Indoor News and Views

2013 USIC Reporting by Mike Kirda

Friday was HLS day and DonS had a beautiful model covered in microfilm.

At one point it got hung up on one of the wires or chains hanging from the ceiling. I grabbed my camera and took a sequence of photos as it was successfully recovered with minimal damage to the wing.

The second sequence we heard a loud SNAP and looked up. The motor on the HLS had snapped and was flailing away. I ran over to grab the camera and started snapping just after part of the fuse/stub/tailboom failed. The model crumbled and came down in a ball.

Within an hour, Don had it glued back together. He had applied a patch of microfilm and the last step was trimming it with the cautery tool. Suddenly it went POOF as the microfilm caught fire. Unfortunately no photos of this exist – but I am imagining him as Wiley E. Coyote. I hope the model is repairable and we can see it next year again.