The intangible joys of CL flying

[frank mccune]

          Hi:

          Just a quick note about what I saw recently.

          I saw the look of joy on an old man's face of joy that one rarely sees.  Here is a man in mid 70's that was very happy.  As a reserved quiet and private person, he could not hide his joy.  It just overwhelmed him.

         One occasion was when he got his scratch built UK Stunt plane, 1960 design, out to fly equipped with an ED Racer 2.46 Diesel and it started on about the fourth flip!  He bought this engine in the early 60's and kept it with him as he traveled the world and did not fly it or even perhaps start it.  After a successful flight, the joy was impossible to restrain.

       The other time was the great performance of his Squaw powered by an old ST .19.  Prior to this flight, the Squaw was a real dog! It would not respond to elevator input and would not recover from an inverted flight by giving down input.  After making a two trim modifications. the plane will fly the complete pattern! The plane went from a bitter disappointment, to a pure joy to fly! Success equals happiness!

       Why am I posting this? Just to remind people that after many decades of life, we can still fine joy in something as simple as playing with toy CL airplanes! Perhaps, this is what drives us all in the world of CL.

                                                                                                      "Keep em flying"

                                                                                                       Frank McCune

[Dane Martin]

Sounds amazing. Thanks for the story Frank!

[john e. holliday]

-I guess that is why I'm still flying and building.   I too have witnessed the look of joy/pleasure when some one has a model finally do what it is supposed to do and the smiles/grins when a cantankerous engine is finally running on song.   Thanks for the post.

[Russell]

That's great to hear...      That is what model building and flying does for me too, sometimes put it all away for a few years but always come back to it.