Not a Good Day at the Field
This wasn’t one of our better days at the flying field. Ron was flying his Senior, aka the "workhorse" since it carried parachutists, cameras, my gliders, and occasionally other loads, when for no reason we can determine, it shed its wing and went down. He was flying straight and level, not doing aerobatics or anything to put strain on the plane, when it happened.
So we got in the car and drove to the wooded area behind the corn, where it looked like it had gone down. After most of an hour with no sightings at all — unless you count others’ plane fragments — we went back to the pit area to get our walkie-talkies, and Ron took the signal flag the club uses when it’s not possible to help the searching pilot without it due to non-visibility (such as deep in the corn, which is over everyone’s heads!) I went up to the observation deck to play spotter, with a couple of other pilots pointing out where in the trees they’d seen the wing go in.
Still nothing. More other peoples’ fragments, but still no trace of the Senior, so he called it quits; we’ll try again after a strong wind, or come fall, when the leaves begin going bye-bye. We don’t really expect to find any of it again — good odds it went down in the big pond behind the woods — but it’s worth the effort of another look later.
