Ep 168: REPLAY: Halloween Special; Scary RC Airplane Stories

[00:00:37] Hello everyone and welcome to the RC plane lab podcast, Halloween episode, I'm Ron and I'm Tom. Today we're going to be talking about scary RC airplane stories.

[00:00:51] I'll tell you what's scary is that intro.

[00:00:57] What's scary is how well my wife does the witch cackle. I tell you what, that's a, yeah, she's not down here.

[00:01:03] It's okay. Oh dear.

[00:01:04] She doesn't listen. She doesn't listen. It's okay. Actually, this is a weird episode because we have an audience. We do. And it makes me uncomfortable. It does. Your wife is sitting in the background laughing at us the whole time we're doing this. Yeah. And yeah. Yeah. I'm used to her laughing at me, so it's nothing new to me. I'm new to it. She's taking pictures and yeah, there we go. So, Halloween. Halloween. I love Halloween. I like Halloween too.

[00:01:36] It's one of my favorite holidays of the year.

[00:01:39] Yeah. I like Halloween too. There's no pressure.

[00:01:42] Right?

[00:01:42] You don't have to entertain anybody. You don't have to cook dinner for anybody. You don't have to like put up with weird relatives that you, that smell funny. Yeah.

[00:01:53] I like Halloween. Yeah. Halloween's the best. Yeah.

[00:01:56] And there's like, there's no pressure. You don't have to buy gifts for anyone. I mean, it's like really the best.

[00:02:02] You just, it's candy and scaring people. Right. I mean, how much better does it get than that? It doesn't get much better.

[00:02:10] Although I will say, as a parent, the kids are getting older. I used to really enjoy scaring them, like hiding in the hallway. And, when they come around the corner, yell at them. I can't do that anymore. There's nobody at home to scare anymore. And Laura gets mad when I do it.

[00:02:25] Well, that makes it all the more fun. Well, for you maybe. Oh, absolutely. I don't have to worry about a divorce. Oh, that doesn't keep me from doing it though. Oh, so scary stories. Yeah.

[00:02:38] Let's talk about some scary stuff.

[00:02:39] Yeah. We've got some scary stories to talk about. We've got some voicemails to play. And let's just talk about the hobby and what's happened.

[00:02:47] Yeah. In the many years I've been in the hobby, I've seen some scary things. Not like maybe ghosts, but certainly some airplanes doing things that are scary.

[00:02:57] Well, I just thought of it. It seems like we have a haunted plane.

[00:03:00] We do.

[00:03:01] Yeah.

[00:03:02] And it's called the trashcan telemaster.

[00:03:04] It might end up back in the trashcan if it doesn't fly after this next time.

[00:03:07] It may. It may. We still have yet to finish that.

[00:03:10] Well, and the problem is though. Even though you say it's done. It's finished. Like I'm ready to take it out and fly it. But every time that it's been time to go out and do it, it's been rainy. Or the wind. It's been windy. And it's just like, it's ready now, but it doesn't want to fly yet.

[00:03:24] Yeah. Yeah. It seems like lately, at least the past month anyway, when I've like had time to go fly, like you said, it's either been windy or rainy or I've just been like so exhausted. I just didn't have the energy to load up the car and go, which is really sad because I do really enjoy flying.

[00:03:43] Well, at your age, I mean, I'm proud of you for actually doing what you do now. I mean, you're still pretty mobile.

[00:03:49] Sort of set myself up.

[00:03:50] Yeah. So good job. Yeah. You're welcome. So what has scared you, Tom? What have you come across?

[00:03:56] Well, I thought about this week's episode all week and tried to come up with some stuff that I remember from my past that was scary. And I did come up with a few things. I'll start with, and these are in no particular order, like one's not more scary than the other, but just like kind of at a, at a quick cursory run through of all the moments of my career. These are the ones that stood out. So like, I'll go back to college days. We're talking like 91, 1991, something like that.

[00:04:26] Yeah, I was 10. Great Plains Head. Yeah, I know. I'm old. Respect your elders.

[00:04:32] I, you have to earn it.

[00:04:35] Hey, listen, somebody called in, left a message and told you specifically to respect your elders. So I'm going to expect you to.

[00:04:43] No, I think that got deleted. Curve your behavior. You can't, you can't, you can't prove that.

[00:04:48] Get off my lawn. All right. So anyway, back in 91 ish, Great Plains produced a, a kit, a balsa kit of a, decathlon, which is a, Satabria kind of like a, sounds like a cub. Yeah. Kind of like a really aerobatic cub if you want to high wing, but, they produced a kit, a 40 size kit. And I, built one in college, probably should have been spending time doing college things like studying and homework and stuff like that.

[00:05:16] But no, I built airplanes in college. Yeah, that's okay. so anyway, I spent all the time building this thing and I made it, I, I covered it just like the box. It was a beautiful little red airplane, red and white and had the white starburst on the top, the top of the wing and really good looking airplane. Had a Sato 50 four stroke on it, which I believe this was my first four stroke engine too. So, that was kind of scary.

[00:05:41] Just the fact that that was my first four stroke. Took it out to fly it the first time and crashed it, which is not the scary part. The scary part of it is that, this was my introduction to tip stalling and spins from a tip stall. I'd never spun an airplane either intentionally or not before. And, not really knowing what to expect in this airplane. I'm not sure why it tip stalled.

[00:06:08] I mean, obviously I got it slow, but maybe the wing had a little bit of a warp in it. Maybe I had the incident or the washout backwards. Who knows? Tip stalled right out in front of me and spun into the ground. I mean, I was probably maybe 20 feet off the ground, doing kind of a low trim passive, if you want to call it that. And, got it a little too slow and it tip stalled and scared me cause I'd never had a, never seen a tip stall before.

[00:06:33] And then I don't know if you've ever tip stalled an airplane with a, with a consequential spin. yeah, you can't do really anything about it.

[00:06:44] That sucks.

[00:06:45] So that was, yeah, that was a, and of course, re-kitted the airplane. Yeah. even from that low altitude, it was toast.

[00:06:52] Yeah. That, that happens, unfortunately. Yeah. Matchsticks.

[00:06:55] And all that time. And, that's just something we sort of get accustomed to in the hobby. It happens, but when it happens the first time, it was pretty scary.

[00:07:04] Yeah. So, and I, we, we were talking beforehand and I guess I haven't told this story before, but my first Balsa plane, my Sig Cavalier, the one that I bought. So actually the first time I flew that, like I really was not ready. Like I had flown the Super Cub and I was comfortable with a three channel and all that kind of stuff, but I had never really done anything with a four. Four channel before.

[00:07:27] And instead of going out to the field where you should go, this is actually before I was even a member of that. my neighbor at the time, had. Maybe get some help from an experienced pilot.

[00:07:39] Maybe.

[00:07:40] But I should have done that too. but I didn't know any really at the time. so yeah, but anyway, so no, my, my neighbor had, had, I don't want to say forced me, but, what's the word I'm looking for? It had kind of pushed me, into going out and flying this strongly encouraged. Yeah. There you go. And he told me, he's like, I've got a perfect place to fly it. He said, a friend of mine has a lot of just open land out in the country.

