Have You Fixed Your Airplane Yet, Grandpa

I'll probably be asked that question again when the grandchildren arrive next week. It was supposed to have been done before the last visit, so I'd better get busy.

The plane is a lot different from the balsa stick, tissue-covered models, powered by twisted strands of rubber, that I made as a kid. It's made of molded foam and plastic, already colored, and can be assembled with very little effort. It's also very easy to repair using super glue or epoxy -- luckily for me, as I've had to do it several times.

It's not that I'm such a bad pilot, although I'm no ace. The problem is that I keep trying to fly the thing in the street and the trees are always reaching out to grab the plane if it flies too close. There is a logical explanation for the landings on several roofs, but it's rather technical, and you probably wouldn't understand it if you're not an engineer.

The damage to the plane is usually not incurred in the unscheduled landings, but more often in the retrieval. My neighbors are quite used to seeing me teetering on the top of a stepladder with a fishing rod, trying to cast a weighted line across the plane so that I can reel it back in. In this latest incident the tree branches were so thoroughly entangled in the rigging that I couldn't extricate the plane without breaking off part of the upper wing.

Aviation buffs will no doubt recognize that the plane is a (not very detailed) scale model of the de Havilland Tiger Moth, designed in the 1930s, and used as a trainer by the Royal Air Force and others. It remained in service until 1952. I know a local fellow who has one that he bought from the Canadian Air Force and restored. He's offered to give me a ride in it. I must take him up on that soon -- we're not getting any younger -- the Tiger Moth or me.