The Kwik Fli Flys!

The Howard Engineering Kwik Fli III made its first flight and it was incredible. If you have been following this thread you know that I originally built this aircraft as a backup airframe to my first Howard Engineering Kwik Fli III back in the early 70s but never got around to painting it. Shortly after building it I traded it to a friend and for thirty years it was in his shop unfinished. The aircraft was returned to me in September of 2004 and has been built to be an identical aircraft to the first one that I built and flew in the 70’s.

The weather at the field was cool with a slight overcast and light cross winds on the runway. After spending many enjoyable months getting the Kwik Fli III ready for flight, I was feeling a little apprehensive about the first flight when I arrived at the field, but that feeling quickly faded when the engine spring to life making a sharp crackling sound though the Du-Bro muffler.

I can’t tell you how great it was to taxi the Kwik Fli III out onto the black-top runway, line up on the end of runway, advance the power, head down the runway, a little back pressure on the elevator and in a surprisingly short distance smoothly rotate and go airborne. I clicked the gear up switch and the gear cycled up, it looked so awesome and clean. They say that you can never go back home but, I was! Again, punching holes in the sky with my Kwik Fli III! I was really astounded at how light and powerful it felt but very smooth flying and groovy. I had decided to use a NOS Rev-Up 11-8 Pro Series 3 wood prop and the Irvine 61 ABC was pulling it along effortlessly. After the euphoria wore off a little I made a few low and slow passes for the cameras and then I lowered the gear on an inspection pass and entered the pattern for landing. The landing was great and the rollout was very straight, stopping a short distance down the runway. After stopping I turned it around and taxed back to the taxiway entrance to the pits.

What a day!!!

I’ve attached are few images of the Kwik Fli III at the field and in flight.

It’s been a lot of fun building/rebuilding this historic “old bird” that is from the heady “heydays” of pattern flying. As many of you that were flying RC back then know, almost everyone belonging to a RC club had at least one pattern ship and flew them in the frequent club sponsored pattern events. There were a lot of great pattern designs to choose from then and there were some great flyers too. But you can still enjoy flying pattern similar to the way it was in the 70s by joining up with the folks at the Senior Pattern Association (SPA) at http://www.seniorpattern.com/

My new Howard Engineering Kwik Fli III kit should be arriving late next week and when it does I’ll post some images of how the updated kit looks. The new kit, created from the original molds, is on the SPA approved aircraft list and has updated plans and an instruction manual that shows how to build it to compete in SPA events or just build it like it was in the 70s.

To be continued..