1.03.2009

Olympic II 6/365

Danny and his Grandpa finished their latest plane the other day. It is an Olympic II. The plane has a wingspan of 100 inches!! These two guys build their planes from scratch! They start with plans that look similar to blueprints, then they get balsa wood and start cutting, sanding, attaching, glueing and other things that I don't know about. It took them about 4-5 months to build it. Today was to be their maiden flight, but do to some technical difficulties, they were unable to do so. They spent the afternoon working out the glitches and plan to fly her next weekend.

Now, you need to know that this (and all their other planes) are sail planes. They do not have motors on them. They do have controls on them to adjust the spoilers (that makes them go up - or is it down??). To launch the plane, they attach it to a huge device, kind of like a sling shot, that has loooooonnnnngggg surgical tubing on it. They stretch it far, then throw it into the sky! It is truely amazing what they do!!!

Thank goodness Danny does not read my blog, because he would be rolling his eyes, big time!, with the way I have described his hobby. If you are reading this Danny, I'm sorry about the lack of technical words... I'm very proud of what you do!

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