[Doug B]

Late summer '05, I'm flying my 30% Carden Extra. There's another guy at he field flying an overpowered Slow Poke, showing off for his girlfriend... and he's talking all sorts of trash. Really annoying!

After 30 minutes of listening to him talk trash about how good a flyer he is, I challenge him to fly a simple straight line down the runway (we've got black top) inverted, about four feet off the ground. He grumbles that it's too windy, and nobody at the field could do it.

I tell him that I'll do it with my Carden, if he does it with his Slow Poke.

He takes off, and flys around a bit, and flip's the 'poke inverted. I yell out to him, that's great, now try it at four feet - not 60 feet high! He grumbles and lands.

I fuel up, and take off with the Extra. I fly a lap or two to warm up the engine, and wait for two guys to land. Then, my first inverted pass, about half throttle, at 6 feet. I stay inverted and make several more passes, and yell back at him that the first pass was just a practise run. The second pass is at four feet. My third pass is about two feet. The fourth pass, I'm trying for one foot or less..... and the wind let's up for a split second, and I drag the tail fin along the blacktop for about 6 feet.

They guy's jaw about drops to the ground. Mine did too... but I didn't let him know that. I end up sanding about a eigth-inch by 5 inch long piece of balsa from the top of the fin. There were about twenty people at the field that day....

The trash talking guy packs up his stuff, and leaves with his girlfriend. THe best part - the whole rest of the summer, I hear people talking about me behind my back.... almost whispering...."That's the guy that dragged the tail of his giant scale extra down the runway".

The cool thing is that the plane HAD to be just a little nose high, as the prop tip is the same height as the vertical fin. I'm just amazed (and happy)I didn't catch a crack in the pavement and plant the plane.