(Another story for your enjoyment - if you don't enjoy, just hit delete!) Lessons in Perspective. Those of you who live in the U.S.A. may recall that automobile passenger-side mirrors contain this message, "Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear." On my last flight with the highlander I learned a similar lesson, "Gliders are closer to the tree than they appear." I was flying on a Saturday morning and the wind was out of the east at the normal slightly brisk pace. This direction was new for me in that all my previous experience was with south winds so I was aligned in the short direction of the field. I was practicing what I have been working on all spring long - launch, turn left, turn downwind leg, turn base leg, turn upwind and try to land somewhere near where I was standing. You know how for some people it's hard to pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time? Well, for me it's still hard to walk and fly at the same time, so I always flew standing where I had launched the plane from the highstart. Fortunately, the more I practiced, the more I landed within a few paces of myself instead of across the field. On each of the last few flights I had flown base leg turn in front of a large oak on the west side of the field. On the last flight I was having a really cool flight. Great crisp (for the highlander and this pilot) turn onto the downwind leg and a good glidepath downwind. I thought to myself, "man that blue plane is sure going to look pretty banking in front of that oak." But, in less time than it took to panic, much less react, I banked that plane right into the top of the oak! I walked over to the tree and stood, in shock, hands-on-hips, and jaws agape, staring up into that tree trying to figure out how I was going to get my plane down. I gave thought to climbing the tree because it had lots of thick sturdy limbs. But I decided it wouldn't be wise at my age (or with over 20 years of my wife's good German cooking in me.) Then I decided that I was going to have to go buy one of those long extendable golf ball nabbers to get the plane down. As I was packing up though a fellow who was flying electric gliders on the other side of the field drove up and noted my lofty plane and mentioned that the glow field across the creek from the glider field had two really long pvc pipes with a rope just for rescuing planes. I went over to glow field and borrowed the poles and pushed my plane out of the tree. The neat thing about the highlander was that I could have continued flying it as there was no damage. I only stopped flying because the landowner started haying the glider field while I was rescuing my glider. In retrospect I recall that on the last flight I had stretched the highstart an additional 15 paces to get a higher launch and thus I was 15 paces closer to the tree than previous flights. Combined with a higher altitude and my landing practice flight pattern I had set myself up to fly right into the tree. The highlander now sits on a hook on a wall. It has been retired (raided for its receiver) and I doubt I will come back to it. It looks rather ragged and forlorn because it has about a dozen tape repairs and reinforcements. It would be easy enough to ressurect it, but I believe in moving on and the highlander served its purpose. It encountered the ground in some mighty spectacular ways, and it visited some trees, so that I could learn how to fly, how to land, and how to be wary of perspective. John Gossett Austin, TX. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