[00:08:05] He said, there's nothing around for like, a thousand feet. So we get out there and it's, it's a decent area. I guess there's a lot of open area, but there's a lot of hills. Wow. And so my first time flying a nitro airplane four channel.

[00:08:20] Oh, this is the first nitro.

[00:08:21] This is the first nitro.

[00:08:22] Not only your first balsa, but also your first nitro.

[00:08:24] First nitro, first balsa. This was the Cavalier. Okay. and so taking off was fine. So I went down the hill, but landing. So landing was one of those. You have one shot or else you're going to run into something. You're going to crash your plane or you're going to hurt someone.

[00:08:41] So you're trying to land on the hill.

[00:08:43] I did. when I, I flew around for a little bit and it was fun. And then I was like, all right, it's been a few minutes. I don't know how much fuel lasts. I didn't know anything about timeframe, how long you could fly those. And so I was expecting to be about the same time as you would get like with a, with a super cub.

[00:08:59] So I came in to land and going, it's, it's weird when you're not used to it and you have to land, you go down and then you have to start following the hills to come and land and go uphill to land. And knowing that if you overshoot it, you're either going to run into, the, the, the house that's behind it. Okay. Or if you go the other way, you're going to hit the barn with the, with the cows in it. nothing like boxing yourself in.

[00:09:27] Or if you go the other way, you're going to hit yourself and the other people that are with you.

[00:09:31] And that's pretty scary.

[00:09:32] Or the trees that were kind of on each side. So we were kind of on the, the, like the side of the field and it wasn't like everything in front of me was open, but where I was, was not the best place to land. But I made it, I landed it and then I turned around and did it again. You did it twice. I did. Cause I was like, oh, I got this.

[00:09:50] What's scary about that? Just the fact that you had the.

[00:09:52] Cause I'd never done it before. And I was like, super like nervous. And like, after I got it taken off, I don't think I thought about landing until after I took off. And I was like, wait a minute. I got to land now. This is not going to be easy. but no, it worked out and, and I was quite happy with that. Yeah. So that was a little scary flying a plane for the first time like that.

[00:10:13] Yeah. Your first, nitro takeoff and landing is scary enough.

[00:10:18] When it's on a flat field.

[00:10:19] When it's on a nice prepared, club field. But to do that in a boxed in kind of a situation that you had there. Yeah.

[00:10:26] I can see how that'd be scary, but it all worked out pretty well.

[00:10:29] Yeah. Well, it's in one piece. Well, kinda.

[00:10:32] Oh no, I don't have that plan anymore. Nevermind. Forget it. Move on.

[00:10:38] Right on. Okay. so yeah, another, scary memory that came to mind was, so I talked about in one of our very first episodes, our neighbor, Mike, that had gotten me into the hobby.

[00:10:49] Yeah.

[00:10:49] A couple of years later, after he got me into the hobby and we, we were doing airplane stuff together, whenever he had time, he nearly burned his house down. With a soldering iron.

[00:11:01] With a soldering iron. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. How do you do that?

[00:11:04] To be honest, I'm not exactly sure, but I think he left it on, in close proximity to something flammable and went to bed or got passed out. He drank a little bit.

[00:11:18] Oh.

[00:11:18] But, yeah, he actually caught the house on fire and, it got so hot that it, that my mom, my parents were concerned that the heat coming from the fire of his house.

[00:11:31] Oh, I actually burnt it down, burnt it down. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

[00:11:34] Well, not down, but it, it definitely, nearly got to the inside of that house. Yeah.

[00:11:38] I shouldn't be laughing. That's terrible.

[00:11:41] No, it's, yeah, it's, but yeah, he, the sad, the sad end to that was, he was renting the house, he and his wife at the time. Oh. And, of course they weren't allowed to live there after they nearly burned it. That's so he had to move away.

[00:11:57] Oh, so that's how you lost your first friend.

[00:11:58] And that's how I lost my first RC plane friend. Yeah. Oh, that sucks. Which is, it's, it sucks, but it was also scary because fire is scary.

[00:12:07] Yeah. Have you ever forgot to turn off your soldering iron?

[00:12:11] Hmm. I'm not gonna say, I'm not gonna say maybe, but I'm pretty sure I've been pretty good about turning my soldering iron off.

[00:12:20] I am terrible about it.

[00:12:22] Oh, jeez.

[00:12:22] Like I will use it and then I will come down like on the other side of the basement where I have it like three or four days later and be like, oh, that light's still on.

[00:12:30] Oh my gosh.

[00:12:31] And it's still set to like 760 degrees. I better turn that off.

[00:12:34] Burning up the tip.

[00:12:36] Oh, that's terrible. Hey, it happens, but yeah.

[00:12:39] Well, I mean, yeah.

[00:12:39] I do that a lot though.

[00:12:41] Even though I, I leave my charger on and that scares me, like with lipos attached to it.

[00:12:45] Yeah, I do too.

[00:12:46] And that's kind of scary. Yeah. Because lipos scare me anyway.

[00:12:49] Well, I still like with batteries and charging, I've never had a problem except for, and it's scary to think about too, when we were talking about the little one cell lipos for the quad copters. Not being the same polarity.

[00:13:02] Yeah.

[00:13:02] Who would have thought you couldn't use the same charger for different types of batteries?

[00:13:06] Yeah. So it's scary that that sort of a non-standardization exists.

[00:13:10] Yeah.

[00:13:11] That's scary.

[00:13:11] And that was, that was probably the worst non-flying related thing that I've ever had happen. Like, I mean that, when you start to smell that smell and then you get that, it goes through your head like, okay, that's not a good smell. What is it? Where is it coming from? And then trying to find where it's coming from. Yeah.

[00:13:30] It's like instantly the, the instinct kicks in and I got to find what's on fire. I got to find what's on fire. There's something on fire. Yeah.

[00:13:36] Yeah. And luckily I got there cause it was very hot. Oh, I'm sure. I mean, like I said, those were melting by the time I got there. So. Yeah. That's pretty scary. That's never good.

[00:13:44] No. Something else. I mean, we've talked about the dualist stories. Well, my dualist story is really just one story. It was a crash, but that was scary because it was, same thing. You think, you think you've done everything correctly only to find out you move the stick in one direction and the airplane does something completely opposite. That's a scary feeling in the pit of your stomach.

[00:14:09] That is a scary feeling, but I feel like that's one that can be avoided.

[00:14:13] Well, I didn't say I couldn't avoid it. I'm just saying it was a scary moment.

[00:14:16] Yeah.

[00:14:16] Because, like you have an expectation when you move the stick a certain direction that the airplane is going to respond that direction, but when it does something completely the opposite, it's like an instant, like, ooh, hair on the back of your neck or, or pit of the, the feeling in the pit of your stomach. Scary.

[00:14:35] Yeah.

[00:14:35] Yeah. So that was the dualist.

[00:14:37] Worse than that is when you're flying an airplane and then all of a sudden you have nothing.

[00:14:41] Well, that is very scary.

