It was getting dark and I was tired. I should have known better. After working all day I went outside to work on my water well. I had been trying to drill through the clay, sandstone and shale for quite some time and I finally succeeded to hand drill a shallow water well. My two inch PVC pipe was 52 feet into the ground and the hole was holding about 25 feet water. It was time to test the recovery rate. 

I had a water hose and an air hose attached to the top of the 60 foot long pipe, which was now only 8 feet above ground, I used all the proper fittings to make it air and water tight. At the other end of the pipe was a metal cutting tool so when I turned the pipe back and forth it cut into the ground. The water alone would not wash the cuttings up after it got so deep so I added about 40 pounds of air to the mix. It worked much better. The air brought large volumes of water up around the pipe and pushed it all out of the well hole I was cutting. I figured if I just turned off the water hose I could now use the air by itself to blow out the water and test the recovery rate of my new well. So I did. 

First I turned off the water and air and then I secured the two inch pipe with two large hose clamps because it bobbed up and down too much. Then I turned the air back on. Nothing happened. So I turned the air up, and up some more. I turned it as far as it woud go which was 110 psi. Still nothing happened. Here is where I got most stupid. I walked over to the pipe and removed the first clamp with the battery powered nut driver. Then I started to remove the second clamp and that is when I heard a blast of air and the pipe vanished. I turned in a complete circle looking for it. It was nowhere to be found. Then I looked up and there it was. It was laying across the tree tops. That was four days ago. It is still up in the trees. 

I was amazed and terrified at the same time. In the time it took me to install the two pipe clamps the pipe settled and some clay and sand settled and sealed the bottom of the pipe to the bottom of the well; 52 feet below ground leval and under 25 feet of water pressure. Needless to say,"don't ever try this rocket launcher at home".