John,
Here's one I can still remember, though not model related.
As a young airman in the USAF, everything was on a hurry up and wait schedule. Life itself was one big hectic rush to be places on time.
One particular morning, following a late night party, and way too much beer, I hit the snooze button on the alarm to sleep as late as possible. When I finally got up, I had barely enough time to get ready for work, so I just grabbed everything I needed from my wall locker, and headed for the barracks latrine.
Showered, and shaved in record time, and grabbed the toothpaste to brush my teeth. The instant the tooth brush hit my mouth, I started to gag!
My first thought, was that one of my close buddies (who was always joking around) had put something in my toothpaste.
Grabbed the tooth paste tube to give it the sniff test, but realized that in my haste to get ready, I had squeezed a big blob of Brylcream hair cream onto my tooth brush! It was the same oolor and consistancy, and the tube was almost the same color as my Colgate tooth paste! Yuck!
Remember the jingle, "Brylcream, a little dab will do ya"? Well let me tell you, a little dab on the tongue was way too much!
Bill
Okay, dumb...
The following is a piece that I wrote for Dee Rice when he had a column in Stunt News called "Boneheads." The idea was to fess up to something embarassing (or dumb) that happened to you that was of your own fault. Man, do I have plenty of those...
Anyway, I figured that not everyone had the opportunity to read that piece and get (hopefully) a laugh at my expense. So, the following is posted with appropriate credit to PAMPA, Stunt News and Dee Rice. I'm pretty sure they want to forget it anyway...
I recently posted this same piece over on Stunt Hangar in the "Amazing Modeling Stories" forum.
Here goes:
Dee called and asked if I could supply him with a “Bonehead” for his new SN column. Gee, Dee, what would make you think that I ever committed a “Bonehead?”
Okay, okay, I’ll fess up to one or two, or maybe 30 of them over the years. Most of the time they have been shop oriented BH’s (Hey, wait a minute those are my initials!), and I don’t have to confess them because there is no visible proof. My few BH’s that have occurred at the field are open to public record, and I guess it would be better for me to write about them than for someone else to do so who might not be as kind to me as I intend to be.
Let’s travel in time back to the morning of the C/L Stunt finals at the 1976 Nats. The site was the intersection of the two main runways at the Wright Paterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. No, wait, let’s travel back just a few more days so I can brag a bit about how smokin’ hot I was -- decked out in my white leather loafers, white bell-bottoms and flaming red shirt -- while tearing up everything in sight during the qualification process. No, wait again. Let’s go back just one more day so I can tell you about the really great appearance score I received for my brand spankin’ new Genesis 46. This was truly one of the best looking models I had produced up to that point (many will tell you it was all downhill for BH BH -- Bonehead Bob Hunt -- from there with a spray gun and a compound rag, but that’s a story for another Bonehead column; maybe several. Hey, my philosophy is that I can make up at least three appearance points on takeoff!).
No one would have wanted to arm-wrestle me that year; I had discovered gloss! My stunt tutor, big brother, and Best Man at my wedding, Billy Simons had taught me how to finish, and I had hand rubbed that big red, white and bronze puppy until I could clearly see my perfectly handsome face in the equally perfect wing (Give me a break, I’m working up to a great Bonehead here, and you will all get plenty of opportunity to laugh at me then). Big “G” truly sparkled!
I was in the appearance judging line at the main hangar along with my flying buddy, guitar teacher, stunt guru, and oft-time bloodletting ping-pong match partner, Gene Schaffer. Gene was putting the finishing touches on buffing the wax job on his stunning Hallmark. Those of you who remember Gene well might also remember his distinctive method of buffing; he’d hold the rag still in one hand, and move the airplane vigorously up and down with the other, all the while making serious popping and snapping noises. He was a trip.
Everything was going well. The line was moving pretty quickly, and Event Director supreme, Bart Klapinski (That’s pronounced, Kla-pin-ski, not Ka-plin-ski. I’ll bet you always wanted to write that someplace, didn’t you Barton?), was dutifully scrutinizing every detail of every model and jotting down scores. Gene was ahead of me in line, standing still, while his airplane, held in his left hand, was busy logging lots of miles (you just had to know Gene. Right Mike R. and Andy L.?). Suddenly Gene let out a yelp. None of us thought much of that; Gene did that all the time. This time, however there was a real reason. Gene noticed that the little pilot figure in his Hallmark had busted loose and was sitting facing the back of the model (In retrospect, that may have actually been one of Williams Brothers’ smarter products).