[00:14:42] So with the Yak, I remember the time I was flying that and that, that was the worst time. The big Yak. The big Yak. Like the scariest thing I ever had flying was when I was out practicing with that. So I was out and I think I've told this story before. I don't remember. But anyway, just flying around normal. I mean, no, no aerobatics, nothing like that. Kind of getting the, getting used to it because it was a new plane to me and I still wasn't quite sure how it behaved.

[00:15:06] And got out and then started finally doing some loops and all that kind of stuff. And, little faster rolls, using some more power through it as you pull some of the servos, pulling more power through it. And then all of a sudden, as it's facing straight down, coming out of a loop, it just dies. Like not dies, but I have nothing. Like the engine's still running. You lose control. And it's going straight down. And I mean, I about browned out my pants.

[00:15:33] It was one of those things to where you just, you don't know what to do and you just panic.

[00:15:38] Yeah. You heard it here first, folks. Brown outs don't always just occur in the receivers. Sometimes they happen in your pants.

[00:15:46] That's, that's unfortunately a truth.

[00:15:49] That's a scary visual. I'll give you that. Thank goodness.

[00:15:52] It's not a smell-o-vision, right?

[00:15:54] Oh dear. Yeah.

[00:15:56] Oh, but, and that was, like I said, very scary. That might have been over the line.

[00:16:01] Sorry.

[00:16:03] Very, very scary time. But at least, I, I, it probably had a couple seconds until it would have crashed. Luckily, everything reset itself and I was able to bring it in and land. Oh, that was.

[00:16:14] Yeah.

[00:16:14] So what do I have to do to fix that?

[00:16:16] I remember that happening and you talking about it.

[00:16:20] I ended up spending the $300 or whatever it was on the SmartFly EQ6. Yeah.

[00:16:24] And never had a problem again after that.

[00:16:26] No. Right. Well, because it was pulling all the power through the receiver.

[00:16:29] Yeah.

[00:16:29] And as that was pulling too much power through the batteries and what it could take, it just, low voltage. And of course it's a gasoline engine, so it stays running. Yeah. Yeah. That's completely separate from. Probably at idle.

[00:16:42] If you're pointing down, hopefully it was at idle.

[00:16:44] Yeah. I wasn't, wasn't running it too fast at that point, but still it was, it was running and powering itself down through the ground.

[00:16:52] Yeah.

[00:16:52] So.

[00:16:53] Yeah.

[00:16:54] That was, that was scary. Yeah.

[00:16:56] Another scary moment for me to, talk about airplane crashes and things like that. So this hasn't been that long ago, 2012-ish we'll say, was the Seagull Nemesis. Remember that one?

[00:17:09] I love that. That was my plane. No, that one wasn't. I gave you the one that you crashed before that. That's right.

[00:17:15] Yeah. Actually, both of those airplanes are on my list. Oh. Yeah. So the Nemesis was the one that had the battery pack way back in the.

[00:17:22] That was the one I never got to see. Yeah. And I wanted to see that one. Oh, that's not the same.

[00:17:27] Yeah. So, I mean, I was flying and, it was kind of a racy airplane, fast.

[00:17:34] It was a very nice looking airplane.

[00:17:35] Yeah. And I had done a, I felt I had done a good job of, cutting the cowl perfectly around the engine. And the engine was just, just certain little bits of the engine, peeking out, around the cowl and had taken my time with, getting the covering. It was an arse, but I went over the covering and made sure there was no sags or wrinkles.

[00:17:55] And nobody likes sagging and wrinkling covering.

[00:17:57] No, I don't like sagging covering.

[00:17:59] Mm-mm. It doesn't fly as well either.

[00:18:02] No. And for me, it's, it's got to look good.

[00:18:07] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:07] So, but yeah, I had spent all that time and kind of a, kind of a crappy design, if you ask me, the way Siegel had you install the battery in this thing. It had to go in the tail because there was so much weight in the front of the airplane.

[00:18:21] Yeah.

[00:18:22] And they gave you this little tiny little hatch with a spring loaded pin that you used to open it and seemed secure enough to me. but anyway, yeah, high speed pass in front of the pits and I go to make a turn to bring it back and that little hatch flies off and out goes the battery.

[00:18:41] And you have nothing. And the scary, yeah.

[00:18:43] And the scary feeling is okay. Now I've got a live airplane here with a, a tank full of tank full of fuel and, nothing controlling it. Yeah.

[00:18:51] Where is this thing going to go? It's not going to stop. Just watch it keep going.

[00:18:54] Yeah. And luckily it, I mean, it was, it was wide open. I mean, I was, I was, doing the whole, fast, low, that wasn't really low, but fast, fly-bys cause it looked cool.

[00:19:06] Yeah. It sounded cool.

[00:19:08] Yeah. And I had just initiated a turn. Thank goodness. When the battery came out, cause it just continued that turn, kind of a, not a really hard left turn, but it was a, a pretty steep left turn and it eventually just turned and dove into the right on. It actually smacked just shy of the runway on the, in the, in the corner field.

[00:19:26] Now that was a, a Sato, right?

[00:19:28] No, that was a Thunder Tiger Pro 46 two stroke. Yeah.

[00:19:32] And that's not the one, was that the one that came off of the, the edge? Okay. I was going to say the edge that you got off of me was a Sato.

[00:19:38] Yeah, that had the Sato 70 or 65. I forget what was on that one, but.

[00:19:41] I don't know why I thought you put that one in that airplane.

[00:19:44] No, it was a two stroke cause I wanted the speed.

[00:19:47] I thought.

[00:19:47] I wanted the high RPM so I could,.

[00:19:49] That was a replacement one for that one though, wasn't it? The Nemesis was supposed to replace the edge?

[00:19:53] It did. Yeah.

[00:19:54] Okay.

[00:19:54] Cause I, cause I crashed the edge while I was at tech school.

[00:19:58] Yeah. So that's, I think that's why I thought you just put all the electronics straight into the new airplane.

[00:20:02] I, the electronics minus the receiver. Yes. But I, I had a different engine for the Nemesis cause I wanted it to go fast.

[00:20:09] Okay.

[00:20:10] So, but yeah, the, yeah, battery came out into flight and then you've got, there you go. That feeling in the pit of my stomach is like, Oh, where's it going to go? And luckily it didn't go anywhere except down into the, onto the field. Had I, had that battery come out while it was straight and level, who knows? I mean, that thing may be in the bottom of the lake. I mean, we have a lake not too far from the field and man, that thing was moving out.

[00:20:38] Yeah. Four states over.

[00:20:39] Yeah. Yeah. Finally. Yeah. And I had a big tank. I think I had to put a 10 ounce in there for a 46. That's a lot of fuel. Wow.

[00:20:46] I remember one of the times we were out in the field and I had a, this was with the Yak also. And it might've been that same day. I don't remember. But anyway, so as I was starting it up, you have to have somebody hold an airplane that big. Yep. Just to make sure. Yeah.

[00:21:00] You can't do that by yourself.

[00:21:02] Yeah.

[00:21:02] It's a big airplane and as soon as the-

[00:21:04] And very dangerous. Yeah.

[00:21:05] And as soon as it's idling, it's moving.

