It's like golf....

 I loved golf. But I hated sucking so bad at it and not getting better that I gave it up.

There was a deceptive break in the weather.

I decided to try Joppa Hill Field, infamous in my flying history for ripping the landing gear off my planes. Per usual, while cut, the grass was still too high. I tried a few times. I finally walked around and found a closer cut section, and took off. 

The Alpha Sport felt a bit under powered, an the gusts were once again a bit more than it could handle. 

In a turn it got pushed stalled and I recovered by so close to the ground it was a hard forced landing 

And the gear dot torn off 

One flight. 

Hated every moment of it.

And hated the hobby as I carried it off, for  no other reason than it sucked today, my decisions sucked, the consequences of my decisions sucked, and I sucked.

Well.... Enough of that. I drove home mad and went straight to the garage workshop to repair the landing gear.

The front gear just stripped out the screws. A bit of epoxy, screwed back on, front gear done in 10 minutes. I started the main gear repair just using weight but decided to remove the wing and use clamps.

Main gear simple, clean break by design. Epoxy the edges to allow breakaway.

Clamped.

Done, good as newish. Checked everything and the motor is sound, no bent parts. I e decided I am only going to fly at the field, as inconvenient as it is to get there. It's just not worth the stress of wondering if the fields are going to break a plane. And I need to wait for the weather with more patience for the lighter planes. 

Continuing my struggle to get cote skills. It's curious that I have done cote all these years for patches without issue, but this cote on the PT-19 and the Cubby is soft.

I spent the better part of the afternoon applying, removing, applying, removing, several times, cotte over this wing. I expected the compound curve to be difficult, but I could not get this cote to stretch and adhere. I could get a clean sheet attached to the straight parts, but the moment I went to shrink it with the iron or heat gun, it wouldn't shrink properly and the edges melted into wrinkles. I tried a long sheet including the compound curve, and two 

Separate sections, one clean rectangle and one to stretch around the curve. It was made more difficult in that I can't get the landing gear off.

After multiple attempts over several hours I have quit, and wrote my friend John Hayes who repaired the Alpha Sport wing. I asked him to help me repair this by teaching me how. I asked him if he's free this weekend as I have three days off.

I stopped, left the garage. I wanted to try the HK500, but no suitable place for a hover test, and I had had enough humiliation and failure.

I REALLLLY need a successful day of flying, or this will go the way golf went. Hopefully this weekend, weather permitting.