I understand and agree with what you say Ed. A good pattern design would usually be designed by someone who competes sucessfully in competitions and develops his models over a period of time.

In defence of Dave Platt, not of course a specialist pattern designer, his Kingpin was pretty much state of the art in 1966 as it was basically a Taurus/Nimbus clone with a much simplified structure. It was flown in competition ( British Nationals) and speaking as someone who has "seriously competed in pattern" I considered it as good as anything available at that time. That was why I built it.

Ray