The Return of the TigerKitten

Those old Berkeley kits are not the only nostalgia trip I have been enjoying lately. Many of you not-so-old model builders will remember the TigerKitten, a design I created over twenty years ago to be an electric powered model you would never have to make excuses for. That project was part of the quest on which I set myself in those days…to do big-time scale competition with electric powered models, head-to-head with the gas engine guys, no special rules or concessions. I would end up at TOP GUN and the World Championships, but I didn’t know it then.

What I did know was that TigerKitten was going to be a drop-dead-gorgeous aerobatic sport model airplane that looked as if it might be a scale job, that would offer a challenge the modelers who value old-time building skills, and that it would depend on the very best electric power technology then on the market.

It worked pretty well, at least for a while. Model Aviation Magazine published my construction article in the September, 1991 issue and then, as something of a surprise, the Italian magazine Modellistica reprinted the entire feature in translation in November, 1992. Over the next few years I flew my ‘Kittens a lot, and demonstrated them at every opportunity. That effort paid off…in 1995 I made a deal with Tom Runge at Ace RC that saw the TigerKitten on the market as a kit. Over the next year ads and kit reviews appeared in half a dozen different magazines both at home and in the UK, and the airplane began to attract a loyal following, but it was too good to last.

The long story told short is that Ace RC disappeared as an all-American kit and RC system manufacturer. The new owners were not able to satisfy me that they understood why the ‘Kitten was any different from all those other not-so-impressive electric planes they were already distributing, and so I revoked my agreement permitting production and distribution to avoid having the design put on the market as a marginal performer dependent on those cheap can motors. I set myself the challenge of reproducing the plans and patterns in a CAD format (Ashlar Vellum Draft), but the opportunity to give the design the sort of promotion I felt it deserved just did not come along.

AND THEN… during the fall of 2010, several of my good friends and fellow model builders approached me about bringing the TigerKitten back to life as a state-of-the-art laser cut kit re-engineered as necessary for brushless – LiPo power. That work is going on right now, and I will keep you up to date as the project develops.