.049 Flying Lessons

In the Summer of 1965, radio-controlled model airplanes were rare. The technology was in its infancy and so expensive that only rich kids or adult hobbyists could afford one. For us regular kids, a control-line model airplane was the height of our aspirations. Still, there were some great life lessons to be learned by flying those simple models.

Gibsons Discount Center in my neighborhood, sold a kit with the plastic P-51 Mustang powered by a Cox .049 engine, along with the control handle and two twenty-foot lengths of nylon fishing line. It even included a small can of fuel and glow-plug connector. Dry-cell battery not included and “some assembly required”.

The cost of the kit was $19.95, a veritable fortune for the average kid in those days but not unattainable to a boy with a paper route. I had a paper route. My interest in the P-51 began with a spoiled brat who had been in my fourth-grade class the previous year. His parents bought him the kit, which he brought to the neighborhood recreation center where the high-school-aged lifeguards helped him assemble it.

Lesson One — Never Believe the Hype
“Some Assembly Required” is code for “Here are all the raw materials. You provide the manufacturing labor.” Tommy, the spoiled brat, brought his brand-new kit straight to the rec center where he hogged the attention of the older guys all day. By my calculation, it took three high-school boys and two trips back to Gibsons — one for the fishing line swivels (not included) and one for the dry-cell battery — to assemble the airplane.

After spending another hour tinkering with that cranky .049 engine, they got it running smoothly and the entire group, plus every boy my age migrated to the elementary school parking lot next door. Those model planes needed a paved surface to take off and land. They also needed a roughly fifty-foot circle of obstacle-free space so the pilot could stand in the center of the circle and maneuver the plane via the pair of twenty-foot nylon lines attached to a control handle.

Lesson Two — Never Ignore Advice
While everyone moved back to a safe distance, one of the teen lifeguards offered to stand with Tommy in the center of the parking lot and help him control the plane on its virgin flight. Nothing Doing! Tommy was an arrogant turd who intended to impress those older boys with is expertise and thereby become one of the cool kids. While Tommy braced himself in the center of the circle, one of the older kids fired up the plane and, on Tommy’s signal, let it go.

What followed was the most spectacular crash I ever witnessed. That plane taxied maybe two feet before it launched straight up like a rocket… that is until the arc was directly over Tommy’s head, at which point, the circular path of the plane, tethered to ten-year-old Tommy, returned to Earth.

And, what an awe-inspiring return it was. Rather than gliding to a stop like it was designed to do, the plane encountered the asphalt parking lot at a perpendicular angle and at full speed. The explosion was terrific, leaving no part larger than a grape and eliciting a deafening cheer from all the bystanders. Tommy ran home crying with nothing left but the control handle which he’d obviously failed to master, and every one of us kids he’d shunned began to believe in Karma.

Lesson Three — In Geometry, Size Matters
Using my newspaper route earnings, I marched into Gibsons and purchased my own P-51 model which required just as much assembly and tinkering to get it running. Fortunately, an adult friend of my dad helped me assemble and tune it. Then, he taught me to fly it, one lesson being the importance of not getting the control lines twisted, in which case they would not work — a lesson Tommy had learned the hard way.

I spent the next couple of months enjoying that plane but the elementary school parking lot was a half mile from my house and it was a nuisance to travel that far every time I wanted to fly the plane. My family had a very large back yard but it was all grass and too rough for take-offs and landings. However, we had a side yard that measured roughly twenty-five feet from the shrubs to the concrete sidewalk.

One afternoon, my older brother and I decided that by cutting the control lines down to ten feet, we could launch the plane on the sidewalk and fly in our side yard. Now, I had an excuse for this foolishness because I was only going into fifth grade, but my older brother, who had already been introduced to Geometry, should have known better.

20’ radius x 2 x 3.14 = ~132’ circular travel path. 10’ radius x 2 x 3.14 = ~63’ travel. The plane only had one speed, which was designed for comfortable rotation of the pilot as the plane traversed its 132’ circular course. Fortunately, I was the guy starting the engine and releasing the plane. (I won’t go into the fourth lesson about quickly removing your fingers from the path of that fast-turning plastic prop.)

The instant I let go of the plane, I knew there was an issue. The plane made that first full circle and almost hit me before I could step back. In the center of that small circle, my brother was turning as fast as he could but the control lines were beginning to wrap around him.

In my mind, I saw that Hitchcockean plane closing the distance on my brother with every revolution and finally, that sharp prop chewing a nasty hole right through him. How would I ever shift the blame when explaining my brother’s death to my parents?

Fortunately, my brother got dizzy and fell over. The plane crashed violently into the bushes, avoiding the fate of Tommy’s plane but still rendering it unflyable. I don’t know what ever became of that plane but I wish it were still hanging from my ceiling as a reminder of life’s important lessons. Oh yeah, Lesson Five: Always have a scapegoat handy.

A meeting of great minds who think alike