One of Tom's phases

Last October, Tom somehow got really interested in the remote control airplane hobby. I think a guy he works with is really in to it, and I guess it rubbed off. So, for his birthday we got online and he picked out a remote control airplane that he wanted to try his hand at. He and his brother Joe took it out for its maiden flight -- and Tom claims that it spent about 12 seconds in the air before it crashed in to the ground in to a million tiny pieces. So, that was the end of that plane; but not his interest. He figured he'd better practice on something that wasn't so expensive, so he got an RC Airplane Flight Simulator for our computer and has been working with that for the past few months. He's gotten really good at it!

So, skip ahead to Father's Day. Tom's feeling more comfortable with how the controls work on his flight simulator and is thinking he's ready to try it out on another real plane - so again, we get online and he picks out his Father's Day gift. This time, it's a fairly big plane, it's got about a 4-foot wingspan. Anyway, we waited and waited for it to come, got the thing put together, and took it out for its first flight. Fortunately, this one turned out MUCH better than the first! He flew it around for a while, but it was a little windy and when the wind blew it around the other side of a huge building (the gym of the school where we were flying it in the field), he decided it was probably time to land it and go home while he was still ahead. First attempt was SUCCESSFUL! He had to wait another week or so to fly it again because we were in Sacramento for Matt & Jenny's wedding, so he was anxious to try it again.

Here are some pictures of this second flight of Tom's plane.





Well, there are the pictures. The 2 videos I took for some reason aren't working right now...I'll figure it out. But in any case, we had a couple successful flights, with only minor breakage upon landing - we were able to glue it back together. But then he took it up for one last flight, it did a loop (which was pretty cool), then he lost it in the sun and it came crashing down in to the side of a hill...the body is now in 2 pieces, the landing gear came off, the propeller is no longer, and I think Tom is going to keep practicing on his flight simulator.