Brian speaks very wisely that it is all well to entice
someone go to the local field, you also have to get someone take notice
of the new arrivals and show them the ropes, so to speak.
I myself built a Ugly Stick, without an inkling where to fly it!
Eventually I managed to find the local field thanks to a friend
who had a car - I didn't then, and the only one taking
notice of me and my model was a guy who - I later learned -
then ran a hobbyshop in town.
He flew it and then, after landing it was found out that I had
accidently connected the rudder the wrong way and the club members
leered at the stupid git, that's me!
Now I would say that it is pretty stupid of the pilot not to check
an unflown model better ... But he landed it well anyway! But those
laughs were no fun, and that I used Cannon R/C equipment and so
small servos on an Ugly Stick was another reason for ridicule ...
Took me over ten years until I dared it again - and that aircraft
never flew again!
This is a quite typical club where nobody cared if I was a member
or not - just like the one Brian told us about. Nobody present,
except the shop owner (who had not sold any of the equipment, or
knew me before), did anything to make me feel at home. The flying
I saw that day didn't impress me either - one guy stalling over and
over again after his powerepod cut on his glider.
One day I met the shopwner in his shop - a chance meeting actually -
and bought a Graupner Mosquito (one of the first electric kits) that
hung under the shop's cieling. I did try to fly that on my own - no luck at
all - smashed the fuselage as it stalled on launch. Had I had a highstart
the story would have been different, I think ...
After I was run over I decided to make a new try, bought a Spirit (I think
it was) and a high-start - from the above mentioned shop owner - and happened
to come to the field where two guys took pity on me, even though I brought
a glider to a field almost exclusively being used by power-flyers.
It helped that I was older, wiser and more determind to succed, the Spirit,
with the 100" Mosquito wing and an electric motor grafted onto it, and this
worked! Then I bought a used ElectriCub, fitted the smallest fourstroke
I could find and flew it till the leaked fuel dissolved the fuselage, more
or less.
But the leering crowd is still there, guys who gossip more than they fly, and
pretty annoying in the long run. Nasty, is the word that comes to mind ...
So when a flying friend told me about this other field, and I discovered Zagis,
my flying really took off, as I now can show others how to do things, even if
many at the other club still are better pilots than me, those few times they fly.
One reason why they seldom do is that they have been at it for 20 years, or more,
so they still like their buddies, but the flying isn't that important any more
for them, so like small brats they make fun of everybody and wait for the next
upset or accident ...
They surely are a hindrance for new members to join, these old men (the youngest
roughly my age, and I am soon 50!), most of them excellent technicians and builds
beautiful models, but are very happy to be as few as possible ...
I do visit occasionally, but only when the wise guys are elsewhere!
Tord,
Sweden
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Tord S. Eriksson, Ovralidsg.25:5, S-422 47 Hisings Backa, Sweden
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