[00:21:07] Yeah. It's, it's got pull even when it's at its lowest speed. But anyway, so there was somebody out there and I was getting ready to turn it over and they're like, well, let me hold it for you. And I explained to him, I was like, look, this has a lot of pull when I run it up to full throttle, to clear it out and stuff. Oh, I've had, I had a lot of experience with big planes. I've got it. Don't worry about it. I'm okay.

[00:21:27] Okay.

[00:21:29] So I guess stupidly on my part, I was like, sure. I don't know you come over here and do this for me. this is when I was first getting into the hobby and stuff and didn't really know, the ins and outs of what to expect out of somebody else. so I got it started up and idling just fine. I warned him. I was like, all right, I'm going to run it up and, and, brace yourself. It's going to pull hard. I'm okay. It's okay. So I did it.

[00:21:52] And as soon as it got to full throttle, it pulled them off of balance and they fell onto the turtle deck and just kind of off to the side. and so I put it, down to idle.

[00:22:02] It's a good thing that didn't fall into the prop. You can't. Well, that's a big airplane.

[00:22:06] I mean, even if you like laid down on it, I don't think you could reach the front. That's scary. Yeah.

[00:22:13] I mean.

[00:22:13] Yeah. It really could have messed up.

[00:22:15] Having somebody fall over your nice 42 or whatever percent airplane. It, that's kind of scary. Yeah.

[00:22:21] So that's the last person or last time I let somebody I didn't know and trust help me out with that.

[00:22:25] Lots of things can go wrong in that scenario.

[00:22:28] Yeah. So that was scary. If you're, proper. What?

[00:22:35] Some people say scenario.

[00:22:36] What did you say?

[00:22:38] I said scenario.

[00:22:39] Oh.

[00:22:40] I don't know what's just more proper, but I feel like people who say scenario are snooty.

[00:22:47] Maybe. Oh God. I don't know. Oh, that's scary.

[00:22:53] Actually.

[00:22:54] Yeah.

[00:22:54] And that is scary because I have the weird perceptions we have of how people pronounce words. It's funny to me.

[00:23:04] And you got off topic.

[00:23:06] I did. Sorry. I do that from time to time. I'll tell you what's not off topic is my other scary story here.

[00:23:13] I was going to say at your age, I'm proud that you can stay this focused for this long.

[00:23:18] Well, I, I am somewhat of a busy body. I have a hard time sitting still and staying focused. So, so the other airplane, the one that preceded the nemesis, the one that I got from you had an orange receiver in it, which is, I don't know if you have any experience with orange receivers. I do.

[00:23:36] I've never had a problem with one.

[00:23:37] Yeah. my only experience with an orange receiver was with, unfortunately the demise of this airplane. See another Seagull product. This one. Good, good, good design. Good flying airplane. but yeah, the orange receiver locked up in flight and, and then here we go, Tommy's along for the ride. Where is it going to go?

[00:23:54] That was the, the 40 size, 540, right?

[00:23:58] Yeah. And that had the Sato four stroke on it.

[00:24:00] Yeah.

[00:24:01] I really do miss that plane. I would love to have another one.

[00:24:03] Yeah.

[00:24:04] With another, that same combination.

[00:24:05] I did a good job putting that together. You did. Yeah. Except for the cuts were not nearly as well as yours. I was just like, okay, this motor has fit in there. I don't care if it's got an inch and a half around the whole thing, it's going to be inside.

[00:24:15] Yeah. But it's the way it flew made up for the, the lack of, the lack of fit and finish, on the, on the parts. But yeah, that was a, that's scary when you don't have control of them.

[00:24:29] Yeah.

[00:24:30] And you don't know where they're going.

[00:24:31] The other thing that's scary though, which is surprising. Last time when we were out and Cody was flying with you and you were in the buddy box. Yeah. That really scared me.

[00:24:38] Yeah. You mentioned that on the, on the episode we talked about it.

[00:24:41] I don't know why, but I just like going into it, I was just like, okay, I don't care if this plane crashes. It means nothing to me. It's fine. And then you guys get up there and I'm like, Oh, I can't watch. It's just, it's the weirdest thing. I don't understand that. I don't either. Like I really do not mind. I almost would be better off if that plane was not like still here because then I'd have more room for something else.

[00:25:05] But like just watching him and maybe that was it too. Maybe I was more concerned that I didn't want him to crash and then get discouraged.

[00:25:12] Yeah. I could see that.

[00:25:13] But you guys got pretty close a couple of times.

[00:25:15] Well, like I, like I said in the, in the, training, training a pilot. Is that what the topic was? I forget what exactly. But anyway, what I, like what I said, you have to, you have to let them get in those situations so that they can recover from them. That's how they learn.

[00:25:31] Well, and as the driver or the, the pilot that you are, it's not scary for you because you're in control. what you can do.

[00:25:39] Yeah. Outsider looking in, I'm sure. Yeah.

[00:25:41] Me standing over your shoulders going, well, what, what? Oh, I can't watch. that's completely different. Yeah.

[00:25:47] I get it. I get it. finally, the last one for me is, so I'm going to date myself again on the show. So, so there used to be a time where, we had to fly airplanes with radios that weren't 2.4 gigahertz. Right. Yeah. So AM radios I'm talking about back, back in the day.

[00:26:07] Way back when. And I. Not, not that long ago, by the way, because when I first got into airplanes, I still had cars that were on AM radio.

[00:26:14] Well, that's true. Yeah. So, I mean, there, you can, you can still get AM radios, I think, in, in cars, I think some of the, some of the lower entry level cars, I think you can still get AM radios. But anyway, we used to fly airplanes with these scary things and, we had a phenomenon that I used to call ghost plane. So it was, it was feasible. It was, it was more than feasible.

[00:26:37] It was likely that if you had two pilots at the field with the same frequency and they both had a transmitter on, they could both have some degree of control of the airplane that has the same receiver, with that channel.

[00:26:52] Yeah.

[00:26:52] So it wasn't really an uncommon thing to happen back in the day, especially at a larger event, where there's maybe a lot of pilots and maybe the, the control that, the frequency control board, maybe not in use as much as it should be. it was totally possible that somebody would turn a transmitter on in the pits that was on your channel while you were flying. And then next thing, you've got an airplane that you're half in control of.

[00:27:18] So there's a scary thought. I mean, when you're out there flying and your airplane does something weird and then even more scary is it comes back and you have control of it again and you can't explain. Well, I mean, usually you could explain, Hey, you're yelling in the pits. Somebody's on channel 72 or whatever. but that was, that was always scary when that happened and it happened frequently.

[00:27:40] Depending on who was flying. I'd just be like getting on the same channel and just turn it on. Turn it off. Yeah. Turn it on, do loop. Turn it off. Yeah. That's not very funny. Oh, depends. Depends who you're doing it to. if what I mean.

[00:27:55] Yeah. Well, yeah, I do. I do. But anyway, that was always scary because you never, you'd be yelling and screaming, Hey, somebody's on my frequency or whatever. And then everybody in the pits would be like, kind of doing the whole turn the radio off while they're looking. I don't know what you're talking about. Mine's been off the whole time, but then.

[00:28:13] Yeah. We, we really are, are spoiled now with just how far things have come and we don't have to worry about that kind of stuff. Not really. Yeah.

