How did I enter my first Control Line Stunt Contest when I could not even fly the Pattern? Well, it helped that I am impulsive and have never felt prepared for anything in my life and look like a rube. Carnies are drawn to me and can get me to play their fixed games. I talk to credit card shills at the airport because no one else does. It is a gift I was told.
The story starts back a bit… My wife Meg and I had moved from New York City back here to Minnesota where she grew up. I had quit drinking not long before. I was a World-Class toss-pot and was the number one drinker in New York City. Unfortunately there are no Awards for that but it leaves a mark and a dent in the psyche that shows. Kind of a decoration in it’s own way. But the greatest thing about quitting drinking is all the free time you now have on your hands. I never knew I spent that much time chugging down the barleycorn. Like I said, I was World Class. That is not bragging but fact.
We were staying in her parent’s basement while we went and did cruise ship contracts and searched for a home to buy. That was in Mendota Heights so that meant we went to Robert Street a lot and I had noticed there was a hobby shop over there. I went in one day and came out with a plastic control line airplane in my hands. It was a red Cox biplane. Fokker I believe. I flew that thing over and over trying to milk a loop out of it. And had so much fun with it.
Eventually I ended up buying a SIG kit called the Akrobat. Full fuselage full size stunter. I bought that down in St. Thomas Virgin Islands and flew home on an airliner with that box between my knees leaning my arms across the top looking forward to getting home and starting to build that in the basement at my in-laws house. Eventually I ended up crashing the Akrobat too many times and bought myself a SIG Banshee kit. More about all of this another time.
I stuck that Banshee kit together all the while having to only make one trip to the hospital for stitches after some dire lessons with #11 Exacto blades. Took the engine from the Akrobat. I believe that was an OS 40. Put that on the Banshee and got back to doing some heartfelt but shoddy control line flying. Eventually could do loops, a wing over, outside loops, fly inverted, some facsimile of a horizontal eight. Oh and I could also land. That was about the extent of my control line flying prowess.
By this time I had joined the Minneapolis Piston Poppers control line club and was encouraged to come to a contest they were having. (This next part is as close to as I remember it) It was June 17/18 down in Austin, Minnesota and was called the Austin Control Line Regional Champions. I do remember going there just to observe and then being shamed into competing. I think that was a guy named Pete that did the shaming. I would like to thank him for that. No I wouldn't. Yes I would.
All I remember is my voice going very high and my throat constricting when I looked at everybody and said "I don't know the pattern, I don't think I can fly the pattern, I have never flown the entire pattern. I don't want to fly the pattern. OK, I will fly the pattern.” I reckon that's what it takes to be a member of a club. Someone has to be the martyr.
So after an hour of disquiet it is my time to go up and fly. For the life of me I cannot remember who it was but they laid in the circle and called out the maneuvers for me. Well take off and the wing over went OK. Felt pretty good about the inside loops. My inverted flight made everyone nervous including myself as we were over asphalt and I was shaking like I had been on a glacier all day, drinking ice water while wearing a swimsuit. A tiny European swim suit. Pardon that image.
My outside loops look like a blindfolded man was doing them. My inside square loops and outside square loops were not square loops. They were some sort of shape but I would not call it square or even rectangle. Maybe more of an octagon. And by the way that should become one of the maneuvers in the Stunt pattern in my humble opinion being invented by me and all that.
Triangles were next and I would say there were more of an isosceles triangle but to me they just looked like weird loops.
Somehow I made it this far and now it was time for the horizontal eights. It felt like when I was a boy down South and we would tie a thread on a june bug’s leg and let it fly around. The june bug did better horizontal eights than I did. As I was flying those laps before upcoming square eights all the blood left my head and went to my inner core, my ears were ringing and I went partially blind. I went for it. Over the sound of that lean running OS .40 I could hear hubbub from the spectators. I don't mean that in a bad way but it was more like disbelief and a lot of "maintain Man… maintain.” I have partial memory of my wrist going back-and-forth up-and-down trying to force the Banshee through the square eights. It felt a little bit to me like when an astronaut is coming back on reentry to the Earths atmosphere and loses communication with Mission Control for a brief amount of time. By the grace of Jim Palmer I exited those square eights and felt like an astronaut that did not burn up on re-entry.
