S
sportrider
this weekend we made a trip to one of our favorite flying fields, I took my modified T-28 and stryker C, my wife had her stryker B, and my son had his CC flyer and hand me down super cub. we met up with poorwboy to watch him maiden his "FrankenStar" (electristar converted to glow, very cool!!!) as well as fly his stryker C and T-28 also. my father in law came to fly his super cub and try and fly his stryker B that he has had a hard time learning. after flying a few sorties with poorwboy and my wife with the strykers and a few with the T-28, I was ready to teach my son (who is 6 years old) with the Super Cub only to have the ESC or motor quit so he never got a chance to fly the Cub, but he did get a few brief cc flyer flights in before a light breeze came up that was just a little much for the cc flyer. while walking to the cars to check on battery's on the chargers, I saw my father in law pick up his stryker B getting ready for an attempt at flight. we had just installed a AR6100 in the plane the night before so he could use his new DX6I TX that he bought. I had told him it might be a good idea if I flew the plane first for him so I could trim it and make any adjustments needed so he would have the best chance at flying the plane that has met Terra firma so many times I've nick named it the excavator. at this point in time I think its about 50/50 epp foam and CA and packing tape, but non the less if not a testament to how much abuse a stryker airframe can take and still fly. it still needed to be trimmed out, and he is not able to do it. But he decided that he was going to throw it up by himself while I wasn't even around to help and the flight was quite normal, a full throttle hand launch followed by full left aileron then elevator into a lawn dart. breaking the fuse in half at the battery box. this is not the first time this has happened on this plane, and seeing how he has a new 2oz. bottle of foam safe CA and a roll of packing tape we could have patched the plane and had it up in a few minutes, but what happened next was just psychotic. he grabbed the plane by the leading edge of the wing and in a rage started slamming the plane up against a baseball backstop literally breaking it into hundreds of pieces tearing and throwing the electronics everywhere, it was really disturbing to see. I yelled at him "Hey man what the hell are you doing?" and he starts flipping off the air??? or something and is yelling "F it all!!!! F it all to hell" I mean dude went mental. I felt horrible for my kids, here I'm trying to have some fun with the family teaching my son that with some practice and patience, he can learn to fly any plane he wants and then I have to explain to him what just happened, as he was clearly upset by what he just saw. he asked me "why did grandpa do that to his stryker" I told him, "well he got really mad that he crashed it" and my son said "it wasn't the planes fault, he just made it do the wrong thing" here my boy is only 6 and he knows about pilot error and "grandpa" still is blaming faulty equipment and any other excuse he can come up with. I taught myself to fly, I've taught my wife to fly, my son is learning with my help. I've used the same instructional technique with both. my father in law... I've tried the same ways with, but he just doesn't seem to listen, or retain anything I say. he said he was mad because his "daughter" can fly a stryker all by herself including the hand launch (and she flys it very well if I do say so myself!!!) and he can't hardly fly a super cub with out crashing it. I told him I didn't think there was an excuse he could use to justify the way he acted and I thought it was very uncool. as we left his house after getting our stuff he says "I'll have a stryker ready for next time." I've basically set up all his planes and radio gear for him, but after that episode I think if he wants to do this he's on his own. does anyone think I'm wrong for deciding I'm not going to train him or help out with setup anymore?
