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Every so often, you venture down to the flying field and someone turns up with something a bit special to fly. Sometimes you get to witness a maiden flight of just such an aircraft. It was a beautiful sunny Autumn Sunday morning and I was lucky enough to have some time to go for a fly. For some reason I decided to take the video camera with me.

Watch The Video The Take-Off (2.0Meg) The Landing (1.2Meg)

Gary Leckie’s description of his model. The model (BAE Hawk) is scratch built from the Paul Gray plans ex Jim Fox Models (UK). It is powered by an older model K&B 45 (front induction) with tuned pipe. The fan is also ex UK (Micro-mold) 5 blade. The model weighs 6lb 2ozs and is fully built up from 1mm ply and balsa with foam core wings. Retracts are air ex USA (B & D Enterprises) nylon with aluminium cylinders (very light!) and seem to handle the load OK.

As I was unloading the car, I noticed one of our loyal members (Gary Leckie) taking his ducted fan BAe Hawk out of his car. I remembered him standing up the front of a LDMFA monthly meeting doing a bit of show and tell with this model, partly built at the time. This morning it turned out that this would possibly be it’s maiden flight having been out to the field a couple of times before and encountering some motor running problems.

The great thing about this model is that it's been scratch built from a plan. No fiberglass fuselage or kit with all the parts cut out for you and definitely not 90% pre-built. This was also Gary’s first ducted fan model. As you can see from the photos, he’s done a great job.

The time came when there was nothing else to do but give it a flight. With the help of an experienced ducted fan (test) pilot (Mick Matlock), the engine was fired up and given some run-ups. To cut the story short, there where a few false starts where Mick did some quick runs down the runway to get a feel for whether or not it would have the speed to lift correctly. There were some fuel problems to sort out and then it was time.