| The Sterling Skylark |
| My latest, Das Hasenbecker Skylark! (4 Mar 2001) I named this particular plane for the man who sold it to me via e-bay. She's a bit on the heavy side, 57 ounces vs the standard 48 but flies like it was designed to all those years back. What a plane! |
| I've had, and still have, a lot a planes flying over the years. Of them all, the most fun design I've ever put to air has got to be the Skylark. This page contains 4 of them. |
| Update: 8 April 2001 - She's an ANIMAL! That 57 ounce weight makes no difference at all! With the same K&B .35-type engine as was in the original of the 1960's, this critter is truly one-of-a-kind! Using a rather different set-up from my other planes, this beast can tear the humidity right out of the air! I really can't say how happy I am with her, she's my best CL plane EVER!!! Update: 11 Sept 2003; She's still flying, still tearing up the air! One of the minor modifications I made to her when I built her was to leave just a little slop in the elevator linkage. The advantage of this is that the flaps deflect a bit and the elevator stays in its place. I can, thus, lift and lower her by tiny fractions - I've actually gotten her to touch-down and lift back off many times at full flying speed. That's a GAS, especially with a "tail-dragger" aircraft.! |
| This particular plane was my second single-engine Skylark, and was flown quite a bit while I was stationed in Alaska (Anchorage). It was a bit on the heavy side (I have a tendency to build them that way) and a bit sluggish as an aerobatic ship, but I certainly had a lot of fun with it. |
| Actually, this plane is just like the other two, except it was made into a twin-engine plane. All it took was to add 15" to the wing-span and a little bit to the tail, then the new engine nacelles on the wings. This was all made necessary when I had to re-configure it after a "#9" type crash - took out the whole nose section but the center and rear were OK. It also became a "tricycle" type plane. This pic shows it just after being re-covered and ready to go. |
| This was my adaptation of the Skylark to radio control (R/C), and was flown in West Berlin. I wasn't really sure of how a C/L plane would fly as R/C - this experiment was a TOTAL success. It was really a great aerobatic ship, but steady as a rock (which I needed, being very new to R/C at the time). It had the original flaps hooked up with the throttle, and small ailerons on the wing-tips. Flew pretty well. |
| This plane really is something of a "miracle" plane. It now can do a loop in little more than its own length, wonderful aerobatic ship. This plane was my primary (only) flying Skylark for quite awhile, until the new Hasenbecker Skylark took to the air for the first time in March 2001. |
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