Well, I now have three outings with the Sig Rascal 40 under my belt and I can confidently say it's a BIG winner!!!

First off, I have the Blue and White version and I think it's one of the prettiest planes I've ever owned. It has beautiful lines that tend to remind me of an old timmer model and a full scale plane from the golden era all at the same time. It also has an exceptionally nice covering job. When I got it assembled and stood back for a look I thought to myself "if it flies half as good as it looks it's going to be a winner". It did not dissapoint. In fact, it surprised me at the field, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

The quality of this ARF is top notch. Everything from the covering job to the level of prefabrication, parts fit and hardware quality were outstanding! Well... I'm not completely happy with the spinner provided, but it's certainly adequate.

I love all the little details, like the pre drilled and assembled wheel pants.... just bolt em up....no fuss. The kit included a wonderful little Hague style tail wheel assembly and some very nice light weight wheels. I think the 2 piece wing is also very well done and convenient for transportation, even though I transport it fully assembled in the back of my pick-up.

I the engine installation was a little fussy. You need to replace the provided philips head screws with socket head screws and use some long ball drivers. But in return for that little fussing you get a front end that looks far better than any 2 shades off color plastic cowl out there. Let’s just say the nice apperence far out weighs the minor hassle of the engine installation.

I have an O.S. .52 Surpass stuck in the nose and it has all the power I could ever want and more for a plane of this type. Believe it or not, this combo can hover very well. I didn't expect the .52 to give this much vertical performance, nor did I expect the tail surfaces to be effective enough for this maneuver, but surprise, surprise. It hovers very well.

I have to mention the easy handling of the O.S. . .52. It's a real gem. I mounted it without breaking it in on the bench at all and went out and flew the plane. The power and easy handling make the O.S. .52 one of my favorite engines of all time.

Yesterday while I was flying I was pleasantly surprised again by this little plane. I cranked it over on knife edge and it flew pretty well. But actually that wasn't much of a surprise, since the plane has a lot of side area I figured it might knife edge pretty well. What was a surprise is that I can fly a knife edge loop with it! Who'd have thought a little high wing floater plane like this could pull a knife edge loop or hover like an aerobatic machine?

Loops and hammer heads are a breeze with the Rascal. It flies inverted wonderfully! Rolls are a little slow, but pretty axial for a plane of this design. I will say that it wants the pilot to coordinate turns. That is to say you can't ignore the rudder in a turn or it will drag its tail pretty good. With a little practice on how much rudder to feed in I was making nice pretty turns at both ends of the field.

While all that aerobatic flying is fun I would be remiss if I didn't mention what a nice docile flyer it can be. With nary a touch over idle I can make nice smooth circuits of the field.....talk about floater! I haven't tried it yet, but I bet I could thermal this plane. It only weighs 5 lbs 4 oz.

We had a club fun fly last Saturday and I brought my old reliable Somethin' Extra to fly and the Rascal just to show people. In the third event, the limbo, I hit a pole and busted up the SE pretty bad. I only had one flight under my belt on the Rascal, but I decided to fly it anyway. After all, the next event is spot touch touch-n-goes. Well would believe I won the event on only my second time flying the plane. Yep, 3 consecutive first touch landings on the 10' X. Nobody could believe it! I'm still not sure how I did it. I think it was the plane. You just throttle back to a crawl, point it down the runway and it finds the X every time. I wonder how those guys at Sig designed that into the Rascal.

Anyway, suffice it to say that I'm very happy with my new Rascal. It was a little more expensive than most other similar size ARFs, but the build quality, flight performance and over all charm make it well worth the couple extra bucks. In my opinion Sig has hit a home run with the Rascal.

Wiz