[RCSE] Hi-starts

[Al Scidmore]

I have been chuckling over the high start mishaps that have been posted 
after this thread was started. I think that I have seen similar events 
to many of those reported. I remember one contest where my flying 
buddy's beautiful 2M Sagitta was dragged to death after a high speed 
stall on launch. Pieces flew all over the place. If you have seen one of 
Carl Mohs' planes, you know what an excellent job he does on them. Yes, 
high starts are unforgiving!
   I can remember one of the (too many) instances where I launched only 
to find out the receiver wasn't turned on. On one occasion, my Sagitta 
900 did that partial rainbow in the sky until it inexplicably came off 
of the tow ring on the downward leg. It gained speed in a dive, leveled 
off at treetop level and headed downwind towards the tree line behind 
us. There was an awful racket as the balsa and Monokote creation made 
its way throught the upper tree branches at high speed. It then exited 
on the other side of the trees...into a weed patch of briars, thistles, 
nettles, wild raspberries, and high grass. Four of us looked for about 
15 minutes before Brian Andreas climbed a tree and looking down spotted 
it for me. It actually was resurrected and still flies in RES for me 
now.   
   The one mishap that I haven't seen in this thread was the damage 
that can be done by stretched monofilament line. In the early days of 
F3J we were experimenting with light monofilament line (replacing our 
original braided nylon). In one instance I stretched the line in the 
usual way before raising the leg to signal release. Just then the line 
broke and I received a high speed facefull of monofilament and had 
stripes all over my face for some time. I wonder if those flying  F3J  
have any monofilament stories to  contribute.
Al
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