Aeronauts

For my going-away Man Party I invited some dudes over and we went to the clearing by Jamaica Pond to fly airplanes. My brother-in-law and I had both been given RC airplanes for Christmas, and I felt it would be appropriate to try them out. These little blue Styrofoam airplanes with two electric motors in the rear. Another friend brought over his RC helicopter, and I bought a cheap balsa glider to round things out.

The opening of the Vance Memorial Airfield had a strong start, with the little RC helicopter gleefully buzzing around--until it got too far from its controller, shut off, and crashed to the ground. Steering was ineffective, but still the device flew and was greatly enjoyable.

The RC planes, however, never got off the ground. Upon the first launch, the wings came off mine. Granted, they wings were held on by decals, so that was not a great surprise. When designing an airplane, I think load-bearing decals might be an element to avoid.

Shortly thereafter, the other plane went down hard and its nose sheared off. They did not fly. Mostly, they crashed shortly after takeoff. Soon, wreckage was strewn about the runway. Eventually we got some decent results by tearing off the wings, turning the planes upside down, and heaving them as hard as possible, where they would catch an updraft and float along for a dozen feet or so, their engines whirring madly. The two planes were on the same controller frequency, so one controller would affect both planes, leading to some near-misses with fingers and propellers. Eventually, the planes were mostly just wreckage, and we retired to a nearby bar. It was great fun.


Later that night, Ben teen-wolfed a can of Oranjeboom.