I was sitting there pondering life and I came up with a list of things which I have found to be truths during my 10 years making and flying model aircraft

1) 30 seconds after heaving your latest symmetrical section glider brimming with ballast off the slope, the 20mph wind will become 2mph

2) After a successful first flying session with your lightweight hlg, you will snap the fin off putting it back into the car

3) No-one will be around to see you pick up a thermal from 10ft altitude and work it for the next hour

4) There will be scores of spectators to watch the towline wrap around the tailplane and drag your model across the ground in a confetti of balsa and film

5) The engine in your plane will idle perfectly until you place it on the ground for take off

6) Only after covering and finishing your latest own design model will you realise that your set of micro servo’s are too thick to fit in the wing

7) If you remember to charge all your batteries and check all your models on a Saturday evening, it will inevitably rain on Sunday

8) Conversely, if you are out with your wife and kids ‘having a nice walk’ it will be 32 degrees, cloudless, with a 15mph wind blowing onto the face of your favourite slope.

9) Do not expect praise from other members of the household when you hold up your newly finished glider in triumph with a cry of “only 16oz, I thought it would be 18 at least!”

10) When your wife is away and your fingers have just become permanently stuck to a fuselage side with CA, the PVA pot has fallen over and is dribbling all over the plan and your little tub of servo screws, horns and other bits has deposited itself on the floor…your 9 month old son will wake up and decide that now is the best time to need a nappy change/bottle/cuddle etc

11) You will only ever figure out how to arrange that tricky rudder linkage when your partner decides that they would ‘like to talk about something important”, the rest of the time, you will have no idea how to fix the problem!

12) When you have finished sheeting a wing with balsa, you will hear a rattling noise as if something is loose inside. You will not be able to see it, or get whatever it is out and it will drive you insane every time you pick up the model until in desperation you strip the covering, remove some of the sheeting, shake the model vigorously….and a small screw falls out of the fuselage hatch…..

13) It is not until you arrive at the flying site with a new OD model and it is being admired from all sides, that someone will ask “that’s interesting, why is the wing at negative incidence?”

14) Free flight models will never fly properly until you sneak a 10 minute test flying session during a lunch break, then you are guaranteed at least a 40 minute O.O.S. flight

15) Radio Interference cannot occur on the ground, only during a low inverted pass, bunt or perfect landing approach….

16) The local club ‘expert’ is an expert on everything, except how to trim out your latest model which is behaving like a bucking bronco

17) Soft bracken is a wonderful medium on which to land a slope soarer. It is equally wonderful at hiding large rocks, boulders and sheep.

Thanks to Matt Carlton for his view on aeromodelling truths
5th October 2004

• Always inform the other pilots of your intentions, your intention to takeoff, your intention to land, and your intention to make a big crater in the middle of the runway (it's always hard taxiing around those fuselage tails sticking out of the ground).

• When walking up to the runway for landing, it is impolite to walk between two people using a buddy box.

• It's considered bad manners to yell at someone who's been tying up the runway, even for a substantial length of time. After all, that's what water balloon bombs are for.

• It is the ultimate in bad manners to run over someone else's plane when backing out of the parking area, unless that plane is the only one with half a chance at beating you in the next contest.

• If a fellow flier should be unfortunate enough to seriously injure himself at the field, common courtesy demands that you should lend any assistance necessary, such as helping him Super Glue the forty-two inch long gash on his forehead together, so he can get back to the serious business of flying.

• If your aircraft goes out of control, it is polite to warn other pilots of the fact by calling out "HEADS UP!". Diving under a table and yelling "YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN, SUCKERS!" is not considered appropriate behavior.

• It is not only rude but against club rules to buzz the pits, the road, or the parking area. On the other hand, the guy mowing the strip is always fair game.

• Always be considerate and patient with a beginner pilot who comes to the flying field with a trainer. Someday he'll be a reckless egotistical pilot, just like you.

