----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2003 3:13
PM
Subject: [RCSE] We should start a new
thread to bash
Anybody ever tied a parachute to a small animal
then dropped it out of an R/C plane?
If so, were the results successful ?
SJG
Many moons ago when I was an undergrad at Ohio
State and living in the Stadium Scholarship Dorm, one of the guys had a pet
python, and kept hamsters to feed it.
We rigged up a parachute and a single
serving cereal box to hold the rodent, and prepared to launch the thing off
C-Deck, some 93 feet above the west side parking lot. Now, the
prevailing fall winds come from the west, and this was long before I knew
anything about sailplanes or slope lift.
We got some old clunky walkie talkies
to coordinate the launch. We were thinking NASA and moon
launches. Those of us on C-Deck were Rodent Launch and the guys in
the parking lot were Rodent Control.
We dumped the hampster and parachute
over the side of C-Deck, and slope lift took over. The chute went up,
not down, and began to drift north, across Woody Hayes Drive, gaining
altitude. Rodent Control scurried off in pursuit. The
chute kept gaining altitude, must have caught a thermal, and was last seen
heading out over St. John's Arena. We never did find the chute or the
hamsternaut.
OK, it is not a Chuck Anderson story,
but it's all I got.
