Dad's+Puppeteer

This was my Dad's first built and he made a fantastic jog. This aircraft won 3rd place in the DMAC (then the HMAC) concourse in 1995. This is a great aircraft to fly (having made and flown one myself)

[|Dads Puppeteer first flight.avi]
 * Video's of the Pup in flight:-**







Images belwo are eof the first flight of the Pup taken from the Hawk back in April 2000.

Text extract from the Hawk, April 2000.

Dave Thomson finally “bit the bullet” and brought his superb Flair Puppeteer down to the field for its maiden flight. This model was completed just in time for the Heswall MAC Concours d’Elegance competition..... in 1995! Veritably a “hangar queen” with a reign to rival that of Queen Victoria. Dave duly assembled the Puppeteer, which looked quite splendid with its dummy rigging wires, and then asked Brian Brassey to “do the honours” as he felt that his own state of nerves wasn’t the best frame of mind for a test pilot. The venerable OS 60 4-stroke engine was fired up OK, but it didn’t seem to be giving as much power as one might expect. However, Brian judged the amount of “waft” from the prop to be adequate, and Mark McKee assisted in carrying the kite out to the strip. After a fairly sedate takeoff roll the Puppeteer lifted off and sauntered skyward in a steady but somewhat underpowered fashion, and Brian had to climb straight ahead for quite some distance before he dared to attempt a turn. Once it had wound itself up to flying speed the model flew very steadily and posed no problems, but it obviously needed a jot more power to make it relaxing to fly. An uneventful approach and landing terminated a successful test flight.... and Dave’s sigh of relief as the model touched down was audible at quite a distance! Rather than risk such a splendid model with another underpowered flight, Dave called it a day and took the Puppeteer home so that he could strip the engine down and find out why it wasn’t performing as it should.