Gene panicked and left the processing line. He went to a corner of the hangar and began pounding on the top block of the Hallmark in a vain effort to get the pilot to turn around. I’m serious here; Gene was hitting the top block with so much force that we were all sure that he’d break the model in half! With a little coaching (restraining?) from a few of us, he finally relented and got back in line. Now, the Hallmark was a beautifully finished model, resplendent with absolutely spiffy simulated flush rivets. To achieve this look, Gene took a piece of sharpened brass tubing, heated it, and then actually melted through the finish and very slightly into the balsa sheeting. There were hundreds of these little circles all over the Hallmark. We were all sure that one day the ship would fold along one of those lines of rivets due to stress cracks in the balsa, and even got a pool going, betting on when it would happen. It never did happen, and I don’t remember who got the money from the pool.
Bart, never known to miss a thing on a model, made some kind of comment about the little pilot’s faith, or lack thereof, in Gene’s flying ability, and gave him 17 appearance points. That was a great score that year, but Les McDonald and I tied with 18 points, and Al Rabe beat all three of us with 19 points. We’ll never know just how dearly that stupid pilot cost Gene that year. Anyway, we got on to flying the next morning.
In those days there were four qualification circles, and the entry – well over a hundred that year – was split evenly onto the circles. Part-time Off-Broadway actor, part-time musician, part-time graphic artist, part-time baseball player, and my loyal part-time helper at CSC (Control Specialties Corp.), Chris Lella (The guy just couldn’t find a full-time job . . .) had volunteered to be my coach, and he had me in perfect shape for this meet. All week long he had honed, fine-tuned, tweaked, adjusted, and soundly ridiculed my pattern, until, at the last possible minute, I began to fly really well just to spite him. Everything went completely against our well-oiled, well thought-out, master plan, and I won both rounds of qualifying on my circle.
Okay, I wasn’t used to that sort of thing in those days; in fact I never had a chance in my career to get too used to that sort of thing. We made a decision to continue anyway. Chris was confident that I’d find some really eloquent and original way to reverse this disturbing trend during the finals. The reason he gets the really big C/L Stunt coaching money is because of this type of uncanny, innate sixth sense.
Without doubt, the closest thing to being able to experience the actual feeling of being an Old West Gunfighter is to make the C/L Stunt finals at the Nats, and then walk out on the field of battle with your trusty winged weapon in hand. By that day the field has been paired down to but 20 steely-eyed, hard-as-nails, blood-thirsty, hangnail-chewing, "watch-the-lines"-shouting, “Is there any dirt on the seat of my white pants?” - asking, "that stress crack wasn’t there yesterday"-worrying, photo-posing, nervously-smiling, "I just know I can beat him and him and him" -assessing warriors.
Standing dejectedly nearby are those who didn’t make the cut. They are the "wait until next year"-swearing, "I’ll smile through gritted teeth with sincerity if it kills me"-trying, "I always beat that guy at home"-baffled, "I’ll take a picture of each of them and then make a great big dartboard"-planning, "I really should skip this farce and get an early start on the ride home"-thinking group that are also known as our flying buddies. They all come over, shake our hands and wish us well.
Another group walks onto the field. They are the Judges. They are beyond reproach. They are ready to watch with a critical eye the patterns about to be flown. Occasionally a Judge will be known to use both eyes; but this is a rare thing. They take their seats and are ready for the carnage, er, competition to begin.
As I remember, I was scheduled fifth in the flight order in the first round. That was early, but there were some outstanding fliers scheduled to go just before me. They would surely drive the scoring into the stratosphere and set the stage for my upcoming masterpiece.
I have to come out of character and be totally honest and serious at this point; I flew fabulously! No, really, I nailed it. (Hey, it happens for me quite seldom, so let me enjoy this part.) They say the wingover sets the stage for the rest of the pattern, and my wingover was a gem. The Genesis had 720 square inches of area, and it weighed 52 ounces! Those numbers, my friends, will produce copious corner if you are able. For some reason that day I was able, and with the stage set by a killer wingover I laid in the best flight of my then young life.
After the pullout from the Four Leaf Clover in a flight that you know was really good, you get to thinking. I mentally went through the entire pattern in my mind. I just knew the wingover was great. Ditto for the loops. Inverted flight was rock steady at five feet. The outsides were gorgeous. The squares? Well, what can I say; the squares were the stuff of legend. The same could be said for the Horizontal Eights and the Square Eight. The Vertical Eights and the Hourglass were statuesque. We’ll skip any mention of my now famous (infamous?) Overhead Eights. The Clover was a thing of beauty, and I was glowing.