I didn't have much time to dwell on that because the plane was still flying and I had two laps and coming up where the vertical eights. Well let's just say that the vertical eights looked like I had a feather duster knocking dust bunnies off of a ceiling. I remember looking up into the sun leaning so far backwards that I think my head touch the asphalt. To this day I blame the bald spot on my crown on that moment. My wheels came so close to the ground that had a penny had been laying there the wheels would've touched it and skidded that penny across the ground like a clumsy thug pitching pennies against a wall in a bad late night movie.
Whoever it was laying on the ground coaching me through the pattern hollered out “hourglass!” Well everything changed here. I went for it having no idea what to do. When I came down the Banshee smacked the ground. Belly flopped. Pancaked. Bounced. Then everything went silent for a moment. I have to say I was relieved it was over. I could be done and say that I went for it. That would be rewarding enough for me.
A sense of calm and finality came over me. The plane looked to be in one piece just some ripped covering and a few pieces of wood sticking out. No problem. I have spent hours now mixing epoxy and gluing wood to my fingers with CA.
I was a true National Champion at that.
As I stood there holding the handle limply in my hand looking at my saggy lines and a fragmented Banshee laying on the hot tarmac, I saw a man and his son running towards me. I wasn't sure if they were coming to hug me or tackle me. They ran and picked up my plane and pulled me by my flying lines to their van with them. I asked myself “are all contests like this? Being pulled away by my lines like a prisoner in a cowboy drama?"
It ends up that they were a father and son team. I remember their names as Russ and Ben Detmier. They said to me "we're going to fix your plane. That was some of the most exciting amateur flying we have ever seen. You've got guts.” Then the boy said "did you just start flying today?” That smarted just a bit.
They proceeded to glue the wood back together and tape it and bring it back to life. They handed me a Coca-Cola. It was ice cold. They said to me "we're going to get you back up in the air so you can finish this contest." Then there was a pause and the boy said "really my dad just wants to see that crazy flying again.”
And they did. They get the Banshee patched up and it was good enough to fly for another round. I admired their spirit. And they didn't know me from anybody yet they glued my plane together and even soothed my aching soul a bit. What a gracious thing to do.
Well it was time for my final round and I seem to remember bouncing the Banshee one more time off the asphalt. I may have blocked some of that out. It was one of those days. Like singing the song
Ruben and Rachel solo in front of my fifth grade class and the whole elementary school. I only did that because no other boy would sing it and I felt sorry for my teacher so I did it. After that I was asked to play the lead in the school play
Annie. Yes, to play Annie. I have always looked good in polka dots.
I keep that third-place plaque up on my wall out in my studio.
From twenty nine years ago. And I remember the judges saying to me “ we've never seen a pattern like that but you were the gutsiest flyer out there today so we're giving you third-place trophy.”
To say I was delighted and satisfied is an understatement.
In 1991 I went on to get another 3rd Place in Stunt at the Minneapolis Piston Poppers 10,000 Lakes contest. Soon after that my control line life went on hold for 20 years or so.
In the end, like most things in my life I'm glad I was somewhat pushed into flying the pattern that day. My life became better.
A lot of things in my life that happened this same way. I would show up just to observe and somehow end up becoming part of it.
The thing that I've always feared in life was not that I would be bad at something but rather that I would be good at something. It was like that in my football career. I was a very good football player. Made the All County Team. OK it was second team as a linebacker and long snapper but still pretty good for a guy that just went to watch.
If you're bad at something no one really expects you to do it again and could care less one way or the other if you come back and do it.
But if you're good at something or at least show potential or at the very least just get out and go for it, well then people expect you to show back up and keep doing it.
So here I am 29 years later working at that stunt pattern again. I'm taking it a little more serious this time but to me most of the time my maneuvers in the sky look like a june bug flying around with a thread tied to it’s leg.
It is a beautiful thing.
Sean Shug Emery