"A Sharkish Afternoon"

Got the heat turned up in the shop on this cold, damp day.

The subject of my attention, for the moment, is the faithful Jetco Shark that flew it's heart out last Saturday.

It got a little Monokote patching, and some cleaning/oiling of it's old Enya .19 engine.

As I mentioned earlier, this is the same engine that flew in my Uncle Wayne's Shark in the 1960's. It later powered another Shark I built in 1975, which was literally worn out and busted up when it hit the ground at Vince's farm. The carcass of this one now graces the entrance of my shop.

So this is the Enya's third ride in the nose of the Jecto kit. Below are some photos of us flying Sharks back in the day. Great memories, and in particular, the day flying bud Kevin and I smacked a couple Sharks together over Olmsted's ball park.

We'd painted them in very similar schemes/colors...maybe TOO similar as we forgot who was flying what...with our two Sharks doing a model airplane version of JAWS.

Kevin's plane rose up into mine, getting holes punched through it's left wing by my Shark's landing gear. I pulled up, unhooking the two models, but with my prop walking down the chord of Kevin's wing, chopping up his flap, and then cutting off most of his left stabilizer and elevator for good measure.

I got off easy...with a couple punctures and a broken prop, my Shark glided to the ground. Kevin's Shark, however, was happily speeding along at the end of it's cables, cranking around it's circle like the over-engined little monster it was. He had just enough elevator (a little tab of balsa that survived getting chewed-on) to "suggest" some pitch control, and we all figured he'd be able to ride out the remaining fuel.

I'd already run over to drag my Shark out of harm's way, when a gust of wind or something slightly upset Kevin's screaming plane. The disc of the model's flight circle tilted, ignoring Kevin's efforts to calm it with his tiny chunk of elevator. Gradually, the Shark increasingly climbed and descended, with all of us crowing, "oooohh-OH! oooooh-OH!" as it's pull outs came closer and closer to the ground (what are friends for, anyway?).

It finally clipped some weeds on a swoop, and we all knew this was it. The Shark came barreling in on the next pass, but survived amazing well because of it's flat impact, tearing out it's landing gear, and siding to a stop in the cold, muddy grass.

I think Kevin later built up another elevator/stab and got his Shark back in the air.  Mine flew on, 'till it's finally fatal crash at Vince's place in the 1980's...to become the door trophy it is today.

So ends yet another saga about one of my toys...