ORIGINAL: Ali

I would just like to post a few pics taken last Wedensday at the Abingdon 100 years of flight meeting of my skymaster F-18
Firstly can I say that this has to be the best organized and smoothest running jet meet I have attended. A big thanks goes to Dick Spredbury and his team for putting the massive effort into laying on an event like this for all us jet modelers in the UK.
This F-18 is a very early preproduction version of the Skymaster F-18 powered by a Jet Cat P-160. The model is complete with flaps and ailerons as well as the odd missile or two. The All up weight weight with the ordinance was close to 30lbs but this model flew like one that weighed half that.
First flight was eventful due to a very rearward CG (Thats what you get when you build a model in 3 days for a jet event) but still went well.
Second flight with 500g of lead in the nose proved to be a lot better. Model tracked really well and had bags of power with the 160. High Alpha low fly bys and then open the throttle and away she goes. Superb.
Rock steady all the way and super smooth throughout , I cant believe performance and looks like this come ARTF. Anyway looks like it will be quite some time before I can get round to flying the 18 again as the British weather is starting to set in. I think it might be a good opportunity to add some paint
Thanks also go out to all those at skymaster for a superb product that allows people like me to fly beautiful jets such as these without the building