How it all started

Well as the tilte suggests, my love for flying model planes or aircraft started when my girlfriend bought me my first model for Christmas 2010. My first model was a Parkzone Radian glider. She paid through the nose for it at our local hobby shop, but she knew i'd like it.



When i opened that box for the first time i was amazed. I put the model together and when i had finished I realised I had to charge the battery (rookie mistake!!). After an hour (seemed like days) the battery was fully charged. I set off outside to my parents front garden. The garden is small and narrow and in hindsight not the place to fly this glider as its wing span is 2 meters and the length from nose to tail is 1 meter.


After reading the manual it said i had to perform a pre-flight check. Checked the center of gravity using the test described in the manual which took about 15 minutes to figure out how to do. I then checked that the control surfaces, which are the elevator and rudder, were working correctly. All good so far.


Now, I am unsure whether or not you have ever hand launched a model plane before but when you are ther in the moment let me tell you it is pretty terrifying. My heart was pounding. I held the model aloft over my head put the throttle to 60 - 70% and gently pushed. Oh my word... What a sight and feeling it was.



My plane was soaring through the air so magestically. Once i got her (why i have just assigned the model a sex i will never know) up to a reasonable height I shut off the engine and the plane just floated with the wind. I experimented with the controls for the rudder and elevator giving them just slight nudges to get my bearings. After 15 minutes i was doing all sorts of moves with the glider.



At the end of my parents garden there is a straight stretch of country road. Its so quiet and peaceful in this area you can hear traffic coming from miles away. My Dad heard a car coming down the road and said it would be funny to fly the plane up the road against the car. So... for a laugh i did so and it was funny. But what I didn't think of was the ensuing draft the car was creating at the speed it was travelling. I pulled hard left and upwards. The plane's elevator became unresponsive and it performed a gigantic loop the loop before coliding with a telephone poll. Ouch!

*****EDIT******27/July/2010
I am not condoning this and was a stupid thing to do. Newbie mistake.

The post-crash report was grim. I learned from a model enthusiasts web forum that this particular model can simply be glued back together with the aid of some cocktail sticks. After some intensive surgery the model was back to her former glory.

Lessons Learned:
1. Ensure you tighten all of the push rod screws, in my case THE ELEVATOR.
2. For a model with a 2 meter wing-span you need a big open space with no telephone poles in particular.
3. Plenty of flight simulator time. There are loads of free ones available, after trying many I settled on FMS simulator.