• Glide Time: The time between the engine falling out and the airplane hitting the ground.
• Aeromodeling: The art of turning precision cut and glued balsa wood and foam into toothpicks and confetti.
• Crash: Method of seeing inside a model airplane.
• Receiver: Part of the radio that picks up interference.
• Tank: Temporary storage place for chemicals before they saturate the plane.
• Elevator: Device to prevent level flight.
• Mixture Screw: Device to meter too little fuel to the engine at critical moments.
• Nose Wheel: Device that prevents an airplane from landing without bouncing.
• Spinner: Critical part of landing gear
• Luck: Very sparse on your side, but plenty with your flying colleagues only they refer to it as SKILL.
• Tough Luck: This is what you usually have. Your flying colleagues refer to it as lack of skill.
• Bad Luck: Same as TOUGH.
• Good Luck: What you need the most, but rarely have.
• Crash: Quick method of removing radio and engine from a model to fit them in your new one.
• Crash: Also: Synonym for "rekitting" a model
• Center Of Gravity: Point in which G-forces, dedicated to separating wing from fuselage, do their stuff.
• Cyanoacrylate: Special glue, designed to instantly glue fingers to balsa structures.
• Cyanoacrylate: Also: Special glue, instantly curing when parts are misaligned, will hardly (if at all) cure when parts are correctly aligned.
• Dead Stick: Two of these can be found on your transmitter after failing to properly charge your batteries.
• Engine: Device designed to make noise. Will suddenly stop making this noise when beyond glide-in distance.
• Epoxy: The stuff that has replaced the balsa after the flying season.
• Fail Safe: Option on PCM radio's that allows a pilot to choose whether to crash near him, or a long way away,
• Flare: What someone has when they're good enough to show off.
• Fuel Tank: Plastic bottle, designed to leak when placed in totally inaccessible locations.
• Fuselage: Optional interconnecting structure between wings and engine.
• Glitch: What you shout when you pull up elevator while flying inverted at 10 feet.
• Landing Gear: Structure to separate fuselage from runway after landing. Does not always succeed in doing so.
• Mixture Screw - Device to meter too little fuel to engine at critical moments.
• Pattern Plan: Make a copy of the plans so when it crashes, you have the patterns to build another one.
• Propeller: Handy tool to cut away excess skin on knuckles.
• Thermal: Mythical occurance of rising air - usually where one's sailplane is not.
• Tip Stall: Offering several minutes worth of unrequested advice to a nearby pilot instead of taking your turn to launch off the bungee.

PPM - Please Press Me PCM - Please Crash Me FLPR - Flaps Loose, Prepare for Release RFL - Rudder Flapping Loose RGOG - Retract Gear On Ground EPBBC - Eject Pilot Bust Before Crash TMGR - This Makes it Go Right TFMS - Try and Fly Me Stupid SYTS - So You Think So? EAM - Erase All Memory DTOB - Don't Take Out the Battery TBMC - This Button Makes it Crash TLS - Turn Left Stupid GRQM - Get off Runway Quick Mode MBC - Make a Big Crater TRTR - Turn Right! Turn Right! FBBF - Fry Buddy Box Function SDE - Shoot Down Everybody ARTWAT - Almost Ready To Win A Trophy (Choddy has one of these) DUH - (I think you can figure this one out yourselves....)

Trees are ALWAYS closer than they appear. (ask Grot!!!)

To calculate the location of the exact rear center underneath your workbench, just drop a small screw.

The screw you forgot to check during your preflight will always be: A: The first one to come loose. B: The one that causes the most damage when it comes loose. C: The one behind the transmitter.

When the best thermal bubble of the day appears, the receiver or transmitter batteries are empty or too weak.

If you want to hear from your son by phone, just glue a part of your airplane with 12 minute or longer epoxy that you have to hold together by hand. He will call for sure.

If you can't go flying tomorrow, the weather will be perfect.

The right way to cover a certain shape is always found out the day after you just covered it the wrong way.

If it's not a tail dragger, it will be.

Glide distance is exactly equal to the distance between the spot where the propeller assumes the horizontal position, and the nearest spot level enough for a landing minus 10 feet.

It always rains on your day off.

Just when you've finally obtained a vehicle that's large enough for you and your planes, your wife will claim it for use as the family vehicle, leaving you with the two-door sports car.

Like milk, every airplane has an expiration date. Some are sooner than others.

When building a model, you will always find the missing part, just as you have finished duplicating it.

If there is only one tree in an otherwise deserted area, your model will always fly into it.

When an expensive model is in the air, there will always be a young child within range playing with his model car, whose radio will be on the same channel that you're using.

Holding a transmitter always causes an overpowering itch all over your body as soon as your airplane takes off.

CA is a medical adhesive. As such, it is much more effective at gluing fingers than balsa.

When, during the construction of a model, you need three hands and yours are busy, the bottle of CA you were using will secretly lay down, spilling the contents to the floor and you, in your bare feet, will stand in it, gluing yourself in position.

The probability of an engine quitting is directly proportional to the distance the airplane is from the landing area.

A new glow plug will last forever if you have spares, but only about a half-an-hour is you don't.

The size of your workbench has nothing to do with the size of your airplane, your engine, or your house, but with the size of your spouse's heart.

1. Perfection in model building is a desirable goal, unless completion of the airplane within your lifetime is important.

2. Airspeed is life to your model, altitude is life insurance. No airplane ever collided with the sky.

3. Always fly your airplane with your head, not just your hands. Never let your model go somewhere your brain didn't get to five seconds earlier.

4. The probability of model survival is equal to the angle of arrival.

5. Flying a model airplane is not dangerous; crashing it is dangerous.

6. Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgement.

7. There are three simple rules for making a smooth landing. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

8. It's a good landing if you can still bend the landing gear back to its normal position.

9. A fool and his money are soon flying a more aerobatic model than he can handle.

10. The nicer an airplane looks, the more likely it is to crash.

11. A model airplane may disappoint a good pilot, but it won't surprise him.

12. If God meant for man to fly model jets, He'd have given him more money.

Thanks to Gary Knight for digging these funnies up
19th October 2001