I started with the Cox line control kits and had several. I had the first one which all I remember was white and was a pusher that ran and flew great until the line snapped and a metal fence at school ate it. 6 months for a first time toy like that wasn't a bad run I always thought. Then I got the corsair and I killed that trying to do stunts and let the lines get too slack.
After that I got this kit as my first RC plane.
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Knew absolutely nothing about rc planes and was impatient to go fly it. I had it all put together Christmas day and sat staring at it for weeks sitting in my room. Wore out a few sets of batteries just manipulating the control surfaces with it sitting on the floor of my bedroom.
Come February enough was enough. Snow had melted at the ball field parking lot and I was gonna go fly. I spent like two and a half hours trying to get that darn motor running good enough to be able to fly. Messed around for a long time with just blips of go... then they started getting longer. By the time I was half way thru the pint can of glow fuel it would run that tiny fuel bowl all the way start to finish.
Spent a few minutes kicking rocks and small snow piles out of the way to make a run way, fired it up and let her rip. AS I was getting it started one of the local PD had pulled into the parking lot I assume to see what trouble I was getting into on a cold day with no one else around. I got it running did a little twist of the needle valve to optimize power and let it go. It tracked perfectly straight and with a little elevator it was airborne and climbing. I was heavy handed with the rudder and it got squirrely but I managed to get it back to level and start making a flat turn to come back around on the down wind leg.
About the time I did that the cop had pulled up closer and got out of the car, reached in and keyed the mic to say he was out of the car and at that point the servos whipped around up and to the left and I couldn't do a thing. By the time he was done saying what he wanted and let the mic key go I was already well on the way to hitting the apartment building wall on the other side of the football field...
When he let go of the mic the plane leveled out just in time to go perfectly square and head on into that brick wall and smoosh into little pieces. He didn't say a word. He just got back in his car and drove off leaving me in shock and having to go pick up the remains to walk home and tell my parents.
Thus ended my RC plane career until my second year in college back in 1998 where I experimented with a rocket launched Estes twin boom rc plane. It could be launched from a pad like a rocket and controlled on the glide down, Set to circle in free flight after launch, or with the adapter could be set up with an 049 in a pusher configuration. It didnt live long enough to get to that point as managing the CG for rocket launch AND good glide characteristics was near impossible. Not sure it during the build I messed up and made it to tail heavy or what but it died a horrible death on a pile driving free fall after its best most high launch.
Then I came here to continue my failing to fly fixed wing hehe...
