Safety Thongs and Stooges

[john e. holliday]

I bring this up as in the electric section someone mentioned using the time function on his electric to fly.   Says he has enough time programmed so that he can walk to the center, pick up handle, put on the safety thong and fly.    I fly using a stooge most of the time and I do not use an anchor for my safety thong like I suggested to him.   My bad and I guess I am going to have to start doing this.   But doing it right the plane should not get far before being dumped into the grass nose first.   

[Michael Massey]

Worth considering a large fishing sinker or some such.  I have a large weight I attach the the safety thong which I have on the down side of my handle.  I have had a large dandelion snag a down line and cause a nose over on take off.  Certainly a heavy weight will do the same thing should the plane get away from the stooge before you get to the handle. 

Clearly you are not trying to weight the plane down but rather simply give down control on take off.  We all know what that does.  (You have put you lines on upside down at least once haven't you?)

[john e. holliday]

So far the safety thong is always on the down portion of the handle.   But, I did have a granddaughter have the handle upside down before I realized what happened.   Made several laps before the plane greased in.  Worse than trying to fly inverted.

By the way I also leave the up line clip on the airplane lead outs when rolling up lines.