The SAD Award

The Society Of Aircraft Demolishers (Aircraftus Fragmentus) was created in 1980 by r/c club members in the USA.

The Canadian Charter Of Rights And Freedoms

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof, in particular THE RIGHT TO CRASH A MODEL AIRCRAFT AT ANY TIME, whether due to natural causes, positive will or negative ability.

The SAD committee followed each aircraft crash of the season to see which member was a likely candidate for the SAD award.

The members did not know about this award to be given out at the Decembers Meeting. There were alot of crashes this season especially one by Paul Molnor who was flying a Hanger 9 P-51 when it got away from him and presumably crashed in the tree's behind the flight line. To this day Paul has not been able to find his aircraft so the committee could not verify the crash. So Paul was not eligible for the award. So the committee started thinking about the 1 truly bad day where 5 aircraft were lost in 1 day, and it hit them. This members experiences impacted the membership for weeks. Here's what happened!

Sometime back in June of 2007 Nathan Peattie was flying his Blackhorse Models Cap 232 .46 Size. Everything was going good! System check verified the aircraft was in working order. So he started the aircraft and taxied it into position. Checked his control surfaces once again then he started his takeoff procedure. Approximately 10 seconds after  departure there was a distress call to the tower. (Were going down we have no ailerons) by the time Nathan tried to compensate with rudder, it was too late! The cap 232 crashed going full speed 20 feet from the runway. Nathan was so enraged with the crash, since the day before this model had to be rebuild do to earlier crashes. Nathan spend a good 6 hours repairing his model and then it crashed again! So Nathan picked up his model and brought it back to the pit area and started to kick and jump on his model. He replied "Now I feel Better" and went and bought a new plane the following week.