EVERETT — Brendon Beardsley has his wings back.
The 16-year-old Jackson High School junior was the silver medalist in the junior-class world championship radio-controlled glider-flying competition in Turkey in July.
When he arrived home, however, he was told his expensive competition gliders were lost, never having made it back from Turkey on a British Airways flight.
Unable to practice flying his gliders for nearly two months, Brendon had almost given up his dream of competing for the gold medal in the next world championship, set for 2010 in France.
The problem was that even if he had the money to replace the 10 gliders, which cost about $3,000 each, an order for one would have taken about 18 months to fill. That wouldn’t have left enough time to prepare for the next world championship, which is sponsored by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale.
The gliders showed up recently at the British Airways cargo warehouse at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and they may have been there all along, Brendon’s mother Gina Kalamen said.
A British Airways employee who had seen a photo of the two 6-foot-long, 100-pound plywood crates filled with gliders stumbled on them in the warehouse when she was looking for something else, Kalamen said.
“I was so relieved,” Brendon said. “And I was excited that the planes were not gone forever.”
After re-assembling the gliders, Brendon has been flying about four hours a week, in between school and his job at an Everett hobby store.
“I am getting back in the zone and my goal is still the gold medal,” Brendon said.
The gliders are remote-controlled miniature planes that don’t have any form of propulsion. Instead, the plane is launched into the air by hand and glides on air currents, controlled remotely from the ground with a transmitter. People compete with the planes by trying to keep them in the air for at least 10 minutes and scoring points for such things as perfect landings.
Brendon was accompanied to the world championship in Turkey by his father David Beardsley and stepfather Dave Kalamen, both radio-controlled glider enthusiasts.
Out of a possible 5,000 points, Brendon lost the gold medal by only three points to a pilot from Italy.
After receiving his silver medal at the world competition, Brendon had his favorite 12-foot-wingspan glider signed by many of his 46 fellow competitors who hailed from 25 countries.
“The coolest thing about seeing the gliders back was having my signed plane again,” he said. “That was the best part. That was my trophy.”
Reporter Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427 or gfiege@heraldnet.com.
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