See more pictures here.

The wind rose on Thursday, from calm at 8 a.m. to 20 m.p.h. at noon, with gusts to 25 m.p.h. At around 10 a.m., Bic Tran is flying his two-day-old Mini Mag around the Great Meadow.

The wind has crept up to about 12 m.p.h., not quite hissing through the trees, but quietly shushing out of the north northwest.

Bic’s first plane was a Slow Stick. He built it carefully and learned to fly it well over the course of three months.

But he was bored with it. He sought more of a challenge. He wanted ailerons.

The First Flight. Bic had brought the Mini Mag for its first flight Wednesday morning. It was built well and he’d already bound the receiver to his Spektrum transmitter.

Bic said the elevator servo was reversed, and it was. No problem — I reversed the setting on his transmitter.

Checked the servos, throws, balance, motor rotation. All fine.

The wind was light, blowing from the north. Perfect for takeoffs. Bic held the plane, I advanced the throttle and the plane rose nicely.

I had to give it up elevator to maintain level flight with or without throttle, so I added up trim. Then I handed the transmitter to Bic.

Flying with Confidence. He kept the plane high and well in front of us, perfect position to get to know a new plane. Within a minute or two, he was flying with confidence. I left him to complete the flight on his own.

He landed the plane and brought it to the Pickleweed picnic tables, all smiles.

The next morning, I’m driving to Baylands when Bic calls my cell phone.

“My plane’s in a tree,” he says. I tell him I’ll be there in about 10 minutes.

In my car I keep:

• A slingshot
• Light nylon line
• Lead weights
• A dog-ball hurler
• A tennis ball
• A heavier nylon rope
• Electrician’s tape
• Empty water bottles
• Knee-high waders

The waders aren’t much help with tree landings, but everything else is relevant.

By the time I arrive, Bic has commandeered five or six long poles, which he’s lashing together. I compliment him on his knots. “I lead a Boy Scout troop,” he replies.

Long but Wobbly. The pools look long enough but wobbly. I tighten them up a bit with wraps of stretched electrical tape. Better, but still very shaky.

We help Bic move the assembly to the base of the Great Meadow’s tallest tree, a eucalyptus, which has trapped the Mini Mag about 60 feet above the ground.

Peter Rasmussen helps. I help some, though I get distracted taking pictures. Dave North watches, generally amused.

George Kulcher drops by to observe that it looks like they’re trying to push spaghetti up the tree. He says he’ll come back tomorrow with a fishing pole, which he’s sure will work.

Bic and Peter slide the ganged poles up the side of the tree to the first fork, then wiggle them a bit higher.

Bottle Up. Bill Smith and John Chen show up. While the Pole People twist and crawl their way up the tree, John ties a sturdy line to a filled water bottle and throws it up the tree.

He’s a remarkably good thrower, strong and accurate.

Within a few minutes, he’s landed the bottle in the tree fairly close to the plane.

He pulls the line, pulls some more, no result.

Now the bottle and the line are stuck in the tree. The Pole People take advantage of the line, resting the wobbly pole on it and trying to ride up into the foliage.

I think of ancient pictures of gangs of keepers wrestling 30-foot Pythons or Anacondas from one place to another.

John has joined Peter and Bic. Bill is throwing another bottle. He’s also an excellent thrower.

Useless Arms. I have atrophied arms, weak and inaccurate, just long enough to twiddle the sticks on a waist-high transmitter. Even in my prime, I was the kind of thrower you wished for if you were the target in a Dunk Tank, suspended above a pool of water in an amusement park.

The day wears on and people come and go. As the wind picks up, it’s increasingly clear that the Mini Mag is wedged into a branch. It’s not coming loose.

It’s so high that I’m doubtful that any of my tools will prevail.

Bic keeps lashing poles together, relentless and determined.

I leave in the early afternoon.

Bic finally goes to work, but returns to the field that evening. He sees a skunk walking by the tree, but the plane is still jammed up high.

Bright & Cheerful. The next day, George shows up bright and cheerful armed with his surf casting rod, 50-lb. test monofilament line and a paper bag of 3-ounce sinkers.

Soon he’s lofting the weights very close to the plane.

I bring out my heavier nylon rope to attach to the monofilament when George loops a shot over the limb.

His aim is good and he nails about five good casts over the course of three hours, but we have trouble hauling the heavier rope back over the branch and whatever shaking we manage has no effect.

The tree so far has eaten:

• The Mini Mag
• The corpses of one or more other long-abandoned planes
• A couple of water bottles
• One sturdy nylon line
• Four or five 3-ounce sinkers
• Many short lengths of monofilament

I imagine archaeologists in a distant future unearthing the remains of this evil tree and its cruel decorations, speculating on its role in our lives.

By now I’m depressed. The plane’s not coming down. Bic’s determination and George’s confidence don’t matter.

I leave Baylands and drive home.

The Rescue. Mid-afternoon, Bic calls me. George rescued the plane. Bic can’t believe it, but the plane is OK after all that.

Later, I read Ron Grube’s account on BayRC:

George finally got a good cast over a branch above the plane and used the fishing line to haul a rope up. Mark and I came in at the end to help him with some violent shaking from several angles. We had just about given up and gave it the last shake and were walking away when the plane fell to a lower branch. George told us where to find the pipe and bamboo and lashed together three sections of PVC and the bamboo pole, supported it over a lower branch and poked from several angles. One wheel from the landing gear came off and that freed it up so a few more pokes got it down. According to Mark, the damage is pretty light for a Mini Mag.

Over the course of a dozen or so tree rescues, we’ve evolved from bow & arrow to hurled water bottles to slingshot to fishing pole. In George’s hands, the fishing pole looks like the ultimate solution.

But Bic has an even better idea:

I think we should adopt a monkey as a Baylands’ flyer club pet. Most of the time we can take turns feeding and pet it. In a rare emergency he can climb up that tree and rescue the plane for a double banana!

Postscript

You know those kinds of movies where the heroine kills the nasty villain at the end, but then it turns out the evildoer isn’t really dead and she has to kill him again?

Well, this is that sort of a story.

The tree grabbed Bic’s plane again Monday morning.

This time, wind wasn’t the problem. Bic took off full throttle, the plane kept going up and Bic didn’t reduce throttle. So the plane looped and flew back into the tree, inverted, near the same branch that caught it last week.

Bic was mortified and upset. He left the field without leaving a distress note or making a call for help.

We spotted the plane later that morning.

A New Device. Luckily, Danh Le brought a slingshot-spinning reel device to show us at lunch.

He told us that he used it to hoist antennas back when he was a practicing amateur radio enthusiast.

We showed him the plane in the tree. He aimed, fired and looped the fishing line over the branch, first shot.

We hoisted up a rope and shook the branch. After a few shakes, the rope slipped down.

So Dan fired a second shot, even closer this time.

Five minutes later, the plane tumbled from the tree into Dan’s arms. Perfect catch!

I called Bic, who came to reclaim his plane.

Doug Traub and I launched his plane and I trimmed it and set the controls for more comfortable rates and expo. Then Bic took over and flew the plane well, with increasing confidence as the plane circled the field. At the end of the flight, he made a perfect landing.

So this story has a happy ending after a bad surprise.

Or is this really the end of the story?

Tags: Airplanes, Baylands, Crashes, Flying, People, Slow Stick, Snakes, Tools, Trees, Wind.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 7th, 2007 at 11:37 am and is filed under Baylands. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.