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Old 02-10-2010, 07:27 PM
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chanstevens chanstevens is offline
Rocket buildin' machine
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Cincinnati OH
Posts: 543
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gus
Chan, your experience reminds me of a great story about those Alway boys and their backslider.

My daughter built her first B Rocket Glider for a local meet several years ago. It was a nice Edmonds kit that re-kitted itself half way up the launch rod (not Rob's fault, ours).

The Alway brothers were at the meet and Bob saw my daughter's disappointment. So he came over and asked my daughter if she had a second glider to fly. When she answered "no", Bob said he could help her build a different kind of glider if she was interested. He then walked her through the process of building a backslider and explained the whole concept to her. They cut the wing of her broken glider into 3 fins, Bob provided a couple lengths of 18mm tubing and a coupler, and Peter provided a nosecone and a paper punch. My daughter superglued the whole thing together and got a great gliding flight out of it to her complete delight. Afterwards she had Pete and Bob autograph it for her (Peter included the patent number next to his signature ).

Those Alway boys aren't just smart, they're wonderful teachers and friends.


And as further evidence that karma exists, I have vivid memories of Peter Alway doing his thermal dance at NARAM 47 and flying an Edmonds Deltie glider just to get a qualified flight in on A-BG. He did indeed catch a thermal, one of the strongest I've ever seen on that field (my home field), and it literally spiraled off out of sight directly over the launch pads after something like 14 minutes, ridiculously out in front of the second highest team score.
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