I can not be called a re-tred because as a youngster I never flew CL. I have been flying R/C for 25+ years and am going through a midlife crisis and last fall at the age of 55 took up CL. I started with a Brodak Clown, and while building that I bought A Flitestreak arf. After crash/fix/crash/fix/crash/fix/crash/fix/crash of the FS I switched to the Clown and found out why equal amounts of up and down are needed on the elevator. Yep, a figure 9 out of my first outside loop. Lesson learned. Next came a Sig Skyray, with a Evo .36. Nice combo, all going well except for my occasional yip of down elevator coming out of a horizontal 8. The broken fuse fixed, all OK. This past Sunday at our RC field that Charlie [the other guy in our club that flys CL] and I have cut a rough circle, we were once again engaged in the spectacle known as Control Line Sport Flying, when IT happened.
I fired up the Evo and as Charlie held the Skyray I walked confidently to the handle, 60' away. I picked up the handle and gave the nod to Charlie to let 'er go. The plane rolled about 6' and broke ground. I noticed that it started coming in on me so I dutifully backed up to gain line tension. At this point things started moving in slow motion. The reason the plane came in on me was due to the lines being caught on something in the grass. As I backed up the lines became free and the plane then hooked to the right. So far so good, until the plane reached the end of the slack and jerked the handle from my hand! My first thought is Oh S*** I hope it doesn't hit anyone. Then I notice that instead of crashing it is making very nice right hand circles and climbing about 10' at each pass, trailing the 60' of lines and my handle! Over the parking lot, then [thankfully]off behind the RC flight line.
I was amazed as to how long the engine ran with a 2.5oz Acme CL tank all the while making right hand circles! By the time the engine quit the plane was almost OOS and at least 700' above the ground and about 1/2 mile away. It landed somewhere in about 500 acres of trees and won't be found any time soon.
I have seen some pretty remarkable things in 25+ years of RC but if someone told me this was possible for a CL airplane I would have said "No Way". I have seen some flyaways at the Nat's with combat ships after the lines were cut but they did not last anywhere near the flight time of the Skyray. They usually just went splat and that was that.
We now require the use of safety thongs at our club field. Lesson learned