Update May 22, 2005

It's better to burn out, than to fade away.... Flew the SPFF at club field day and had a couple great flights, including participating in the parachute drop. Click for apple quicktime movie of parachute drop

While trying for the balloon busting event the high winds got the best of me and I cartwheeled the plane. Since I really was looking to retire it I removed the gear and gave the (now damaged) airframe back to Jim Sarette, who originally gave me the wing. The airframe is repairable, and Jim always liked the way it flew. I think I haven't seen the last of this plane....

Update August 28, 2003

Crashed the spare parts plane June 4th. Spent some time with it on the bench. Rebuilt with longer tail momemt and wingtip extensions. Also made a removeable hatch for the center section so different ESCs can be used with different motors. Motor mount on the front was replaced with a cradle type mount that motors are set in and strapped to. Plane performs well enough to win the balloon busting contest we had at the field. More photos coming soon...

Update December 5, 2001

Flew at lunch today. After I got the plane trimmed out on 8x600AE pack I moved up to the 10x600AE packs and WOW does she go. Inverted, rolls, inside or outside loops all work fine. The plane will float down nicely for landings and ROG no problem. The tailfeathers are a little closly coupled so she does some maneuvers very lazy-bee like, but still a great plane. Not bad from leftovers!

November 25, 2001

My friend Jim Saerette had a fun-fly wing he was working on but wanted to scrap to build a larger one so he gave me the wing with ribs, spars, LE and TE all glued up. I added Spar caps and sheeted the leading edge and I'm going to mount it on a carbon fiber arrowshaft a-la Todd's Models Tiny. This one has a 36" span and I think I'll start out trying to fly it on a 4:1 speed 400 I have sitting in my box. It will be 4 channel - full house: ESC, Aileron, elevator, rudder.

I'm calling this spare parts because the wing was someone else's spare. The motor, gearbox, batteries, wheels, radio, servos, and all the wood used was all sitting in my spare parts box. The covering and pushrods were all I had to buy to build this!

So far I'm as far as you see in the photos. I probably have another week to go to get it finished up. Maybe I'll have to mount some skis on it for winter flying.