Brad Shepherd

Patterned after a 1930s home-built midwing design by Ed Heath, this sprightly .40-.50-powered RC sportster realistically duplicates the flight characteristics of its Golden Age counterpart - and does them one better with aerobatic capabilities. Pietenpol, Corben, Huntington, Heath, Long, Wittman: names that recall the early days of aviation, that intoxicating era known in the lexicon of flight as the Golden Age. During the late Twenties and early Thirties, these pioneers of the home-built aircraft movement took to designing, building, and flying their own creations out of pastures, grass airports, and any fields that were available. They had many imitators, and the activity caught on quickly. Air racing, too, was popular during those years. Aviation buffs are familiar with the Howard-designed Ikes, Mikes, and Mulligans, the Gee Bee series produced by the Granvilles, and others.

This 1/4-scale sport model of a seminal 1960s design makes for hot aerobatic performance. In the late 1960s, an aeronautical engineer with no aerobatic experience designed a full-scale competition plane with aerobatic performance superior to any its pilot had yet enjoyed. When the late Margarite Ritchie set out to beat the Pitts of rival pilot Mary Gaffney, she commissioned Rubidoux, California aerospace engineer Clayton Stephens to design and build a better aerobatic perfromer than the 150-hp clipped-wing Taylorcraft she had been flying at the time.