The “Cold Duck” flies and does it well! I wasn’t able to get any flight photos or video but I’ll get them next time out. I made two lengthy flights and all it needed in the way of trim was a few beeps of down trim. It tracks very straight, is super fast and feels light with unlimited vertical. Just like the original but the RJL K.61 has a lot more power than my old Veco 61 had! The tapered 18% root and 15% tip wing airfoil cuts through the air like a knife and it flies so fast that you can hear high speed air flow sounds as it screams by. Not as pretty in the air as the original retract gear version but it looked darn good to me today! It was windy so I decided to wrap it up and wait for better weather. The landings were great even with the wind, but I was the only one there to see them!

They say that you can never return home but flying today was pretty close.

If you haven’t already figured it out, I guess at this point I should admit that I am the designer of the “Cold Duck”. When I designed and built the original “Cold Duck” back in 1969 I flew the heck out of it enjoyed every minute. Latter on, RC Modeler Magazine published my “Cold Duck” article in June of 1971 along with my plans. Back in those days articles were written with pen and paper and it was not easy to do! My wife did the writing for the article and I wanted to keep changing stuff in the building sequence after text sections were completed. It was tense but we got though it and are still together after all these years!

Occasionally I would meet someone that had built one or wanted to build one from the RCM plans so the “Duck” been with me for a long time. Back in 1969 I never dreamed that in 2005 – 2006 that I would build and fly another “Cold Duck” so it was pretty neat to see my design take flight again.

If there is a classic pattern aircraft that you really liked in the 70s or 80s you can build one again. It’s not that hard to do and it is a lot of fun!