I'm not into R/C either, for myself, but I certainly respect people who have the moxie to take on this, and invest so much in it -- I mean that in every definition of the word -- and I sure as heck like to watch the fruit of their labors. Watching these terrible jet R/C accidents kind of reminds me of the early days of the space program. OK, so the stakes aren't quite that high, but they aren't spending anyone's tax money either when these beautiful, multi-thousand-dollar scale jets auger in. And to get up and do it all over again after that, well, you gotta take your hat off. Makes what I do look awfully safe.
Having said that, I add this sort of evil but true footnote, which is apropos of nothing in this thread, but rather just a memory:
Until I moved to this overcrowded ape preserve I now call home, I was really into model rockets (psst...I still rip one off into the wild blue over Brooklyn from the top of my building once in a while). The place where I used to fly them back home, a huge, flat expanse of prairie near Houston called Addicks Reservior, was only good for three things: as a place for floodwater to run off, as a place for National Guardsmen to parachute out of CH-47's at night, and a place with an endless horizon and nobody around to get hurt when I flew my model rockets, which occasionally blew up or went off course. Across the road, about a half-mile away, was designated as a county-owned aerodrome for the R/C crowd. They had nothing but contempt for me and my rockets. They were constantly coming over and whining that I might hit one of their airplanes. One day I'd finally had it with these guys when three of them came over to my launching area and tried to make me move a further thousand yards away.
"You're gonna hit one of our planes sooner or later," sniffed a bull nerd in an r/c club tee-shirt. I assumed he was their grand wazoo or something. Well, I'd finally had it.
"If you know your aviation history," I said, "Then you know the first Sidewinder missile was made in a guy's garage for about $25 bucks. Keep that in mind next time you fire up your *&$@ little bumblebees over there."
I'm not sure if they got it, but they went away saying things about my mama. And as much as I marvel at these new jet r/c birds, the evil little rocket guy in me still has this fantasy. It would probably take about a hundred bucks in 2005 dollars, but just once I'd like to add a little seeker head to a "J" engine and see what falls out of the sky at the next r/c fly-in. I mean, now that the heat signatures are so much greater on those things....
Well, it was just a thought.
TOM