ORIGINAL: cmgtech1

I flew a Bootlegger in the early 80's. Flat horizontal stabilizer. Absolutely loved that airplane! I'm pretty sure the wing was a thinner airfoil than the Compensator, and the Compensator was thinner than the Deception. There is an obvious difference in wing planforms between the Compensator and the Bootlegger. The Compensator was a double taper planform, whereas the Bootlegger only swept the leading edge.

I flew an OS.61 rear exhaust and rhom-air retracts. The plane had an amazing flight envelope. It would blister across the sky, yet settle right down for slow speed flight. Spin entries were a piece of cake as the Bootlegger transitioned very smoothly from level flight to a relatively high alpha without wanting to balloon a lot. At the end of practice flights, I loved making a low high speed pass downwind, and then follow up with a low, inverted, very slow pass coming back upwind. I was always amazed that an airplane could be perfectly at home at such opposite ends of the speed envelope.

For whatever reasons, the Bootlegger just never gained the following of it's contemporary brethren. It wasn't on the scene long before the dreaded "turn around" started dictating major changes in pattern aircraft.

A great model!