Hi everyone,
As I mentioned in the opening post, I started on this kit a couple years ago. At the time, I was working in Yokosuka, Japan for about a month. My employer had paid for a hotel and I’d brought this kit along for something to do in my off time to keep out of trouble. This brings me to recall The Tale of the Flying LCI.
Working on a model in a hotel requires extra precautions. Modelling materials can get messy and fumes from glue can build up. To keep the air clear in the room, I would open the window anywhere from a few inches to wide open.
My room was on the 8th floor and although Yokosuka always seemed to be windy, the wind on the 8th floor was extremely strong. The wind didn’t blow into the window, though. Instead, the wind would blow across the window, whipping the curtains, occasionally violently sucking them out and blowing them directly back in.
One night, after installing styrene on the sides of the hull side panels on the bow, I decided to take a break and let the room air out after using a lot of glue. In an effort to quickly dissipate the fumes, I’d placed the LCI on the window sill. That particular night, the wind was especially strong and gusty. Although the wind kicked up fiercely, I had my attention on something else and paid no heed. At one point, I suddenly remembered the model on the sill. I jumped up, went to the window and looked for my model. It was not where I thought I'd left it. Did I absent-mindedly put it somewhere else? I was sure I'd put it on the sill. I looked all around the room near the window, thinking maybe I was mistaken and had actually put it close to the window, but not on the sill. Soon, my suspicion that the model had gone out the window was confirmed; the model was no longer in the room. The only place it could be was somewhere outside.
I leaned out the window, trying to spot the half-gray and half-white styrene model. Nothing. I realized that it must've fallen somewhere down below amidst the bushes along the ground floor of the hotel. It was nighttime and from the 8th floor, I wasn't likely to see it in the dark. I began to think I’d lost the model forever. All that work and now, my LCI was going to find a new home as a bathtub toy for a Japanese kid. Realizing I had nothing to lose, I decided to take a chance and go downstairs to see if I could find it.
When I got to the ground floor of the hotel, I began scouring the area below my window, but I found that it was blocked off: it was an area for hotel employees only. I thought, “If only I could get one of the employees to either look for it for me or let me into the area to search, maybe I could find it.” A few minutes later, one of the bartenders, a sweet older woman who everyone called, 'Mama-san,' came along. I tried to speak slowly and clearly: could she please help me; a model ship had fallen out of my window. Could she help me search for it? She motioned me ahead of her; it looked like she was going to help. I was suddenly optimistic about recovering my model. We walked a few feet and then she motioned to the staircase leading to my room and said, "Please." She hadn't understood a word. Or maybe she just thought I was nuts or drunk. She wasn't going to help.
I went back up to my room. In between bouts of condemning myself for being so careless, I looked out the window again several times, hoping to spot it. No amount of intent staring would reveal where the model landed. Well, I hoped, maybe the hotel workers would find it and I could get it back. I just hoped nobody walking along the street behind the hotel found it and took it home to his children.
The next morning, before I went to breakfast, I decided to look again. My room is at the end of one wing of the hotel. The adjacent wing appears to have been a later addition to the hotel and was of a different design. Each floor of the adjacent wing had open-air walkways. I hadn't noticed that the night before. “Maybe the model had been blown into one of these walkways?” This time, I decided to look at some of the lower floors in the other wing.
By chance, I went to the fourth floor and opened the door to the open-air walkway. There on the floor in front of me was the aft portion of the model. The bow of the ship had obviously broken off during the LCI’s flight. “Hallelujah!” I thought. As much as I disliked the idea of starting over building a new bow, I could live with regaining the stern of the ship. After all, all it would take was more styrene and time to build another bow. But I hoped that maybe my luck would continue - maybe I'd find the rest of the model? I checked every floor, expecting to see the white styrene bow sitting on the floor, waiting for me. Alas, no. As I left for work, I was not quite so mad at myself as before, but still grumbling and making plans to build a new bow.
After work, I decided I'd see if there were a way around to the back of the hotel so I could search for my model without having to rely on any of the local Japanese. I quickly found that the hotel owners don't want people wandering behind their hotel; the accesses were locked up tighter than Fort Knox. Well, now I was almost as downhearted as when the wind first took my model. Hell, I thought, I'll try one last time to see if I can spot it. I went to the first floor walkway for a look. Nothing. Then, by chance, I looked through an opening in the wall on the walkway and there was the missing bow! But it was out of reach. I looked around for something that would enable me to hook the bow and drag it towards me, but there was nothing. I briefly thought about trying to get help from the hotel staff, but then, recalling how I'd been shown the door the night before, decided to exhaust all of the rest of my options before I tried to get their help again.
I needed something to extend my reach. My umbrella! I went up to my room and got it. The day was warm and sunny, so I imagined it looked strange for me to be walking around with an umbrella, but I was on a mission to retrieve the rest of my model. With a tool to reach the model, I now began probing blindly through an opening in the wall. It was a long drawn-out effort to snag the model because I couldn’t directly see the results of my efforts. I'd swipe at where I thought the bow was and then pull my arm back and have a look and then regroup. I didn't seem to be having any luck. I kept at it and soon, I noticed that the bow was slowly moving my way until finally, I was able to reach out and grab it. Ah, sweet victory!
And now you know the Tale of the Flying LCI
John
Attachment:
File comment: The LCI model after its first and only flight
Flying LCI.jpg [ 132.95 KiB | Viewed 1965 times ]