Dobbs Town
29-10-2004, 07:22
When I was a lad, I'd heard that it only takes a relatively small amount of metal to show up as a blip on radar. Knowing this, I experimented a little bit.
We lived maybe five or ten miles from a major airport, with a soccer field a few streets away from our house. When the field wasn't in use, lots of kids would fly those cheap plastic kites that you could pick up just about anywhere back in the 70s. If you remember those kites ( "Gayla-Haugh" made them, whoever they are) came with a 200 ft. roll of twine.
I picked up three extra rolls of twine, giving me 800 ft. to play with, and used packing tape to line the edges and struts of my kite with pennies. It took a while to reach the end of the twine, but the kite was soon fully deployed. You could hardly make it out in the sky.
My friends had gathered around by this time and asked why it was so high up. I told them I was trying to spook the air traffic controllers, and one boy whose father was a pilot, pointed out that I might be on to something, as he'd noticed there hadn't been any jets overhead for the last half-hour or so.
That when I saw two of the old 'Starfighter' aircraft come zipping up in a hurry from the southeast. Now that was unusual, but I didn't think it necessarliy had anything to do with my mischief...well, at least not at that time.
When I saw the Military helicopter approaching from the same direction at a much lower altitude, I decided my little experiment had been a success, and started rolling in my twine very quickly. I had the idea that someone was probably getting pretty steamed by my prank, and I didn't want to catch the shit over it.
Luckily for me, my friends helped bring the kite down right away. The military helicopter (what are they called? Sirkovskys?) made another pass over the general vicinity, but by then, I'd taken apart the kite, and pocketed the change. We nonchalantly walked off the soccer field just as two police squad cars pulled up at the far end of the field. We hung around long enough to see the cops call over some other group of kids with a kite...
Anyone else have a similar story to tell?
We lived maybe five or ten miles from a major airport, with a soccer field a few streets away from our house. When the field wasn't in use, lots of kids would fly those cheap plastic kites that you could pick up just about anywhere back in the 70s. If you remember those kites ( "Gayla-Haugh" made them, whoever they are) came with a 200 ft. roll of twine.
I picked up three extra rolls of twine, giving me 800 ft. to play with, and used packing tape to line the edges and struts of my kite with pennies. It took a while to reach the end of the twine, but the kite was soon fully deployed. You could hardly make it out in the sky.
My friends had gathered around by this time and asked why it was so high up. I told them I was trying to spook the air traffic controllers, and one boy whose father was a pilot, pointed out that I might be on to something, as he'd noticed there hadn't been any jets overhead for the last half-hour or so.
That when I saw two of the old 'Starfighter' aircraft come zipping up in a hurry from the southeast. Now that was unusual, but I didn't think it necessarliy had anything to do with my mischief...well, at least not at that time.
When I saw the Military helicopter approaching from the same direction at a much lower altitude, I decided my little experiment had been a success, and started rolling in my twine very quickly. I had the idea that someone was probably getting pretty steamed by my prank, and I didn't want to catch the shit over it.
Luckily for me, my friends helped bring the kite down right away. The military helicopter (what are they called? Sirkovskys?) made another pass over the general vicinity, but by then, I'd taken apart the kite, and pocketed the change. We nonchalantly walked off the soccer field just as two police squad cars pulled up at the far end of the field. We hung around long enough to see the cops call over some other group of kids with a kite...
Anyone else have a similar story to tell?