In another 1970's story, Rick Norwood, of the Soaring Union of Los Angles (SULA), launched a Javelin Open class ship and did an active zoom-type launch at the top. For those unaware of the Javelin series, these were rolled plywood fuselage R/E planes with straight dihedral wings and up-swept curved tips to help thermaling. The wings of these planes used a center mount with a single main wingpin and small alignment pins in the rear of the root airfoil. The wing then was held in place with rubber bands internally. Anyway, when the plane zoomed off the top the wing flexed and shifted and the alignment pin disengaged, and one wing panel flipped over (rotated) so that the airfoil was now inverted for the panel. The plane promptly went into a kind of flat spin. Application of rudder one way, slowed the spin and application of rudder the other way increased the spin rate. The plane looked OK until it caught a thermal in this spinning mode and we watched it climb out. Elevator did nothing. We started to chase it in cars and followed it nearly 3/4 of a mile as it disappeared into an industrial park. Catching up with we expected to see it in a re-kittable form, but to our surprise, it was sitting pretty, unharmed between two industrial warehouses.
I guess the helicopter action was not like a spiral death to the ground. > -------- Original Message -------- > Subject: [RCSE] Tree story, actually a pipe > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Date: Thu, January 31, 2008 12:46 pm > To: soaring@airage.com > > In the late 70's/early 80's at one of the early Visalia Fall Soaring > Festivals at the high school site, Don Doe (past NCSL Champion) was flying a > Paragon on yellow and white, a frequency that was also an emergency CHP > channel. Suddenly during a nice flight well above launch height Don lost > control of the plane. It came all the way down in a series of spirals and > dives finally disappearing from sight when it dove into a large drainage > ditch with a ten foot berm on both sides, and near a culvert under a road > that bordered the field. Don started walking to retreive the werckage when > suddenly to everyone's shock and awe the Paragon appeared in a near vertical > climb ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD. Don regained control and landed the > plane safely. Unbelievably, the plane had flown through the culvert (I > remember that it was about 12' diameter) without hitting anything. > Mike Clancy > RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and > "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and > unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. > Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in > text format RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
