De plaeeene, de plaeeene - Mr. Rourke! What nice neighbors

Anybody remember the 80's TV show "Fantasy Island"?  There was a little guy who would gleefully point out the arrival of their new guests.  I think he's on Craig Ferguson's Late Late Show now - or maybe his twin brother or kid, whatever.


So the short story is someone found my plane - yay.

Here's the long version..
My brilliant wifey had the idea to post some pictures of the lost plane around the area.  At first I just did it so I could say that I listened (you would not know anything about that kind of behaviour, huh) and then I forgot about it. But, behold! We get a call from a drunk sounding guy saying that he found a glider in his back yard, damaged but all the bits there.  Luckily, I met his wife when I drove over wasn't looking forward to meeting the drunk sounding guy).  It had crashed over a mile away from where I saw it last.  She was very nice and apparently heard about the lost-plane poster from a friend who had her son with her at Starbucks. What a thing.

I will post some pics.  Basically, everything was recovered.  I bought a replacement fuselage and should be back in the air soon.

I'll upload some video that was recorded during the flight.  Good for a laugh. You will see me chatting with Paige and Ellie then the glider lauches.  You don't hear me saying "Oh, nooooo" but you can just imagine as the glider drifts away, out of sight. I try to make it circle for a while but no luck.  Then I just let it glide while leaving the transmitter on.  I'm not sure why it decided to make a spiralling nose dive at the end.  It could be my doing as I drove around for a while trying to see if the rudder would wiggle on someone's roof.  The thought was I could pick this up in the corner of my eye as I drove around. Maybe it was still in the air while I was trying this..

Of course, this crash was caused by another "ratch** job" on my battery connecter for the GPS.  If this had not disconnected during my flight I could have easily recovered in flight or found the glider after it went down.

What was it I said in the video at Drumheller? - "Don't use ratches** to attach your cameras" - spoken in the voice of Mr. Bean.

** Ratch is a Trini term for a shortcut solution