Sig Four Star 40 - Second Page
Teal Four Star 40 Front Like I said, I really love this particular model, and three years after writing the first one off, I bought another. This was after the untimely demise of the Somethin' Extra, and I wanted something which I knew I would enjoy flying. I had liked the colour scheme I used on the first one, so repeated it, using a roll of metallic Teal Monokote that I had bought on a business trip to the U.S. I re-used the spats from the original too, painting them with a car aerosol spray which was a perfect match.
I used the Irvine 40 engine which I had bought for the Somethin' Extra too, and this continues to provide reliable power. This time around, I used my experience from the first build plus what I had gleaned from reading the forums in RC Online and Flightlines. This included strengthening the landing gear block to fuselage joint, shortening the wing by one bay per side, and adding an inch onto the rudder. Reducing the wing area has made the plane a lot more responsive, apparently with no penalty on slow flying performance.

The Irvine is certainly a much heavier engine than the O.S.40LA, and I needed to put the flight battery as far back as possible, and add 75 grammes of lead at the tail to make the plane balance properly.

Teal Four Star 40 Rear
Teal Four Star Forty 3 A side elevation in the winter sun. These pictures were taken prior to the test flight. This was the first plane that I test flew myself, and I have to say that it wasn't the most pleasant of experiences. Nerves tend to make the control inputs more abrupt than usual, and the brain doesn't register simple things like "throttle back". However, all went reasonably well, and I got it trimmed out OK. A landing mishap caused some minor damage, requiring repairs before subsequent flights, but I've since flown the plane regularly. It is just as good as I remembered.

This page was last updated on 21/02/04

Copyright Jonathan Mead 2002