It is fun to fly--very fast and quite acrobatic.  It is fairly heavy for a plane of this size (4 ft wingspan and 28 oz wet), but is low-drag and has a great glide ratio--it is actually a quite acceptable thermal sailplane on days with good lift!  It takes quite a bit of real estate to land it, so it isn't really a park flyer.  However, a couple-hundred foot clear area with a clear approach is useable after a little practice.  There is a privately-owned stadium in Michigan where people fly these indoors. This plane is tough, so landings don't have to be perfect or even good.  Stalling it into a bush works.

It's constructed out of styrofoam and EPP foam with a carbon-fiber spar.  It certainly is a minimalist's dream. It would be hard to build anything that flies with any fewer parts.

 It's supposed to be covered with colored packing tape.  Mine got  rather wrinkled  & ratty-looking after a while, so I covered it with Ultracote.  It is still under the specified weight, and looks much better than even a new tape job and flies faster with the smoother surface. 

I make my own 9-cell AA 1600 mAh battery packs that give full-throttle 10-minute run times easily,  However, once you get up a few hundred feet on a good day you can stay up with little or no power.

I also tried slope soaring on a dam near here.  There is about a 20' rise and about a 15 mph wind that wasn't too steady.  It was nice to have power when I got out of the lift band.   I can't wait to get get this out to "my" Riverside, California slope!

I finally finished a plane for the Saito .91 engine I won as a door prize. This 4-star was made for a .60 sized engine, so with the .91 it will almost climb vertical at half-throttle. It is an easy plane to fly--very maneuverable and not too fast.  I enjoy flying a larger plane.

It's covered in metalflake blue and red Monokote that's stunning in the sun. This photo doesn't do it justice. The decals with the kit were stars that had one point elongated.  I used this concept with a Magan David.

Click for a larger image

I gave up learning to fly the powered Bobcat glider, so after the last crash, I built this Spirit Elite.  

I built it with a one-piece wing and substituted carbon fiber for the aluminum in the wing joiner, and eliminated the ply joiner box.  It has ailerons, but no flaps.  The balsa fuse is reinforced with carbon fiber.  I extended the nose about an inch to make room for the throttle servo, and to lessen the need for so much lead.  It STILL needs about an oz of lead up front!

I used carbon fiber control rods with Teflon sleeves. It has 4 FMA S-100 micro servos that I already had.  S-80 submicros would save about 1 1/3 oz.  I used the rotary drive system for the ailerons.  A very nice setup.

The throttle servo is an Expert SL260 submicro.  There is no room for a nylon clevis on the metal throttle arm on the Norvel .071 carb, so I went with a Z-bend connection.  I have had no radio interference problems with the metal-on-metal connection, probably because it gets oily.

The weight came out to < 36 oz with engine, but without fuel and prop. It has a 1.5 oz tank.  A nice thing about burned glow fuel: unlike dead batteries, it weighs nothing :-).

It handles like a sports car off the hi-start!  I mounted the engine, but due to weather, fuel feed problems (solved by repositioning the fuel tank) and and RF overload (fixed with shorter aileron servos) about 2 months later I was finally able to fly it with the motor.  It flew great, with plenty of power to climb.

We started with the Norvel .061 salvaged from the Bobcat, but upgraded to the .071 later.  It is a much nicer engine--the muffler is attached with two screws as opposed to a spring clip, plus the extra power doesn't hurt anything! You actually use less fuel, since you can climb faster.  As I still need weight up front, I'd probably go with a Norvel .15 if I had it to do over.

We had so much fun hand-launching our Bobcat before we put the engine on it, we built a Mad Aircraft Highlander EPP foam glider to learn soaring, and also to serve as a trainer for Fe.  

Fe picked out the colors.  Surprisingly, they are quite visible.  The plane appears black and red when aloft.

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