This week-end we finally had a calm day with almost no wind that enabled me to fly my model airplane – a very light styrofoam park flyer with two electrical engines. I fly this 90cm wing span plane from the water retention pond in our neighborhood. That is big enough to fly big circles and get it down to land.

I had charged the batteries and was quite excited about the flight. After take-off there even was a turkey vulture soaring right above me. So I flew the little plane over and we started thermalling together. How exciting, I thought to myself. I could shut down the engine and the plane stayed nicely in the turn, climbing with the bird. The wind picked up with altitude and the bird was drifting away in the thermal bubble – along with my airplane. So I decided to fly back towards my location, but every time I levelled off to fly towards me I was hit by a huge gust at the boundary of the thermal. The plane kept climbing and I already had a hard time judging its position half of the time. I eventually became a little more desperate, realizing that the wind and time were working against me and the little plane kept climbing with no power.I banked it hard and it gyroed violently in the sky, descending in big dives. I stabilized it over the tree tops, barely able to see the plane, that must have been 1/4 mile away by now. I applied cruise power and took a guess of the flight direction. It turned out to be the wrong direction, and shortly after that realization the plane disappeared on the horizon. My spirits sunk, realizing that I had just lost my model airplane. I listened quietly for about 2 minutes, trying to hear the “landing” to no avail. After a short deflated moment, I picked myself up, telling myself what a cool flight this has been for the last 15 min while walking back to the car. I figured I’d drive the neighborhood in the hope that I would find the plane – what are the odds?. So I cruised around for ~10 min. and just before I wanted to quit, I come around a corner with a lot of kids playing in front of their house. And sure enough there was my model airplane sitting in the front yard. They had recovered it from their neighbors roof, were it “landed”. I was so happy that I had found the plane again, and it wasn’t broken at all. Just some scratches – nothing serious. So I packed it into my trunk, said a thank-you and drove away with a big smile on my face. What a Sunday!