[00:28:22] Yeah.

[00:28:22] So, and how did that work? Like if somebody did that, like they turned on their radio, was it just kind of like who is closer to it? It would take the signal from, or was it?

[00:28:33] Well, I don't know the details, but like I knew if I was flying and I lost control of my airplane, without any prior kind of, warning signs. Like if you're having radio issues, usually you'll have warning signs from the time you turn everything on. But if you turn everything on and you get your airplane started up and everything's fine.

[00:28:54] And then you're halfway through your flight and all of a sudden your airplane is doing weird stuff, somebody's got, got a radio on.

[00:29:02] Yeah.

[00:29:02] And I think probably, yeah, whoever's closer probably gets more control probably.

[00:29:08] Hmm.

[00:29:09] But I mean, it's relative, right? Yeah. The airplane's out there 400 feet away, maybe, maybe you're 50 feet high and not 400 feet away. Relatively speaking, the line from a transmitter further down the pits compared to your line is really not going to be that much different. Oh, wow. But yeah, that was, that was always scary. Scary stories.

[00:29:30] No, I remember when I was, when I was flying the, the Sandpiper when I first did that one. So I know I told the story of how I, how I crashed it the first time I flew it when I just, I don't know why I, I threw it, put it on full throttle and then that thing just took off like a rocket. And for some reason my mind would not even think about turning the throttle down. Like I'm just trying to control this thing, forgetting about throttle.

[00:29:52] I love this story.

[00:29:54] Well, the part that I didn't tell before, I, I said I crashed it. but I left out the detail of, I crashed it in my neighbor's yard.

[00:30:02] Oh yeah. You didn't mention that.

[00:30:04] No, no, no. I purposefully left that part out. so I lawn darted it and that thing started off at what, 30 inches long. And I think by the time I was done.

[00:30:12] So is this like a, a scary story episode or confessions of things that I've done that I shouldn't have done episode? I feel like we're doing both here.

[00:30:20] A little bit of both is fine. and that's what's scary is that, we hit, we've not learned from our mistakes at times, I guess.

[00:30:26] Well, yeah.

[00:30:27] But anyway, so, I'm standing there flying it and then it goes behind the tree lines and then all of a sudden you just hear this loud, like crash.

[00:30:45] Oh yeah. Yeah. they have cows, which has the out buildings and sheds. I'm like, what, what did I just hit? I was not too, too excited to go look at that. but luckily I don't know what made the noise because it landed like it missed a couple trees or it might hit the trees coming down. I really don't know. And just went right through them, and missed their pond by about 50 feet and then just right like in the center of their yard.

[00:31:13] So luckily, it was scary because I had no clue where it was going and it was going over. You just go, you just saw it go over the trees and then disappeared. but that thing started out about 30 inches and I think it ended up about half as long.

[00:31:27] Yeah. Yeah. Cause it probably, went in at full throttle cause we never did back off the throttle.

[00:31:32] It did. I never thought about going back. I think I lucked out cause after it hit the battery, like ended up five or six feet away. So it unplugged itself. And then, it stopped then because there's nothing to power. No more power. That was, yeah. Like I said, that, that was probably the worst time I've ever had flying here. No, for sure. That's the worst time I ever had flying here.

[00:31:51] Yeah. Oh, here at the house.

[00:31:52] Here at the house. Yeah.

[00:31:54] I don't know. The time I crashed your little pizza box airplane, that wasn't, that wasn't up there.

[00:31:58] That wasn't at the house.

[00:31:59] I thought that was here.

[00:32:00] No, that was out at the field. Oh. And that was signal.

[00:32:04] Oh, that's right. So I don't blame you.

[00:32:06] Yeah. Even though that was a spectrum receiver. Yeah. I know. I love that thing.

[00:32:10] Yeah. That was a cool airplane.

[00:32:12] For, for being a square. I mean. Yeah. but yeah, I mean, that, that's really all I've got for. Yeah.

[00:32:19] So confessions. For all those. Scary moments. And what else should we call this episode?

[00:32:26] Learn from our mistakes.

[00:32:27] We're going to have to do another episode of funny airplane stories. Cause I feel like a lot of these also fall into that category.

[00:32:33] Well, we just did it then. Oh, there you go.

[00:32:36] The funny, scary confessions of an RC pilot episode.

[00:32:39] Yeah.

[00:32:40] There you go.

[00:32:41] So we have a couple of voicemails. You want to get to them? Yeah, let's do it. Let's, let's hear some other scary stories. Hold on. We're going to start off with Reggie. Oh, wonderful. He actually called in and, and left a voicemail and, let's see what he has to say.

[00:32:53] Hopefully everybody remembers Reggie from our previous episode. We've had him on.

[00:32:57] Yeah. If not, go listen to him. He was our, our first guest. Yeah.

[00:33:00] I think my scariest moment in RC flying was when I was flying my Viper jet at a truck stop in a place out in, I believe, Wyoming. Of course, usual, not supposed to be flying where I'm supposed to be flying at. I decided to take off anyway and was enjoying a really nice, relatively good day. But my biggest fear was a bunch of trucks eventually coming in near the end cycle of my battery. In which case, this is exactly what happened.

[00:33:30] After several approaches and not being able to land, I just finally gave up on the approach that I was normally going for my takeoff and landing approach that I had to begin with and decided to go for a different approach. What I didn't realize was the wind had picked up and now there's vehicles in the back of the lot. And then on top of that, the lot was in, it went straight across and then it did a 45 degree angle to the right.

[00:33:55] In which case with the park trucks and moving vehicles, I could not see around that corner. Oh, jeez. As I came in, collapsed down. I was flying now with the wind. The plane wasn't slowing down in any kind of way. And I found myself to be in a full out run with the controller in my hand, trying to see where the plane was going. Only to also notice that there, a car had came into the parking lot and was going around that same corner.

[00:34:22] Watching you run from there.

[00:34:24] At one point, the jet and the car were only three feet apart and literally going the same direction at the same speed. It was by the grace of God, I actually got the plane down, landed it and pulled it into a parking spot beside a camper that literally just pulled in. That was probably my scariest of all days on a jet that was flawless, nothing wrong with it, in an area that shouldn't have been flying and had so many potential vehicles to hit.

[00:34:54] Landed it, parked it, and needed to say, I called it a day.

[00:35:01] Leave it to Reggie, right?

[00:35:02] Leave it to Reggie. I mean, again, confessions of an RC pilot episode. I mean, a lot of things he did wrong in that scenario or scenario. But I just have this image of the person in the car driving along and then looking out the window and three feet away seeing this Viper airplane. It's like, holy crap, what's that?

[00:35:26] I just have the picture of him running with his stuff and the person in the car going, why is that guy running after me? Yeah.

[00:35:37] Scary slash funny? Yeah.

[00:35:39] Either way, it's entertaining.

[00:35:41] Either way, it's entertainment.

[00:35:41] All right, let's move on to our next one. He actually said that he doesn't want his last name played, so you're going to hear it bleeped out, which is okay. Yeah, that's fine. But let's listen to what Bob has to say. Okay.

