We All Need Friends Like These
A little story to reaffirm your faith in humanity.
For nearly the past four years I have been the very proud owner of an Enigma F5J 4m, 1.5kg full carbon glider. A few weeks ago we had a little gathering in the centre of Israel. About ten glider guiders from the Quiet Flight Club having a nice day out. However on my first flight of the day, 30 seconds into the flight, I crashed.
I was gutted.
It was apparently caused either by a faulty BEC (battery eliminator circuit) or faulty wiring to the BEC. Either way, not something I have on my pre-flight checklist, although I will now. It was quite unnerving. Flying along nicely, and then a few seconds no reply to input, followed by normal business as usual. As soon as I noticed this, I tried to land, but she augured in from 50+ meters high, about one kilometre away. The walk of shame went through high spikey greenery.
I was inconsolable for two reasons: first, it wasn’t a flying error, I didn’t do anything stupid; I could have accepted that. Second, the damage was very extensive. Apart from the tail group, I could see cracks and breaks everywhere. And currently I am on low-to-no funds for anything RC related, with a bleak outlook for the coming months at least.
The bits and pieces were loaded into a friend’s car, together with my radio. He was going to see if he could replicate the problem, and if not to put the receiver in a cheap foamy and using my radio, fly it high and far.
I didn’t want to know. Actually, until last night the flight bag and wing covers were still in my car; I couldn’t get myself to take them out of my car and put them in storage.
Fast forward a few weeks, and we had an evening lecture on building materials, glues, the forces we work with and the rules of F5J competition. During the break there would be ‘a special presentation’, whatever that meant.
Unbeknownst to me, seeing me and the state I was in after the crash, the guys got together. Some donated materials, some donated time and expertise, some donated money. And they did a monster job in bringing my Enigma back to flying condition again.
Still waiting for some parts for the geared motor, but we should be up, searching for thermals in the near future again!
©2022 Rene Wallage
Resources
- Quiet Flight Club on Facebook. — Currently they have 39 members, about a third of whom are juniors!
- Enigma F5J 4m from the HyperFlight website. — “The Enigma F5J is a beautiful 3.95m F5J glider from Russia. A well engineered and attractive F5J competition model with an excellent flying reputation…”
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