  When the lines pick up enough charge, it jumps from a hot rock handle to your hand, as you experienced.  You can prevent this static buildup by looping some copper wire from the adjusting piece of the handle so that your hand touches the copper, grounding out the static.

However, the signal that that a storm is coming could be considered valuable, as getting struck by a serious bolt of lightning kinda, sorta, maybe, should possibly be avoided.

Peter

Peter,
For sure I was guess as to the cause of the electrical effect I was feeling.  I won’t begin to argue the point but agree that it might have been as you state, more weather then hydro-wire related.  Was still a pretty weird experience.

[TigreST]

When you drop your Exacto knife with #11 blade firmly installed..........never try to catch it before it hits the floor!   Have scars will travel!