3 guys playing endless musical-chairs around an invisible maypole .
My memory goes back to 1958-9. I built a Kiel Craft Chipmunk and also a Phantom-mite . Can't remember which was first, but the model was supposed to be for a .75 cc engine...I had an AM10, which was, supposedly, the most powerful 1cc on the market. Shanghaied my mate and we went to the local "reck" (recreation-ground, a park with slides, roundabouts, swings etc. the likes of which have all been banned, now as "dangerous"...15-20 foot high slide made the climb worthwhile
)....
Laid out the control-lines, showed buddy how to hold and release model and explained how to bend down and run-in and stay behind me, on a signal. the run-in to proceed as soon as the 'plane passed him.........well the first couple of laps went well, I signalled Rob to join me. yep, he was a beanpole and disinclined to bend down or run.....
Give him his due, he was probably over 20 feet of the 30 foot lines ,towards me, when they came round again and smacked into him at waist height
I stood mesmerised as the model proceeded to wrap him securely in double wire-wraps at an ever increasing speed....I think we were both crapping ourselves, for different reasons. I had ducked and run, abandoning the now-useless control-handle, he stood ,pinioned and petrified, whilst this howling, smoking dervish came ever closer to mincing him. All was not lost for him, for there was a loud "CRACK", as my painstaking labours broke free of the lines and shot up vertically, like a 3d firework rocket. We watched in awe, as it wobbled, turned and came howling down with a banshee wail, followed by a thud and an eerie silence. " sad and chastened schoolboys returned home with a carrier-bag of firewood .
I never attempted any other model-flying with him.