IT TAKES A LICKING AND KEEPS ON TICKING

The below is an email I received on April 19, 2010. I have removed the names.

Hank -
About a week ago, I got a call from a retired fireman in Brownsville Oregon. He often hikes and bow hunts in the hills nearby. He called to inform me that he had found a model I had lost. The model was a Mini-Pearl and I lost it at the Northwest FF Champs at Tangent Oregon in August of 2006. I had failed to start the viscous DT, and launched into the mother of all thermals. The model disappeared from sight is less than two minutes.

With the help of a local modeler, I got the remains back last weekend. After about three and a half years in the wild, all that survived was the forward half of the fuselage and a few remnants of the stabilizer. The Cox TD was seriously corroded, even the aluminum parts, and a total loss. However, when I got home and disassembled the remains, to my surprise the Micro I timer still functioned. Its' aluminum faceplate was a bit discolored but not corroded at all. The wire parts were still shiny like a new timer. Once I removed what remained of the fuel tubing, I could see that the trap mechanism worked perfectly. I wound and ran the timer at least fifty times. I carefully compared it to the Micro I's that I am now using, and it ran just as fast and just as strong. It runs and sounds just like a new timer, so I added it back to my collection of in use timers. The printed indications on the faceplate are somewhat faded, but still perfectly legible, otherwise it was totally unfazed by the experience of being lost for three and a half years in the Oregon outback, where the annual rainfall is significant. Just amazing.

DP