I've been flying a [link=http://wintellect.com/weblogs//images/wintellect_com/wintellect/3/o_twinstar.jpg]beautiful little Twinstar[/link] for two weeks now. Performs great with two O.S. 25FXs and MA 3-blade 8x6 props. The engines are breaking in well and have been extremely reliable--until today.

A few seconds after take-off, the right engine quit. I reduced power, made a couple of wide, gentle turns to line up with the runway, and brought her in pretty much normally. My heart was beating out of my chest. I put the plane on the bench and ran the engines up and down, let them idle for a while, and ran them up and down again. Everything worked perfectly, so I decided to go again.

Second take-off, same result: right engine quit just as I banked away from the runway. I brought her around again and managed get the plane back in one piece, although the landing wasn't exactly a grease job.

All this is to say that I can verify that the Twinstar flies reasonably well on one engine. The controls are mushy; it's a lot like flying a plane with one aileron. But I never touched the rudder, and as long as I was gentle on the controls, the plane responded pretty well. You can even run the power up and down without snap-rolling the plane if you do it gently. (I didn't try running the power up quickly; didn't want to invite disaster.)

The Twinstar is my first glow-fuel twin (I have a KMP B-25 almost ready to go, but I thought flying the Twinstar first would be good experience), and today was my first engine-out experience on a twin. I hope it doesn't happen again, but if it does, at least I'll know that there's no need to panic. Hobbico did a terrific job designing this model.