Those of you who have followed the Electric Scale section of this site will know that I have built a number of Ivan Pettigrew's designs. Ivan himself came over to visit us in 2011, together with his friend Hal and their approach to getting over jetlag was to sit down and assemble this model, which had made the journey in Ivan's suitcase in a very small box.

Ivan is a New Zealander by birth and has built several versions of this aircraft which was flown (sort of) by New Zealand's pioneer aviator Richard Pearse back in 1903. The larger models flew well and so this one was put together using wings from an old Slow Stick, with the aim of flying indoors. However it proved to be a bit too fast for the small hall in question, so was upgraded (downgraded?) to 'park flyer' status.

Ivan and I both flew (and crashed!) this little model during his visit, much to the amusement of the local onlookers and, on his return to Canada, Ivan left it behind with me as a momento.

After a bit of re-rigging to straighten it out after the rather hasty field repairs carried out on its first UK outing, the model now flies very happily - provided there is no more than about 2mph of wind - and it always raises a smile.