A true story, I was coming in to land at Milson,my model was the only one left in the air,my ASW28 with a motor up front,Ray had just called us down as there was a full size waiting to take off at the far end of the strip. I was coming in a bit too high and a bit too hot,full brakes were already out and finally a lot of flap to slow it down too, I was now going to land,but the 28 had other plans and decided that it hadn't had enough flying and just sailed on bye as though it was 100' in the air.
Not a problem' I thought just power up and go round again. Full power was applied which took it to about 100' on a fairly sharp left bank and steep climb when the unthinkable happened.The ESC decided it was a good time to close down the motor to save the lipos low voltage. Aghhhhh. 'Bol. ks' as they say in Whitehall. Only one thing for it,choose to fly between the two very high trees on the perimeter of the field and land in the adjoining field. Simples!! right, wrong!! The further of the two trees was not as far away as I thought and nobody was more surprised then I when it moved one of its boughs directly into the flight path of the 28. 'Bol..ks' again.The damn model was left hanging by its wing 60' up in this massive tree .However it didn't look damaged and friends went away to find ladders and tractors and stuff to get ourselves high enough to get it down. Much much later and before they came back with the said equipment the bl...y tree let go of my ASW28 where it came tumbling down onto the only fence in the field. 'Bol..ks'. The wing,fus and canopy all took a hit from that rotten fence. You could hear me boo--hoo-ing back in Milson. Ah well, pilot error of course.
As I now needed a new canopy for the ASW28, and had decided to give Barry Atkinson of Sarik Hobbies the Purbeck sailplanes canopy plugs' it meant a quick visit to Sarik Hobbies.
I say quick, Sarik is a 300 mile round trip for me and my wife. These could not be done by post as the plugs were much to heavy and the cost would have been enormous.
I am pleased that I went. Barry greeted us like old buddies and showed us around his domain,he gave us tea and coffee and spared no expense of his time taking us through what he does for a living. I am so glad that after the fall of Traplet that Barry is doing so well.He showed us they also mold many other things outside of the modelling fraternity stuff including plastic faces and eyes for surgery practice. Also plastic covers for cash tills and key boards in the food industry to save contamination to name but two.
He told us that a number of times in a week he is asked to match up canopies for modellers that have only the Length x Width x Height as measurements to go on but he says he is successful in doing this most of the time. The advantage is that Barry himself is a top quality scale modeller and knows most of the canopy shapes by heart.
I never took any photos because Cliff and Roo has already done this admirably. Thanks again for your hospitality Barry.
Regards Terry and Lindy.