Christchurch and District Model Flying Club
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CAT WITH NINE LIVES (Now Seven!) by Tim Calvert

I started building the Pushy Cat back in 2005, it was a Quiet Flight  & Electric Plan from 2005, deigned with NICADS in mind, a 36in span, flat sheet wing, all balsa construction.  The completed  airframe got mothballed, lacking any appropriate motor or batteries as I disappeared off to Eastern Europe for a year or two with work.

I resurrected the airframe from its resting place in the garage in  2014, and with a £6.00 RCTIMER 2208 30gm 1800KV motor, and a 1800mah 3 cell Lipo, about 190 watts on a 7x5 Prop, and an AUW of just on 20oz, promised sufficient power, (there always the option of a 2600kv version  of the motor on a 6x4 prop giving 250 plus watts of power for whizbang  performance). Well under the original prototype weight of 32oz with NICADS.

It proved to be an easy flyer, a gentle underarm lob on 75% power was sufficient to see it on its way, with no tendency to roll under power  in the take off phase. Simple Bank and Yank as there is no rudder, and  more than sufficient performance.

All was well until 25^th May 2018, when a failed launch  (Pilot Error) saw it stall and nosedive in, the patch at SF being quite  firm, the fuselage snapped and one of the booms broke.

Examining the remains once home found that the majority of the  airframe and wings was undamaged and I was able to build a new central  box section to the fuselage and graft on the old nose and aft sections  and canopy, repair one broken boom and reassemble, keeping some 80% of  the original. A harder grade of balsa was used for the fuselage, the  original was a bit on the soft side and had cracked on several occasions in the general rough and tumble of belly landings.

It was recovered in matt black and yellow with Hoonigan and Monster Energy markings (you may have seen Ken Block with his trademark Hoonigan 1400bhp Mustang on Top Gear) to replace the original Red Bull scheme.

The re-maiden in February 2019, did not quite go to the plan (I was there - Ed), and another of its 9 lives was used, as a complete loss of orientation had  me flying a black plane into the SF trees and not away from them with a resounding crack! The rescue party headed to the trees (through the big pile of cow poo that has been dumped in the gap through the hedge), to find the plane on the ground, in pieces, but amazingly non broken, the  booms was dislodged and tail come adrift as had the servo mountings, but nothing was broken, and the minor dent in the wing LE just ironed out  with a bit of heat from the iron, some glue and it was all back together in less than 30 mins looking non the worse for its excursion.

The re-re-maiden with Trevor at the controls discovered a lack of  left trim to correct a right hand rolling tendency, a re-jig back in the workshop seems to have resolved the issue and its now flying straight  and well.

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