In the late 80s one of my fellow RC club members built and flew a FK SBA 60 Speeda in pattern competition. He offered to let me fly it a few times and I really liked its flying characteristics. It was powered by an OS 61SF ABC-P with a 12X10W APC prop and pipe and had Spring Air retracts. It was super fast and so graceful, with incredibly large loops and it could do a slow roll from horizon to horizon. I loved the design but try as I may I could not get a kit from the US distributor, Mutchler’s hobbies located in Corydon, Indiana. The FK SBA 60 Speeda is a loosely copied version of the MK Blue Angel done in fiberglass and foam. I had one on back order for many months and finally in mid 1992 gave up because FK apparently discontinued production.

I’ve been on the hunt for a SBA Speeda kit for decades and in February of 2006 some RCU friends helped me get a set of MK Blue Angel plans so I could scratch build a Blue Angel. The MK Blue Angel kits have been out of production for years. My Blue Angel build can be seen on RCU at http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_3973867/tm.htm . I really enjoyed building the Blue Angel but I kept looking for a SBA Speeda.

A few months ago one of our RCU members casniffer met a RCer that had a bunch of FK kits and was trying to clean out some of his stuff. Casniffer made him and offer and he accepted. Included in the lot was what looks like two Atlanta 60s, a Curare 60 and a FK SBA 60 Speeda retract version. The kits are missing some parts and some work was started by the origin owner but nothing that can’t be fixed.

Casniffer posted some pictures of his find on RCU and when I saw the SBA I thought wouldn’t it be great if casniffer would sell it. To make a long story short he decided to sell all the kits in a lot but I made him and offer last week on the SBA and he accepted. So today, after a 300+ mile, five hour round trip and $56. worth of high octane in the Mustang, I met-up with casniffer in North Augusta to pick up the SBA. After my experience with UPS crushing my Kwik Fli III no way was the SBA going in a shipping box.

This kit is missing the aileron stock, one elevator, rudder and some other small miscellaneous parts. It has been hacked on by the first owner trying to install a RF engine and a firewall mount retract unit. The wing span and stab span is shorter than the Blue Angel and although the fuselage looks like an exact copy the nose and tail moment are a little longer.

I plan on documenting the SBA build here.

This will be my fifth build thread (Blog) on RCU. You can see my Tiporare build thread at http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_2827386/tm.htm My Howard Engineering Kwik Fli III taper wing build at http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_2434444/tm.htm and my Cold Duck design that was published in RCM in 1971, build at http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_3092876/tm.htm

My first job will be cleaning everything up and getting it back to its original condition and then start the building process. The FK kits have balsa pre-covered wing and stab cores and they appear to be bonded with some type of epoxy so that is good news. The kit has no plans but that’s not a problem because I’ll be using my Blue Angel plans. I may modify the wing and stab tips to match the Blue Angel plans.

Some images of the original Mutchler’s hobbies FK ads are below along with the SBA in its current state.

To be continued…