Hello Bill. Thanks for the back story and filling in for my failed memory. Your big Skylark was impressive to me and sure a beautiful thing. Skylarks have a special classy look about them somehow, the distinct rudder shape and unusual cowling to me stand out. One of the earliest stunters I saw as a youngster was a pretty metallic blue one here in KC built and flown by local legend Ray Reinschmitt. A thing awesome to me. Now I'm curious; the original 56" span airplane. Was the span just longer (higher aspect ratio) or was it larger by scale overall? In other words what would it take to your memory to get a kit Skylark up to the 56" version? I bought an after market set of plans off the bay a while back. I should dig those up and see what it is. Another question is what larger version is classic legal. Is that the one you had in Washington? I have a new PA .51 looking for a job.
It's very nice to hear from you and I hope you get out to Muncie one of these times. I know it's a haul for you. And thank you for your kind words about the Impact kit. Wish I could today get the kind of wood I did in those days. Riley was sure I got good stuff.
I checked the plans I bought-straight kit version. They do have a full size fuselage drawing that the Sterling kit doesn't. That seems to be a common thing for Sterling.
Hi Dave,
The Lark (semi-elliptical trailing edge wing & full elliptical horizontal tail) that I flew to 5th place in Classic at the 1995 Nats was Ed's design just prior to the Skylark. The Lark has a 58" span with the same root chord as the original (56" span) Skylark. The Sterling kit skylark had a 52" span with the same root chord and airfoil as Ed's original 56" span Skylark.
Again, the piped Skylark that I flew at the 1995 Nats was not classic legal as it was a one-off modification of Ed's Skylark. I just extended the span to 60" & used larger flaps, and powered it with an OS .46VF on a tuned pipe. Even as porky as that Skylark was the OS .46VF did a good job of hauling it around.
Two Skylarks are classic legal: Ed's original 56" span airplane and the Sterling kit size airplane with a 52" span. I think that the 56" span airplane with your either a Super Tigre .46 or your Super Tigre .51 would be a good combination.