When Bad Things Happen

Not too long ago we carried a product called Air Props. Simple enough in design – an airplane propeller mounted on a four inch long stick – they provided endless hours of fun. The way they worked was you put the stick (propeller facing skyward) between your hands, slide one hand forward, and the Air Prop took off.

We found a spot near the counter so we could keep an eye on any eager youngsters who thought they could launch one inside the shop. Suspended from our ceiling are wingtip to wingtip customer-built plastic model airplanes. One rambunctious youth spinning one of those things into our Air Force could easily result in heavy casualties. Well, the inevitable happened and a Tamiya P47 had its landing gear wiped out.  (I knew it was a bad idea!)

I bundled up the unsold Air Props and made a deal with the director of a Summer Camp to take them off my hands.

What reminded me of that story was a model that Ken Daigle brought in to show us. It was (notice the verb tense?) a Combat Models 1/32 Ki45 Nick, or rather what was left of it.

 

 

“It use to be in one piece,” he said. “Then it fell off my ceiling.”

He went on to say that he hung it close to the ceiling fan, the blades of which overlapped the wings of the plane. Every time the blade rotated, the Ki45’s wing hit the ceiling.

Until it hit the floor.

Ken says that the rest of the plane’s pieces were consigned to the garbage can

The moral of the story is to beware of spinning blades – whether they be four inch toy blades or a 24 inch fan blade.