Son's 1st flight

Well we went down to the neighborhood schoolyard with an old Flight Streah Jr. with a Slant plug Fox .15 on it. It was time for that special father/son bonding experience, "The 1st C/L flight". This was our sencond attempt. The first outing last weekend didn't qualify as I never got a chance to take my hand off his and let him try solo.

A little breezy but a nice evening. I started, he launched and then came out and I got his hand on the handle. 1/2 a lap later before I could get him stabilized we dumped it in the grass. New prop, a structural check and try again. This time after a couple laps with me guiding him I stepped back and he was on his own. 1 lap of good level flight, 1 lap with a climb into the breeze that I talked him down from. On the next lap into the wind it got too high -he overcontrolled and did a loop and a half before the fateful vertical landing.

Now we get to share the " Fix_it so you can fly it again " part of this adventure. I can hardly express the joy I felt seeing him make those first few laps, and the big smile on his face when I told him " You made it 2 1/2 laps farther than I did my 1st try.

I am a happy guy today!!

Fix_it

You can let him know that my first flight was with an "indestructable" Wen Mac plastic plane (predecessor to the Cox stuff). Well, I ended up doing half a lap, half a wingover, and was left with half a plane.

False advertising.

Len,
Almost exacly what I did, Cox P-51- Christmas day about 1970 in N.C. Take-off , full up, wingover into the groud and a 2 piece wing. Thats when I learned that nothing will glue a cox plane together for long if it still has fuel residue on it.
It always had fuel residue because I used to start the motor and run around with the plane in my hand just to listen to it scream and smell the nitro!
The motor worked quite well in a Sterling Mustang profile though, it was certainly broken in by the time it made it's first complete flight.

Len,
I am impressed that you got that Wen Mac up high enough to do a little crash damage. I have fond memories of a Wen Mac Dauntless my uncle gave me back in 7th grade. It was a beautiful looking (but heavy) plane, and that poor little 049 could barely make it budge. Most flying (if you can call it that) was more whipping the plane than powered flight.

>You can let him know that my first flight was with an
>"indestructable" Wen Mac plastic plane (predecessor to the
>Cox stuff). Well, I ended up doing half a lap, half a
>wingover, and was left with half a plane.
>
>False advertising.

Len,
The advertising sounds okay since you still had all the pieces. Now if there was less than what you started with, I would agree that there was some destruction. Probably should look for an advertisement that says "Cannot be made unflyable" and then be sure that they don't consider parts that can be thrown as flyable......

Solder some serving wire wrapped around each lead out to limit the elevator travel. Plane should do a shallow climb and dive with full lock.

Giffy

Nice to hear these new flyer stories. There are lots of ways to teach, and I guess what I'm learning from my son is that more control can be better. We started flying together, sharing the handle of a Streak Trainer with limited control. He'd get bored/dizzy and last about six laps before wanting to sit down and watch. We broke plenty of props on pullouts that just couldn't make it, and we broke the plane in a gust+wingover that became sort of a free-flight adventure.

Then a couple of months ago Mel Lynne taught him fly a .09 powered Diesel combat plane. After half a flight Mel was just sitting on the ground, and Julian was flying around wildly with a huge smile on his face, pausing to do consecutive loops (four at one count) and recovering level. Ok, so all three flights eventually ended in figure 9s in the soft turf, but those planes can take it and I know he had more fun. After that he actually asked to go flying with me (oh, the surprise!).

Our next adventure I let him fly a Fox .35 powered junker (ugly but boy would it turn tight loops) that I wanted to get rid of. I told him it didn't matter if he crashed it, and he did. But there were almost two minutes of pure joy leading up to that "crunch".

My old man took me out at age 9 with a 1/2A Cox Cessna L-19 Bird Dog. He didn't explain the concept very well (or I wouldn't listen) but I never did get more than 1/4 lap with it. At age 12 I received the Cox PT-19 with some pretty detailed instructions. Once I had done the ground school it was off to the flying site. We took off from the edge of some pavement for a ROG attempt. After one slight mishap (don't you love those rubber bands?) I flew the tank out on each successive flight.

My son first flew at age 9 with a scratch built 1/2A student. Aside from a few rough landings he mastered that pretty quickly. This year I moved him up to a Streak Trainer (now he can land) and a U-Key 15. He did his first wingover this summer. Then I crashed the U-Key. It's repaired and we'll start him out on loops and inverted soon.

I f you let the kid use a handle that is 6in tall and 6in long , he will fly very easy. Cut it from plywood and connect the lines about 2.5 in apart. The length of the handle gives it very good feedback and self centers it. Works,
MM

Hey Bill,

Congrats! What's your son's name and how old is he? I have no idea where you live but consider going to Brodak's next year if possible, it's a great place for kids that are just learning, since there are others for example.

I'm only about 3 years ahead of you on the solo my kid thing, I felt the same as you described. Nearly cried when he did level laps and loops for attempt points at his first contest. It's hard to believe this sport is so hard to sell, nearly all the kids I've seen learn this sport are picking it up WAY faster than we did! The planes are better, the kits are better, the engines are less troublesome, the list goes on and on. I guess those of us still in the hobby are so because of the "initiation" we had to go through, weeded out all but the most die hard!

Keep us posted and let us know when he makes the next milestone, a whole tank of gas!