What are the odds???

[Bruce Underwood]

Brett Bowen said:
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: FlyFutabaGuy at aol.com 
  To: discussion at nsrca.org 
  Sent: Saturday, August 02, 2003 3:35 PM
  Subject: What are the odds???


  Yesterday, during our annual fun day for the ARC (association of retarded citizens) fun day. I was coming in to land the trainer I was flying the kids on, and I mid-aired Gordon Anderson, who was also flying a trainer. Luckily I got mine back, Gordon's was a little lift impaired with 1/2 a wing and didn't get his out of the flat spin.. This was the first mid-air I have ever seen... Today, practicing pattern, my dad took his Olympian off, and on the procedure turn mid-aired with Dennis Cone, another local pattern pilot. Both planes destroyed.... WHAT ARE THE ODDS??? think we should take a week off to let the curse wear off??

  -Brett Bowen
  District 8 Advanced 

  Brett:  I have asked that question (the one you typed in all caps)...many times down through the years and
  have never gotten a satisfactory answer.

  I am a youngster of almost 66 and have flown RC since its' inception.....(halfway reliable single channel in
  late 50's or early 60's)...and have had 8 (eight) doggoned mid-airs....all but one of them while flying pattern
  in a contest.  One of them was while practicing at the local field.

  A few years ago...lost two pattern birds the SAME year....1 a Daddy-Rabbit when Bill Kite of Kingsport, TN
  and myself sought the same airspace at the Atlanta, GA SPA contest....then later that year at Ron Van
  Puttes' contest in Florida, Fred Voegeli and myself dueled our spinners above the runway.  Complete
  model ruination in all 8 of them.  3 years ago in Morris, AL at the season-opening contest, the Birmingham
  Club's President was performing a procedure turn at the same time I was jetting thru an 8 Pt. roll when
  our birds collided resulting in the spray of debris covering about 100 feet of the turf underneath the point
  of impact.  There is still a digital JR servo and an 1100 mil pack buried somewhere near that scene.  Just
  too many briars and chiggers in the area to linger looking for everything.

  Sometimes I awaken from a sound but unrestful slumber.....filled with nightmares that culminate with that
  unmistakeable.............T H U D........that only results from two RC models meeting that sudden demise.
  Wow, it is good to realize it is only a nightmare and not the real thing this time.

  I still believe, even with the 8, that the odds are very great.....that it WILL NOT happen again.  Naturally, the
  odds lessen with more exposure....and we pattern folks who sometimes fly for the school gatherings etc.
  at the same time others are doing likewise continue to diminish them..............but, golly, hadn't you rather
  be flying an RC airplane than MOST anything else?  ( I would have deleted the word MOST in the last sentence
  had I been addressing only geezers, such as myself, SPA age).

  I have threatened to take a week or two off, as you've said you and your' dad might do....but, fortunately,
  have always seemed to have a "back-up" on the wall here at the house....and was burning fuel again within
  a day or so (during the season)...and not allowed myself to be intimidated by the "mid-air" plague.

  Hope you and your' dad both have another and will only let these "adversities" become a topic of conversation
  under a contest suntent in the future.

  Best wishes,



  Bruce Underwood

  NSRCA  493
  AMA 5977
  SPA 15

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.f3a.us/pipermail/nsrca-discussion/attachments/20030802/3e013bd8/attachment.html