The Comet Sparky was the second stick and tissue free flight model airplane that Philip and I built. His first was the Comet Cadet. The Comet Sparky was (and still is) an excellent flyer. Rather than carving the balsa propeller blank, I purchased a 9-1/2" plastic propeller from Peck-Polymers. Four strands of 1/8" tan rubber was used for power. The flights are very nice, with about 45 seconds of slow propeller drive and then a minute or more of glide. It has been adjusted for a shallow climb in a fairly tight circle, and then a glide in the same direction. The flying areas in the area were not huge, and we were not taking any chances of having it fly away. The photograph to the right shows Philip Blattenberger (my son) holding his Comet Sparky, and Sally Blattenberger (my daughter) holding her J-5.

I don't remember where I found out about it - probably in Model Aviation - but the Marion Airfoils, in Ohio, held a mail-in Sparky contest where contestants made a certain number of flights and mailed in their flight times. Philip's Sparky took seventh place (out of 30). It was fun, and they sent us a nice certificate (to the right) and a rather lengthy hand-written letter from the CD (contest director), Mr. David Narance.

My next project with the Sparky is to install the rudder-only radio control system that I removed from an Estes Sky Ranger. It uses one of the solenoid mechanisms that mounts directly to the vertical fin and rudder. I'll post the results once they are in.

These two photos were taken in Colorado Springs, Colorado, sometime around 1994.

Below is a photograph of my unbuilt Comet Sparky kit.