[00:35:53] Yeah, Bob. I was calling to share my scariest encounter with an RC plane. My first year of flying, I was out at the field. All the tables were full, several people. I started my S540 on the table. My controller was across the other side of the table. All of a sudden, the motor goes full throttle. As I'm holding the top of the plane, I reach for my controller. Oh, no. And the prop hit my arm three times. 69 stitches later, no one at the field wanted to take me to the hospital.

[00:36:29] We had to call an ambulance because of the blood. Oh, my gosh. So we put a tourniquet on it, called the ambulance, and off to the hospital I went. Oh, my. I got to the hospital. I explained to the doctor what had happened. And he said that his father was an RC pilot as well. What are the odds? If he understood, your eyes come in front.

[00:36:52] Oh. Oh.

[00:36:54] I think that,… So when you're out there, be careful that you don't stick your arm across a running prop, because it will definitely be some damage.

[00:37:02] Yeah, thanks, Bob. That's really good advice.

[00:37:05] That is,… Oh.

[00:37:06] I think that might be the scariest story.

[00:37:09] That's the scariest I've heard so far.

[00:37:11] 60… Did you say 69 stitches?

[00:37:13] I think he said 69 stitches.

[00:37:14] That's ridiculous.

[00:37:16] I mean, all things considered, a good number of stitches. But, yeah, that's… Oh, my gosh. Oh. I don't do blood and guts very well.

[00:37:25] No, you don't.

[00:37:26] So if I was out of the field and that happened…

[00:37:28] You'd get fairly squeamish around blood.

[00:37:29] I think fairly is an understatement.

[00:37:33] Well, I was trying to be nice.

[00:37:35] Yeah, if that… And snakes. Oh, snakes are so bad, but… You have the spider thing, so… Yeah, but,… There are spiders all over for Halloween. Well, that's true.

[00:37:46] There are.

[00:37:48] Oh, God. That's terrible.

[00:37:50] Yeah, ow, that… Stitches and a ride to the hospital. Yeah, I think that's scary. That certainly qualifies as being as… That's up there. That's one of the scariest I've heard.

[00:38:02] Oh, poor Bob. Ouch. Let's go to the next one from Steve in California.

[00:38:09] Hello, Ron and Tom. Steve Hirsch, Placerville, California. Tom, you're not old. You're only 50. You're just young. Thanks. Don't listen to Ron. Liar. All right. My scariest airplane story was back 35 years ago when I first started flying. I had a Goldberg Eaglet. Maybe second time I ever flew it out of the soccer field. Across a wash from there was a little league game going on. And I got out of sorts and my plane was over the little league and started to dive past the pitcher.

[00:38:44] And I recovered it just in time to fly it back over to the soccer field and land and go home. And I didn't go fly for a couple days. It scared the crap out of me.

[00:38:53] So that's my scary story. I almost landed in a little league game or crashed in a little league game on my second ever flight with a Goldberg Eaglet. Oh, wow. That's all I got. Love the show. Thanks a lot for putting it on. Keep doing it every week. You guys do a great job. You have great chemistry. And we'll talk to you later.

[00:39:19] All right. Well, thanks, Steve. Yeah.

[00:39:21] Appreciate the story. That's awesome. I call those knee knocker moments because you get so scared that your knees start shaking and knocking together.

[00:39:29] Yeah. And you're not sure what's going to happen next. Yeah.

[00:39:33] That would be scary.

[00:39:34] Yeah.

[00:39:34] To crash in the middle of a little league game.

[00:39:36] Can you imagine being the pilot or the pitcher just sitting there getting ready to throw out a pitch?

[00:39:42] What the heck? What is going on? Why am I getting dive bombed? Yeah. I think at that point I just leave the airplane. I don't even go for it. I'm just like, okay, I'm going to get my car and get out of here.

[00:39:51] Well, you can't do that if you have your name and contact information like you're supposed to. That's true.

[00:39:55] They'll come after you, won't they? Hmm.

[00:39:58] All right. The next one, we have our friends over at the Aviation RC Noob podcast. If you're not familiar with them, you should be. They're another good quality podcast that talks about RC airplanes, but they cover more of the foamy side of things. So they talk a lot about flight tests and building foam type airplanes. So let's see what Joe has to say.

[00:40:18] Hey, Ron. Hey, Tom. This is Joe. You had asked us for scary flight stories. And so far, this one is the scariest that I have. I've not been in the hobby very long, so I don't have a whole lot to pull from. It's okay. You'll get more. This is by saying that I work with the foamies, which is to say Dollar Tree foam board and the electric motors that go with those type planes. This was my Spitfire build.

[00:40:50] I had taken it out with a buddy who was flying and turned out I had gotten considerably further away from us than I thought we were. That's common. That's common. Sometimes when you're at altitude and you're flying around, it's hard to gauge distance. But somehow or another, I think I picked up some interference from nearby Wi-Fi networks as it turns out that the distance I was flying at, I was actually flying over a neighborhood that was out by the school we were flying at.

[00:41:21] And I lost signal to the plane and it just went dead. Fortunately, the the fail state, I suppose, fortunately, was to just cut everything to zero. No motor, no servos. And so it went down, but it went down in a neighborhood. Oh, dear. And so I didn't go looking for it. And the whole time that I was searching for it, I was just terrified that I had hit somebody.

[00:41:51] Hit somebody's vehicle, landed on somebody's roof, like had it come down in their backyard and hit a window or any number of things. It was just a sinking. That is a sinking. In my stomach as I'm searching for this, this plane. And I'm having to weave between yards. It's an area that had a bunch of privacy fences. So I was just going and looking, trying to find it, terrified of the damage and the harm that could have been done.

[00:42:22] It's not something I'm proud of, but I did recover it. It turned out there was, to my knowledge, no damage. I found it. Apparently it smashed up against the back of somebody's privacy fence, snapped the plane in half. That's lucky. And that seemed to be the extent of the damage. Thank goodness. It's certainly one of those situations that I learned from to say, you're further out than you think you are.

[00:42:46] And be mindful of what you're flying over and around as apparently, now I know, Wi-Fi signals can interfere with your transmitters and receivers. I would not have guessed it at the time. But since Wi-Fi primarily runs at the 2.4 and the 5 and my transmitter runs on 2.4 gigahertz, I'm thinking that's what led to it.

[00:43:12] Yeah. That is scary. I mean, crashing an airplane or losing control of an airplane is scary enough. Yeah. But when you don't know, like especially if you're going into potentially a residential area, not knowing what it's going to crash into, it just adds to the level of scary.

[00:43:30] Yeah. It makes that time between when it crashes and when you find it just like draw out so long. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

[00:43:37] That's the worst. The dread of, fearing the worst,. Because you just know you've put out somebody's window or crashed into somebody's car or, heaven forbid, hit somebody with it. Yeah. That's pretty scary.

[00:43:51] That, yeah. Like I said, I understand his, I understand that feeling completely with the sand pipe and where it landed. So, I guess the only thing that I would have had that was a little bit more lucky is I know the people.

[00:44:02] Yeah. Yeah. your neighbors. Yeah. Luckily, I have not had knock on wood.

[00:44:08] I was going to say, hurry up. There you go.

