Mikey Pratt

Any news on Mikey Pratt? I sent him an email trying to find out any info on his profile landing gear. This was before Sig and still no reply. Maybe you guys know if his landing gears will hold up a Cardinal? Would like to get a set before I start building the kit. Thanks
Jay

Buy it. I bought a set for my Primary Force. Those sticks are so strong I could land a Marlin with them. They only saved me .14 oz as compared to T-6 1/2 inch aluminum x.035 but they look prettier, cause zero bounce on landings and are well made. They could easily hold up a five or ten pound airframe.

Bob Smiley
A Lancair 360 builder/flyer trying to be a modeler.

I to sent Mike Pratt an email trying to buy a P-Force from him. This was several weeks ago. I never received a response either.

Mike

For some reason some of the e-mail that are sent to me get lost or bounced. If you have trouble getting in touch with me use the following addresses.

[email protected]

[email protected] or call 719647-0541

Thanks

Mike

Hi Mike!

As long as you are sober and awake, how is the Hyper Viper coming along?

BTW, why did that name get picked? The last "Hyper Viper" the company did was a real toad! It was a battery-on-board control-liner that could hardly get out of its own way.

Looking eagerly forward to the new one, however! Got one on order.

LAST EDITED ON Jul-01-03 AT 03:32 AM (CDT)
 
My very first ever succesful control-line flight was with one of these or something similar.

My dad got it for me for Christmas about mid 70's. Actually, it was two of them. I remember it looked like a Spitfire and came in two or three colors/schemes. You set it on a lantern battery for a length of time to charge the internal battery. The first one was brown but I only got the motor to run once so we took it back to the store. The owner traded it out but all that were left were white ones. Anyway, I hooked up the controls and went out to the culdesac to fly it. If I remember right you blipped the control handle to get it running. I distinctly remember getting it in the air and watching the background whizz by. I managed to keep from hitting the ground and was glad when the motor finally quit and made a great landing. I was dizzy as all get out but I was so happy that I finally flew a model airplane that I jumped around whooping it up. It was getting dark so I took it inside. Later, I flew it several more times at a local park but the wind picked up once and I bounced it. The motor never would run again. We decided it wasn't worth trying to trade it in again so I just flew it around as a whip plane. I would grab the lines in one hand and fling it around like a lasso. If you got it whipping around fast enough the propeller would turn and make a turbine sound. As lightweight as the airframe was it proved pretty durable. I wished the motor system was as well. In the end, I tried taking it apart to see why the motor wouldn't run. Either the internal battery was fragile or some connection came loose. I never did figure it out but the plane was destroyed in the repair attempt anyway. It was a very long time before I flew another control-line plane.

Actually, the plane you are remembering predates the Hyper Viper by about 15 years. There were 4 models, 2 P-51s and 2 Spitfires. If I recall the decor schemes, the two you had were the Spitfire. They flew OK, in fact, much better than I recall the Hyper Viper did.

The early models were designed by Pete (?) Sinclair who has a daughter that is still a designer in the toy industry. Doug Malewicki did a bunch of the propeller development. Doug is an interesting dude, having designed the rocket car for Evel Knievel, the Robosaurus (Eats cars, breathes fire at car shows), and for a while held the world's record for longest motorcycle jump by putting a hang-glider on top of a motorcycle. If I recall correctly, he also was the designer of the BICYCLE that topped 150mph. (Pedaled, no motor boost, nothing!) He now markets the Canosaurus, a canned-drink insulated holder that can also fly. (I'm NOT kidding about this guy!)

I think the original Hyper Viper was designed by or under the direction of Dave Duncan. His better efforts included most of the early C*x RC models.

>If I recall correctly, he also was the designer
>of the BICYCLE that topped 150mph. (Pedaled, no motor boost,
>nothing!)

I think they did this by 1) fitting really tall gears to the bicycle, and 2) drafting about a foot behind a car.