Down to the park we go, 4 kids and the missus in tow, steaks, sausages , salad and spitfire.Great combo deal i thought.So we eat and the whole time the kiddies are going, c'mon Dad, Spitfire, lets fly the plane..littlest one is going alley-plane! alley-plane!Ok ok lets do, knowing that i do not want to fail as a pilot in front of my brood i was hoping to get out by myself and do my first flight..but no.So suck it up, lets go.

Head up to the biggest field and unpack the Spit, battery's are charged , systems go. The missus holds the Spit aloft and i check the rudder and aeilerons , give the motor a buzz, all good.Rev her right up and ' Launch!' Into the air she goes ..rises slightly and zooom! Straight into the ground.Sh/t , went opposite on the elevator..ooops.

Kids run over in a horde and pick her up, all good.I check it over..sweet.Ok back to mission control, missus holds her aloft again, same checks, rev her up..'Launch!' bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz and away she goes beautifully into the wind, give her a bit of height and i am slowly banking right , man she IS twitchy , bit more height , ooops there is that down thing again, up right, left TREE! TREE! TREE! PANIC! left! right! up! down! bzzzZZZZzt. Lovely.Nestled in a frikkin huge mango tree that has been growing since the dawn of man.Its a good 20 25 meters high.

The spit is at about 15 metres right out on the canopy.Awesome.So have a guess what dad is doing, yep.10 minutes later with 4 kids and the missus looking up i am in this monster tree as far as i can get out and i am still about 3 metres from the spit which is one level of branches above me that i cannot get too.I am standing on a big fork with a long dead stick in my hand prodding at a bunch of leaves, too far away to annoy the Spit.So i decide to break up the stick, about as thick as your wrist and roughly a metre and a half long.I sit down and start pegging the bits at the spit, accompanied by ooohs and ahhhs from my crew far below.

Man i can tell ya , we have three mango trees at home all pretty huge and i have built a rather large tree house in one at about 5 metres for the kids with another platform at about 8 metres.This thing i am in gives me the willies lol. i reckon i am about 13 or so metres and starting to seriously think about plummeting and death, with all of the associated branch bouncing on the way down..so i give up and head down.

Once on land again, YES! i continue pegging sticks at it and i am finally rewarded by a fluttering piece..the tailplane floats down and the kids all go yaaaaaaay! lol. I give up on the sticks as the bigger pieces are all now stuck in the tree anyway.I raid the esky for the 500ml water bottles, start ditching them up at the Spit.By now we have quite a bit of interest in our activities, a few kids who were playing soccer have come over and are sitting down looking up, a bunch at the closest bbq are eating and staring on and another little group of kids are pulled up on their scooters.Great,an audience.

So a good 30 minutes of flying water bottles and the tree releases its prey, the Spit flatspins down and lands in the lowest outcrop of leaves, i reach up and bend the branch end down and grab her.Fuselage snapped in two, no prop, no tail and a piece missing out the fuselage where it is broken.All of the controls are perfect though and the damage is not as bad as it looks, she will fly again , and longer than ten seconds.Preferably.

So we spent about and hour and half rescueing the spit and everyones necks are sore from craning upwards, the kids just want the Spit to fly again as do i, the missus is sleepy though so we head off.

Next time..park...no trees.

...sorry but it was fun, hope you get better luck next time

Cheers

ROFLMFAO

I can just picture the scene .... Can't stop laughing!!

Ouch! I bet that tree is going to claim that as a "probable" as well, if not an outright kill!

But yeah, open fields or cut-down farmland with as few hedgerows as possible is best. Don't progress to a field that has trees in eyeshot until you've got a few minutes/hours under your belt

Yeah well i nearly finished repairing her last night and i have plans to move to the open desert for the next flight

Hey Leith

Pm me your email and I will contact you through there...

I'll help get ya in the air again without the drastic move to the desert! Although personaly .... That's where I think you belong

LOL, great story mate, sorry about the ending! Spits and the like never have been the ideal mount for learning to fly,
especially solo, seen a few try but don't recall seeing many succeed! good luck with it mate, and hope the second flight goes better with some assistance.

Craig

Sounds like the kids had a great time

I was reminded of a pic I had seen of a rcplane with a arrow shot through the wing. I can't find it now but did find this contraction.

Oooooooooh! I WANT ONE OF THOSE!!