After assessing the pattern mentally -- several times -- I remember thinking how great the engine was running. I gave a thought to what Chris and I might do for lunch. I thought a bit about the brakes that needed relining in my car. A number of other thoughts also went through my mind while I was waiting for the engine to quit. And then it struck me that the engine had been running for quite a long time -- a really long time, in fact. I glanced over at the judges and saw that four of them had begun a game of bridge, and the fifth was taking a nap.
Just as I was about to panic, the engine went lean and shutoff. I set up a steep glide path to put the Genesis down quickly. I’m not sure which is worse in that situation; gliding a lap in the air, or rolling a lap on the ground. Kind of like the “Which is heavier, a ton of bricks, or a ton of feathers” thing. Anyway, the Guppy (A popular nickname for the Genesis coined by my friends) finally rolled to a halt. I think I knew at that point how Lindberg must have felt when the prop on the Spirit of St.Louis stopped spinning at LeBorge field in Paris after his transatlantic flight. If my flight had happened first, then Lindberg would have thought that he finally knew how I felt after this Nats flight.
Head judge, Bob Gialdini, bid 5 clubs, laid down his hand and began walking out into the circle towards me. “This is never good,” I remember thinking. Bob seemed a bit sheepish as he neared me; almost as if he were afraid to tell me something. I knew already. I had over-run the allotted 8 minutes for the pattern; Bob confirmed that. I’d rolled to a stop at 8:06! To make matters worse, it began to rain.
Not once during the prior week of practice had we even come close to an over-run, and we had been checking each flight with a watch. Apparently the moist air affected the needle setting, and consequently the fuel economy. That mistake dropped me from what we later determined would have been the high scoring first round flight to 19th place.
Chris felt that finally I was showing what I was capable of, and figured that we now had them right where we wanted them. He’s just weird.
We had plenty of time to figure out the fuel problem for the second round flight, as I had drawn the coveted “Last Flight.” If the scores ballooned, and I could get the KC designation off the side of the Big “G,” we’d be in good shape. We went to our secret practice circle (Not sure what the sign “No civilian personnel allowed beyond this point” meant, but we had that section of the field to ourselves for that whole week) and flew a few flights, timing and pulling fuel until a safe time was achieved.
By this point we were soaked. We still had at least an hour and a half before my second flight would be called, and decided to go back to our motel and get dried off and changed into dry clothes. I took the opportunity to get the model into the room to dry it off well and clean it up a bit. Chris said we’d better get moving, and so we put the flight box back in the car and took the airplane outside.
We hopped into my trusty 1965 Chevy wagon, fired up the 327 and I started to back out. Then I heard this strange grinding and crunching noise. My bow-tie beauty had made many strange noises in the time I owned and drove it, but this was a new one. Chris and I said simultaneously, “What the double hockey sticks is that?” I turned around to look out the back window, and suddenly knew that something was wrong. The rack where the Genesis was usually perched was empty. I remember thinking “Hey, I brought the airplane out, where is it?” It hit us both at the exact same moment – THE AIRPLANE!
Yup, in my hurry to get back to the field, I’d forgotten to load the model in the car, and left it sitting on the ground behind the left rear wheel. When I began to back out, the left rear tire rolled up onto the muffler and snapped it clean off, along with a large chunk of the side of the ST .46. The wheel continued on back to the leading edge of the wing, but -- and this is where I actually got lucky – didn’t roll up onto the wing. When the wheel hit the muffler it compressed the landing gear to the bending point and that cracked the bottom of the right wing just adjacent to the fuselage.
I quickly hit the brakes and pulled forward a bit, and then Chris and I got out of the car and went to the model. The muffler, along with the chunk of the side of the engine was swinging back and forth in the breeze, attached to the mangled muffler pressure line by a piece of fuel tubing. The gear was bent to a strange angle, and the inboard wheel pant was crushed. There was a split down the left side of the fuselage, and the cowl was toast.
This is the point where I went into an adrenalin rush that was to last the remainder of the day. I was not going to give up. I had a spare Genesis with me, but it was not anywhere near as good a flying ship as the one that I’d been flying. We got back to the field and found that there was still about an hour and a half until my flight. Apparently the rain had slowed things down a bit.
I decided to try the older, spare ship and started flying like crazy to try and get it up to a competitive level. It was not to be; that ship was just not of the proper caliber. My very good friend, Glen Meador had been surveying the damaged model and he walked up to me and said that he thought we could fix it well enough to finish the meet. I had little choice at that point, and accepted his offer of help to make the repairs.
