Alltrikes

last friday was lovely, sunny, 50 deg, no wind. but saturday was different, with possible thunderstorms, etc. this happened  saturday.  i had spent the last coupla' weeks rebuilding 'phang', now known as 'feenix', my cosmos echo, and trailered him up to the airport. i assembled my old 1993 12m wing, it had been bagged for 5years while i flew my 14.7 northwing, which i destroyed in feb while trying to perfect a forward somersalt. surprisingly, despite the rest, the 12m still had that tired look of a 24year old 'molting' python, no apparent healing having taken place. i rolled the trike out to an open area far away from the hangers, and proceeded to pitch the new (to me) warpdrive prop. 1deg at a time. i had the front tire of the trike up against the rear wheel of my van. the wind was 10mph so was on the lee side. each adjustment entailed re-setting each blade, re-torquing 10bolts, sitting in the trike revving till max revs attained etc, re-setting everything again. this all occupied quite some time, but as i was getting down to the nitty gritty i  ignored the fact that the wing was beginning to move around, BIG MISTAKE! i was torquing the bolts when a gust hit, almost blowing the trike over. i was by now grimly pushing the trike up against the van as hard as my ancient bod could, thinking, it'll calm down. NOT SO! i managed to grab a bit of rope and got one side of the a-frame tied loosely to the landing gear, but had no chocks, and nothing else to shove under the tires but my sandelled foot, that wasn't working. the wing was flapping around trying to gouge the van, i grabbed a rear stay wire, i think thats when a nico made a hole in my arm, now blood was getting all over my nice yellow t-shirt. THEN the wind really blew, my bod' propped' (pun) up against the hub, with the 2 blades horizontal, if it blew over it might survive! this uneven struggle went on for another 20mins, i'm desperately trying to get the attention of the only guy i could see, the airport mower-guy, half mile away. i would wave, then he would wave back, he obviously thought i was being  'overly friendly' then, out of the 'blew' (pun) a guy in a blue van appeared at my elbow, uttering those magic words "do you need a hand"?.  i blurted out "yes i need a goddamned hand". he cell-phoned his budds who were cowering in their hanger, listening to the doors rattleing, and pitying any poor sumbitch caught out in this! soon i had 6 guys hanging on the trike and guiding it into the hanger. i was too beat to check for damage, and re-check the bolts, but maybe i SHOULD take up flower-arrainging, or golf, anything not relying on wind, or lack of!                             freazier nutszoff                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      ps my saviour, ron, now my new bestfriend, was offered my first-born son ,(now 61 ) as reward, but he declined, he already had one of his own.