[00:44:10] Knock on wood. I've not, I've not ever lost sight of one that's crashed. Like every airplane I've crashed, I've gotten the joy of being able to see it where it crashed.

[00:44:22] Well, I still remember the one, I'll probably get in trouble for saying this, but when Reggie was out flying his Alpha 40 and he kind of had some problems with that one. It was doing loops and he couldn't quite get it back in. That one ended up, we found it. Oh. Yeah, we found it. But I think that ended up being like, what, two miles away? Okay. It was something. It was really. So, it was at the field, right? Yeah, it was at the field. It was where it started at the field.

[00:44:45] Well, right.

[00:44:46] But I mean, yeah, I remember where you guys, or where, was it Reggie that found it or did somebody call him? I can't remember.

[00:44:52] No, we had, he had to go try and find it while I stayed where we were flying because I had an idea exactly where it went. Okay. And then, no, maybe it wasn't quite two miles. It was over a mile. It was over a mile. Because we did check that.

[00:45:03] Because I remember where they, you guys said you found it, or he said he found it.

[00:45:07] Because it was a mile from where we were to the next road over.

[00:45:10] Yeah. And it was past that road. Yeah. It was in that corner, that bean field across the road. I forget the name of that road, but yeah, that road is a mile because that's how they're laid out in that.

[00:45:20] Which, by the way, that was right next to a few houses there, too, that he really could have gone to. Yeah, there's houses over there.

[00:45:25] He actually was past houses. Jeez.

[00:45:27] But yeah, so I had to stand where he was flying from. And then when he got out there, he had no clue exactly where it was because your perspective changes on the phone. And sure, it's like, no, you need to come a little farther forward, and you could just see his car moving. Oh, jeez. Yeah, it was not a lot of fun. Oh, man. Yep. Scary stuff. That's scary. All right, last one. Let's go to Matt from the Aviation RC Noob Podcast.

[00:45:49] This is Matt Allen. When I think of the scary stories that I've had in RC so far, I think the one that kind of stands out and has me coming back, and that's one I caught on film. Oh, proof. It was my maiden flight of a twin engine, actually a three engine fantasy build. It's the Ushakov LPL flying submarine. It's a World War II concept plane that never really got past the design stage.

[00:46:23] I think the owner or the designer had been removed by his competition in the days, early days of Stalin and the paranoid era there. Anyway, so I built this plane. It's got a main engine and two missile engines somewhere out on the wings, which kind of coincide with the pontoons.

[00:46:50] It's a boat that's designed to sink below the water level and then, basically shoot a torpedo and then hang low until something, until they pass, then get up out of the water and fly to the next spot beyond where they can see.

[00:47:08] I've never heard of that.

[00:47:09] Line up for a second shot. That's very interesting.

[00:47:10] Really cool concept plane.

[00:47:13] I built it. It looks exactly like I wanted it to look. Super excited. I get the motors on there and all this stuff, and it's late. It's kind of like this time of year, near October, I think. So it's getting dark at about the time you get home from work and all that kind of stuff. So I was desperate to maiden it. I can't wait. Oh, so excited. So I take it. I put it up middle throttle. I'm feeling the plane. Everything seems to be pretty good.

[00:47:40] I've got, it's an eight inch prop in the center, or is it the 10 inch and like two, five inches on either side. So there's a significant amount of thrust in this. There's no good place on the bottom of the plane to grab hold of it because it's like, it looks almost like a manta ray. So I put it on my palm, hanging out at about head level. Oh. And I turn it up. I kind of hear how everything's going. Everything sounds about right. Nothing's turning or twisting. Everything's cool.

[00:48:12] And so just as I'm about to launch, I bring it up to throttle about 85, 90%. And all of a sudden, it starts twirling in my hand. Now, this thing's at head level. It's about a three foot plane by a three foot plane. So three foot wingspan. That's a big plane. Three foot tip to tail. And this thing's spinning on my palm. Oh, geez. All the props are going up full speed. And I'm trying not to like have it cut my arm or anything like that. Or my head for that matter.

[00:48:43] I've got long hair. Last thing I want to do is get my hair caught in there. Oh, geez. And I kind of freak out because I had no one to do. I was not expecting it. It started twirling. And so I hucked it as best I could, which really wasn't very far considering. But boy, oh boy. I just like kind of huffed it into there. And I just kind of got out of the way as best I could. Scared the crud out of me. Turns out the left prop was pushing and the right prop was pulling.

[00:49:10] So it's perfect for creating a top.

[00:49:13] Oh, yeah.

[00:49:14] Oh, my God. Scariest thing I'd ever dealt with now. I always make sure to double check that each of the props is going the right direction. I was originally kind of setting it up for a contour rotating. But anyway, that's my scariest story. It's caught on film. You can look it up. It's second mark, I think. Oh, we've got to watch this. The maiden of the LPL Ushakov flying submarine from the fantasy design build challenge from Flight Test Forums. Anyway, that's my story.

[00:49:51] Awesome.

[00:49:51] That's a good one. Three electric motors whizzing inches from your face.

[00:49:58] Two going the right way, one going the wrong way.

[00:50:00] That is scary. It's a wonder you didn't come away with that with stitches. That's awesome, though. Yeah. That's a scary story.

[00:50:10] Yeah. That's been fun, though. This was a fun episode. I enjoyed talking about all the things that have happened. But I think one thing we did learn is a lot of stuff happens.

[00:50:19] Yeah.

[00:50:19] And you just have to be careful.

[00:50:21] Yeah.

[00:50:21] I mean, you can get bitten a lot in this hobby and you don't realize it.

[00:50:25] Yeah. I mean, some of the scary stories that I talk about are certainly preventable.

[00:50:31] Yeah. I think they all are.

[00:50:33] Like a proper preflight with the case of the dualist. But some stuff, sometimes stuff just happens. Like you never know when a receiver is going to just lock up with no warning.

[00:50:44] Yeah. And that, to me, that is the scariest part of the hobby. Like I'm okay, and I've said it before, I'm okay making a mistake on my own. Yeah. Because I can learn from it and not do that again.

[00:50:54] Yeah.

[00:50:54] But yeah, when it's something that you just, you cannot really foresee happening, then that just, that kind of gets me every time.

[00:51:01] Yeah. Yep.

[00:51:02] But it's part of it. It is. So.

[00:51:05] Hey, I wanted to touch on this. Somebody, I posted the link, if you recall, an episode or two ago, I talked about that aerodynamics link.

[00:51:15] Oh, yeah.

[00:51:16] I did finally get around to posting that on the forums last week, I think it was. And somebody named Matt was nice enough to reply.

[00:51:27] Yeah. I don't want to get in the habit of reading forum posts. Like, that's not my plan with this.

[00:51:32] Okay.

[00:51:32] But this one, I think, was really good. It was really good. I really thought there was a lot of good information in it. So, yeah, I think it's a good idea to read it.

[00:51:40] Yeah. So, if it's okay with you, yeah, I'm going to go ahead and read it here. So, basically, Matt says, hey, Tom, thanks for posting this article. And then he says, eggheads always crack me up, which I found that funny, too, because I'm kind of an egghead. He says, he goes on to say, I'm not a scientist or an aerodynamicist. I'm glad I was able to get that word out. But I am an engineer and a former Air Force instructor pilot. So, this guy's a winner in my book, Go Air Force.

