I have only hit two objects in my rather lengthy career of screwing up. Neither was all that exotic.
I once landed into my fuel can and took out most of the *inboard* wing, which ought to get me some sort of stupidity bonus points
The other thing I hit was the late Paul Isenhower's left shoulder, outboard wingtip to upper shoulder. It whipped the fuselage and cracked it right near the TE. That was a case where I was right in the center of the pilots circle, Paul was walking well outside the marked outer circle, but they had marked the circle at a 70 foot radius. My fuselage was something like a foot outside the circle and the wing tip about 3 1/2 feet. Had Paul been walking right along the outside of the circle instead of 3 feet away, my spinner would have hit him in about the brain stem or upper neck, very likely killing him. Nobody can say I wasn't at 5 feet. After this, I was completely useless the rest of the day, it took most of the day to stop shaking and I thought I was going to throw up for quite a while.
Subsequently, over the next few years, mysterious wrinkles started appearing in the covering about an inch out on the outboard wing. I didn't think anything of it at the time and for a while afterwards. I flew it at the 93 NATs that way, for example and many other contests. Right before the 94 NATs, on the last flight before we were going to call it a day so we could go pack everything, the outboard wing folded on an outside square loop. That initiated a scramble to install a new wing (David happened to have an Imitation wing that we assembled) in about a day and a half. Got to all put together, repaired everything else with 5 minute and hot stuff (at a room temperature of about 105 degrees, not too much waiting for stuff to set). Bill, David, and I got it Monokoted, got the fuselage painted white at about 2 in the morning. I went home got, about an hour of sleep , threw everything I owned in the car, and set off for Texas at about 10 the next morning. We finished and reassembled it in a Comfort Inn in Albuquerque. I painted the canopy on it with a brush and AeroGloss in the parking lot at appearance judging - and wound up with 14 points. It flew great even in a howling wind and with something like 9 extra ounces - 64 ounces on a mere 610 square inches and a 40VF. Ended up tied for 15th with another disaster special, Mike Pratt's 19-pointer. That was actually pretty good for me at the time.
Only much later did it occur to me that hitting Paul's shoulder probably also cracked the LE wood in the wing, and ultimately the crack travelled through the wing skin. This was a spar-leess foam wing which works fine if you don't hit somebody with it.
Brett
Topic: Most exotic object you've hit (Read 6066 times)