ORIGINAL: cmoulder

Matt,

No need to apologize!

You've been a fountain of information and a great help to all of us, always there and ready to assist! I for one want to continue to hear about the more esoteric advances you seasoned guys are able to come up with. I may not be able to take advantage of them right away, but they are things we may need for the future.

At this point, I am quite satisfied with the result as is. (Well, I've still got to try that 16x12 prop...) I have been looking forward to having an economical 2-meter pattern plane since 2007 when several of you were trying to get a good result with the ZDZ 40 F3A. I was more than a bit disappointed when that didn't pan out, and there was much excitement when Todd Syssa's little gem appeared on the scene, just in the nick of time to spare me from going electric, as I was about to do.

Up until now, ''pattern'' and ''economical'' have been pretty much mutually exclusive terms, but now I have a very decent flying model that cost just a bit over $2k, along with a bit of experimentation and elbow grease. When one surveys current top-line offerings, $2k is indeed economical for a RTF model, and the low fuel and maintenance costs and engine reliability are some very nice icing on the cake.

This is one of the best things to happen to pattern in a long time because it may well re-invigorate pattern and bring in a lot of new faces. And after a lot more seasoned pattern guys see yours and Ed's and other Syssa-powered models fly in contests, a lot of them may change their minds about gasoline-powered pattern flying.