The Weed Eater

The Ugly Duckling
The Flying Engine
Fat Boy
Tons of Fun
Ground Pounder

This airplane, a Duraplane 40 Fun Fly, was built and covered by a friend.
He gave me the airframe and an OS 91 FX and said he'd like to see them fly together
I figured out a mount for the engine, and added lots of wood to the aluminum
channel to stiffen up the tail.

I designed and soldered my own landing gear for it.

Then I put the rudder and elevator servos in the tail, mounted a header tank,
installed a pump, and slung the main tank under the belly.

I carved out a new radio bay toward the rear of the wing.
When I put some lite ply under it, I inadvertently caused asymmetrical anhedral in the wing.
The left wing droops more than the right.  :o(

As of February 21, 2000, I had about 96 flights on it.

A good view of the soldered landing gear
(acid flux, silver content).
This gear is crash-certified.

I won combat so often and by means so disreputable
that our newsletter editor started printing my
name with an asterisk.

I named myself the Default Combat Champion
of Wing and Rotor.
If no one else won, then I did.

I made up my own asterisk to celebrate
my self-awarded status.

Then I busted the nose off of the Weed Eater
on a deadstick.

Then one day,
Dave Bagwell helped me
tune the engine

and fly.

He didn't kill the gull.
Just the Ugly Duckling.

Not everyone was sad
to see it go.