It had begun raining hard again at that point, and we didn’t have a place to get out of the weather and fix the model. Another good friend (and one whom we’ve recently lost, I’m very sad to say), Roger Barrett offered the use of the table in his camper as a workshop, and Glen and I dove into the repair process.
Glen took the removable landing gear out of the wing (I’ll never build a model without removable gear!) and began straightening the struts using a pair of vise grips and lots of muscle. I set to work repairing the bottom of the wing and the split in the side of the fuselage. While the epoxy was curing (Remember, no CA glue in those days!) on those repairs, I epoxied the bits of the cowl together until it sort of fit back in place. A new, Rich Tower-tuned ST 46 was installed, and with the repaired gear back in place, we headed out for a test flight or two.
The back up engine was not as strong as the original engine, and we had no way of knowing what the run times would be. We also had no idea if the mangled muffler pressure line to the tank had torn the metal and caused a leak. We made an educated guess on the fuel load, and fired it up. Actually the model flew fine with no noticeable trim problems at all! The engine seemed to be running pretty well, and we decided to take one flight and go for the official. There was no way of knowing how many flights this thing might have left in it because of internal damage.
Finally it was my turn to fly. I came to the line not knowing who was leading, or what score I would need to contend. All I could think about was just putting in a flight to finish the Nats in a respectable manner.
The rain had stopped, and the wind had died. In fact it was dead calm when I signaled Chris to release the model. As you all know, it is nearly impossible to fly cleanly in the turbulence caused when your model hits its own wake, and I did indeed hit a few bumps along that way on that flight.
When the ship rolled to a stop I was completely drained. I felt that I’d put up a good try, but thought that at best it might be a sixth or seventh place effort. I was rolling up my lines in the pit area when I heard this commotion coming from the scorer’s trailer. Glen was yelling and screaming, and going ape in general. He was shouting, “It’s Hunt, It’s Hunt.“ And at that moment I realized that I’d won the Nats. I went into complete shock, and can only remember being so weak in the knees that I couldn’t even stand up. Glen held me up and all the other fliers came over and shook my hand and slapped me on the back. It’s a feeling I’ll never forget.
By the way, Gene Schaffer placed second, just 1.6 points behind me. Remember what I said about that contrary pilot in his ship? Ultimately Gene would place second four times at the Nats but never win one. That’s sad, because he really deserved one.
So in the final analysis it can be said that I’m the only Stunt flier in Nats history to have won the stunt event with and over-run and a run-over!
As a brief postscript, I want to add that another great, late, friend, Rene Mechin, invited me to a Lobster dinner that night, and told me to bring as many friends as I wanted, That must have been some check that Rene received that night, as we had a real crowd at that celebration. During dinner he asked me if I had phoned home to tell my wife about the win. I hadn’t, so I went to a phone and called home. I told her that I’d won, and she said, “No you didn’t.” Okay, she didn’t understand, so I told her again. No, really, I won! “No you didn’t,” she said, and then added, “How could you win with all those Good Guys there!” I guess that about says it all.
I’d like to thank everyone who was involved with helping me that year. My wife was right, there were a lot of “Good Guys” there!
Bob Hunt
Got distracted while setting up my R/C model on one of the pit tables, prior to a flight. A family came over and started asking questions about how my model flew, and how much they cost, etc.
Later, while doing some aerobatics a safe distance from the runway, I watched in horror as my wing suddenly parted company with the rest of the airplane! The wing made like a maple leaf, as it fluttered slowly earthward.
The rest of the airplane made a vertical lawn dart approach, and dove straight into the soft ground from at least a hundred feet up! All I could do was shut the engine off, and hope for the best.
Crash analysis revealed that the nylon wing bolts, had backed out of the threaded blocks in the fuselage! Yep, I made the mistake of tightening them finger tight while chatting with our guests, and completely forgot to snug them up with a screw driver!
That little oversight cost me a week rebuilding a new front end for the airplane, plus a new crankcase for the OS 46 SF!
A new preflight procedure was learned that day, and from then on I never tightened the wing bolts all the way in by hand, leaving them sticking out at least a quarter inch, so I could see at a glance if I had snugged them down!
That airplane and engine lasted another ten years, until an experimental test package I was flying (altimeter driven smoke system) shifted forward when I pulled out of a tail slide, and locked my elevator and rudder servo arms in place!
Of course it seems funny now!
