Flight Tests

The day began when I made coffee and started a fire in the stove.There was snow on the gound and Pauline and Brent were here. Linda fixed breakfast and we were watching a few shows recorded on Tivo and just piddling around. Brent decided to try flying the airplane Pauline had given him at Christmas. Brent had bought batteries for the controller yesterday while we were in town and this morning he hooked the battery for the plane to the 12 volt system in the Mule. Pauline and Brent had taped the wings on the plane and they had checked the controls. Everything was ready, but it was cold, so Brent and I put on sweatshirts and the girls watched from inside. We stepped out the front door and it looked like a good place to try flying the plane, as we were already about 30 feet above the ground down in the front yard. I was hoping that would give us enough altitude to fly without crashing to the ground.
   
I took the plane in my hand, Brent hit the throttle on the control, and I tossed the plane into the air. We were surprised, it flew, but what we hadn't thought about was how windy it was, the wind caught the plane and caused a loss of control and a crash. It looked bad, but when Brent picked up the plane, it had survived fairly well, with just a dent in the nose and the windshield had popped off. We tried another launch and the results were a little better, but still ended in a crash. After retrieving the plane, Brent gave me the control and he launched it for my turn. I flew the plane out towards the road, where it seemed to lose radio control, but I managed to turn it around and head back towards the house, but the wind also caught it with me in control and it flew into a tree, where it stuck about 20 feet above the ground. Kind of reminded me of flying a kite and getting it hung up somewhere. Brent climbed the tree and dropped the plane down to me. We went inside to warm up and take a break. After we were warm and had ate lunch, we went down to the hay shed and finished the shelves we started yesterday. It didn't take long, and we went across the creek to the hayfield for a few more test flights. We parked close to the hill, so it would block some of the wind. I launched the plane for Brent and he flew it around for about a minute before crashing into the side of the hill. Lucky for us it was near the bottom, but bad for the plane, as when it hit the trees, it broke a wing off. We went back to the house and fixed the wing with a 'hot glue gun'. It worked to hold the wing on, so we loaded the girls into the Mule and took them back across the creek to watch the flight tests. Brent gave me the controls and told me it was my turn. I think he wanted the girls to laugh at me when I crashed the plane, and I did crash it, after about a 30 second flight. It was the end of our flight tests for the day as the wing was severely damaged and probably going to need replacement. The people that made the plane knew this would happen because there is an extra set of wings with the kit. I guess we will wait for better flight conditions for our next set of test flights. We watched a movie before Pauline and Brent took their dogs and headed back to their house about 5:30.