As promised, John made up his Vintage Model Company (VMC) Skyleada Cutlass kit in the same livery as mine. Unlike me, he made it according to the plan (you will remember I added extra stringers and a fair bit of sheeting here and there), discarding only the terrible canopy of the VMC kit.
It is quite a bit lighter than mine, and looks great:
Above: John is obviously a 'master builder'. I'm glad the canopy I moulded for him looks good. Note the 'as new' Jetex 50.
John brought his Cutlass (as well as other models) to Old Warden. Below is a picture of John and me at this very pleasant event:
As you can see it was a near-perfect day, so nothing to prevent the stout-hearted John from lighting up and giving it its maiden flight:
And fly it certainly did. It needed the power of a Jetex 50C to climb away effectively, and also flew well with a '120 mN Rapier L-2.
All this was very pleasing. The field was a bit too crowded for me to risk my precious built up Cutlass
However, the new profile Cutlass did fly, and fly well, with under both Rapier and Jetex 50C power.
Which was very pleasing. It also showed a happy facility to fly between trees.
Both Cutlasses looked great in the air, and, with some provisos (dreadful canopy) the VMC kit can be bought with confidence!
Here's to our next flying sessions. It is John's hope we can get both Cutlasses in the air together!