Back in '91, I built an rc airplane which I really enjoyed until it met its untimely demise due to my over confidence on a solo flight. At the time, I was working as a flight instructor and didn't make much to be spending on rc. I ended up concentrating on my aviation career and let rc slide. Jump forward about a decade, and with a good job, a family, a bit more spending cash (not to mention a quite a bit of new, grey hair), I decided that I wanted to get back into rc.

Two years ago, I ended up hunting down two kits of the same plane that I had built back in '91. The idea is to have a matching pair. One for my wife, Eva (she's a pilot, too!), and one for me. Maybe at least one of them will survive!

Eva bought me a couple of Irvine .53's last Christmas for the planes, and this year she got me a new JR XP6102 radio set and a copy of Reflex XTR! I hope XTR will help extend the lives of our new planes in addition to easing the stress and strain on our instructor when we get one.

I wanted to start this thread to show you the stages of us building our first of two Coverite Black Baron Specials. The kits were manufactured about 15 years ago and really are pretty cool! Basically, they employ a box fuselage and a flat bottom wing. The kit adds a turtle deck (which makes it look like it has a shoulder mounted wing) and cowling to give it a kind of '30's racer look. You can build it as a trike or tail dragger. We're doing the tail dragger.

The plane will have a 56 inch span should weigh in at about 5 lbs. The plans call for a .40 size two stroke, but we're gonna hang an Irvine .53 on each of them, heh, heh! That should make these alot of fun when you open the throttle up a bit.

It will take some time to put them together (my wife says I always am too anal when it comes to this stuff). I plan on posting some pics of our progress for you. Here are some to get it started.