[00:52:07] And I knew at a very early age that lift was a combination of dynamic, thanks Uncle Newton, and aerodynamic, thanks Uncle Bernoulli, forces. At about age eight, I stuck my hand out the window of my family car going down the highway, angled it up slightly, and noticed my hand rise. I think we've all done that probably. Absolutely. He goes on to say that that's dynamic lift.

[00:52:29] He says, at the same age as Tom, when he built his scratch-built twin-ducted fan RC Firefox, which I talked about in our last episode, very cool, he says, in parentheses.

[00:52:43] Wait, hold on. I don't want to interrupt too much. But I did actually look that airplane up, like, after, and actually see what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't look anything at all like an SR-71. Right.

[00:52:53] I thought we had already established that.

[00:52:54] Well, I know, but I was, it looked like it to me, but now that I've actually seen the other views that you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry, I got to backtrack on that one. It's okay. That's my bad.

[00:53:03] So anyway, he says, twin-ducted fan RC Firefox, and then I'll reiterate, in parentheses, he says, it's very cool. He says, I built a wind tunnel in my basement. So he built a wind tunnel in his basement about the same age I tried to build the Firefox. He says he tested a Clark Y airfoil with pressure ports placed along the upper and lower surfaces connected to manometers and proved the existence of aerodynamic lift. That's impressive to me.

[00:53:30] The guy built a, a wind tunnel in,.

[00:53:35] 12 years old. Yeah.

[00:53:36] And he demonstrated, demonstrated the difference between pressure, upper and lower. So, yeah, that's impressive to me. So the discussion of these two forms of lift have been around a long time. And he says, both are true and neither negates the other. And he says… Neither what? Negates.

[00:53:54] Negates? Or negates. I don't know.

[00:53:56] Negates? back to the whole pronunciation, of words, right? So here is a mind bender for you. He says, thrust can also be lift. He says, on the podcast, Tom stated that a traditional airfoil can fly upside down. And then Ron commented that it required a lot of power. He says, both of those are correct. Thank you. Thank you. A traditional airfoil can fly inverted, but it is very inefficient.

[00:54:20] The coefficient of lift is very low and only flies at a very high angle of attack or high alpha. At high alphas, the dynamic form of lift becomes much more pronounced and the aerodynamic component is greatly lessened. A high alpha airfoil also produces a tremendous amount of aerodynamic drag. Both of these factors create the need for a lot of power. But high power at high alpha creates lift. Remember that lift is a force opposing gravity.

[00:54:50] So a force moving, in the opposite direction of gravity. So when the thrust line is pointed down below the horizon, a portion of the thrust vector is vertical and thus opposing gravity, i.e. lift. So that's an interesting concept.

[00:55:05] Yeah, I like the way that was put.

[00:55:06] Yeah. And then he says, one last quick thought before his caffeine buzz wears off. I believe one of the main reasons, and I like, this is like, this one little paragraph here is my favorite of his whole reply. Cause I mentioned this before. he says he believes one of the main reason model airplanes behave differently than their full scale counterparts is that dynamic lift plays a much larger role in a model.

[00:55:30] Now we're talking about the, the Newton's law, not Bernoulli's right. flight as a percentage of total lift when compared to full size aircraft, wing loading and power to weight ratio are other large factors, but aerodynamic forces do not scale well due to fluid dynamics. Not going to get into that, but he, he sums it up perfectly here. He says we can shrink all the components of an airplane to make a model plane, but we can't shrink or scale the atmosphere.

[00:55:58] And that's perfect.

[00:55:59] Yeah. It's a great way to look at it.

[00:56:01] That is like, and then he goes on to say, it's the same for both model and full size, something to do with Reynolds numbers. And I believe that's exactly what I said of quite a few episodes ago. he says, but that gets complicated and it does. And he says, thoughts, he says, thanks for starting the conversation. You're welcome. And Matt, I appreciate your reply.

[00:56:20] And man, I've been trying to find easy ways to sum up why model airplanes don't fly the way big airplanes do. And that one sentence, man, you, you got it. Perfect. I'm going to read it again. We can shrink all the components of an airplane to make a model plane, but we can't shrink or scale the atmosphere. Perfect. I mean, that like, that is exactly how I would try to word that if I could come up with the words on my own.

[00:56:47] So I, one thing I love about this is, I'm, I'm a big believer in always surround yourself with people smarter than you. Yeah. Right. Because it's, you can always learn something and I'm like a sponge with things. Like I, I really understand why you're friends with me. Like it really makes sense to me now.

[00:57:04] Really? I thought that was why you keep me around.

[00:57:09] Oh, well then we're good for each other.

[00:57:12] Interesting. We're both smarter than the other. That can't, that's weird.

[00:57:15] Well, in certain ways, actually, I would agree with that. if you think about it.

[00:57:18] Listen, I give you credit where it's due.

[00:57:20] But no, I mean, like I said, though, I just, I love, It's just not very often. I love listening to smart people talk. Yeah. And it really helps me understand the concepts better when you hear different people explain it in their own words. Because you might not understand. Like for instance, if you tried to explain it, I might not understand it. But the way this is written.

[00:57:38] Yeah.

[00:57:38] I can understand it. Right. it just depends on that.

[00:57:41] He does. Yeah. He does a very good job of choosing the correct words.

[00:57:44] Yeah.

[00:57:44] Something I'm not very good at.

[00:57:46] Always hang out with people smarter than you. Smart. Yeah.

[00:57:48] So yeah, again, Matt, thanks for taking the time to put that on the forums. I appreciate that. And I'll actually, I mean, I'm going to like from now on.

[00:57:58] Anybody, yeah, if anybody ever asked me, hey, why don't model airplanes fly like the big ones?

[00:58:01] Well, you can't scale the atmosphere. And that's, that's perfect.

[00:58:06] And he wants your thoughts. So you need to respond.

[00:58:08] I did. I just gave him my thoughts.

[00:58:11] I'll, I'll, I'll write a reply. Yeah. Oh, all right. Well, I, I don't think I have anything else for, for this. Do you?

[00:58:17] No, I think, I think that's all I have. All right.

[00:58:20] Well, everybody have a happy Halloween.

[00:58:22] Have a safe Halloween. Can everybody please have you guys listen to us next week, if you can.

[00:58:28] Well, that's a terrible thing to say. Well, it's Halloween.

[00:58:31] Bad stuff sometimes happens on Halloween. Oh my God. Otherwise it wouldn't be scary.

[00:58:35] Well, but it's fake scary. It's not supposed to be like really like scary. Okay. All right.

[00:58:40] We'll talk to everybody next weekend.

[00:58:41] All right. Have a good night. Good night. Bye. Bye.

[00:58:43] Thanks for listening to the RC plane lab podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode. For topics, suggestions, to ask questions, or to give any feedback, connect with us at rcplanelab.com. You can also leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Please subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast app. Until next week, may your landings be gentle. ط 됩니다. Do you think.