The sun was hot on my back as I knelt beside the box. It was a regular wooden crate, I think peaches once came in it. I used it as a landing pad for my drone. It’s a new drone, another of my four rotor radio control aircraft, which I now have four of. They range in size from 18 inches from rotor hub to rotor hub down to the itty bitty 4 inch hub to hub I was laying with. UPS dropped it off a couple of hours ago, and I am now waiting for its littl battery to charge so I can fly it around. Wearing a black shirt was a mistake, the sun is begining to bake my back mercilessly but it’s hard for me to move and change position. I tip myself over sideways so I can stratch out my legs and then climb to my feet. From there I can sit back down in my wheelchair. Of course, the minute I catch my breath from dragging myself to the chair, the battery charge light shuts off, indicating the battery is ready for use. I kind of flow from the chair back to the ground and sit while I disconnect the charger and put the battery in the heli.
My first flight attempt brought the drone up a few inches before it went sliding off sideways. It sagged down into the grass and its tiny blades were found by grass stems. I rolled over and picked it up, blew it off and returned it to the launching box. I then repeated this chain of events nine times before the battery demanded recharge. I thought about this and wondered if maybe the point to this particular aicraft was not flight, instead it was a kind of frustration test to see how long it took you to realize there was no way in hell this thing would ever be controllable. I took pity on my baking shoulders and rolled into the house and set the battery to recharging.