I can tell you an interesting story about the Kavalier....

I worked at Sig from 1976 to 1978 as a product engineer. Did a little of everything....dies, molds, plans, instruction books etc. When Claude McCullough (a real modeler's modeler) designed the Kavalier, he built a superb prototype with a nice paint job for photos and to get in some test flying. Claude and I were the only two at Sig who flew mode 2.....everyone else flew mode 1 because of the influence of reeds. Now...Claude could fly okay, but he wasn't always comfortable behind the sticks. Since I was young, stupid and fearless...he elected me to do his flying for him. We went out to Sig field on a bright sunny Iowa day with the big puffy clouds hanging around. This was Claudes favorite type of day to take photos. After what seemed like a long long period of Claude snapping away trying to get that perfect box top photo...we were ready to fly. I fueled it up, took off, and after about two clicks of right aileron trim and one of up elevator it was flying perfect. I tried a couple of rolls....perfect. Rolled inverted for a couple of laps....perfect. Ailerons and elevator felt balanced and even did a little slow flight with no problems. Then I tried a loop. It tracked well, wings perfectly level, up and over the top and down the backside....thats when it happened, a sudden pitch up that was very violent (and unexpected!) It only lasted a split second and then back to normal flight. I tried again...same result. At first I thought it was radio hit...but it did it twice more in the same spot. Puzzled...Claude said land it and we checked linkages, servo and every other thing we could think of...but all looked normal. After sitting there beside the model and studying it for a while...it dawned on me what was happening. When Claude was shooting pictures, he only put four #64 rubber bands on the wing because he thought they were ugly. And he didn't add any more! Every time I came down the backside of a loop, the front of the wing would raise up...stetching the rubber bands and then pop back down in place! After about eight more #64's were put on...all was normal.

Jeff Foley
Product Engineer
Sig Mfg. (1976-1978)