Sig Manufacturing’s
4STAR 64EG
A flying field staple since 1989 gets a 21st century update!
By Larry Kruse PHOTOGRAPHY: LARRY KRUSE C
lassic model designs gain that sta- tus partially through their popu- larity and longevity. Not many ex- isting designs can match Sig
Manufacturing’s 4-Star series, still in pro- duction and available to the modeling pub- lic after nearly 25 years. Originally con- ceived in 1989 by preeminent designer, Bruce Tharpe, the design has gone through several iterations, but remained essentially unchanged.
Initially offered as a kit in the .40 to .60, and 120 engine sizes, a series of same-sized almost-ready-to-fly (ARFs) was offered si- multaneously several years ago. When over seas production problems brought the ARF series to a halt, Sig continued to offer the kits, and the popularity of the plane as a “second” airplane (or first low-winger) has remained unabated. Even now you’ll find one or two 4-Stars being flown by members of practically every local club in the country.
Now with some refinements, the 4-Star is back as a high-quality ARF in two sizes with two options for power—the 4-Star 54 EG and the 4-Star 64 EG. The numbers in the new nomenclature indicate the wingspan of each
50
kit, and the “EG” indicates either electric or glow power.
After I received my 4-Star 64 EG for re- view, I thought it might be fun and perhaps even enlightening to talk to Bruce Tharpe, now the head of Bruce Tharpe Engineering, for some of the actual history of the design and his take on its longevity. Bruce was more than accommodating and shared with me the beginnings of the design, which he as a young designer at Sig had been entrusted to create.
The plane was initially conceived to com- pete with Doc Mathews’ 4-40, a .40 sized plane with generous surfaces, and a kit that was being sold by Ace R/C in fairly large numbers. In fact, at that time Sig was vacu- forming some of the plastic moldings for Ace, so Bruce had a very good look at the Ace kit. Bruce said that other than the obvious goal of selling kits, the aim was to expand the company’s R/C kit offerings beyond the scale models for which Sig was then known, and to produce a plane with generous flying surface areas that “flew on the wing” for the sport modeler.
When I asked him how many prototypes were designed and built before production
began, he said, “Just one!” It seems that
after he had done the initial drafting, built the plane, and was flight testing it, the legendary Maxey Hester, another of Sig’s outstanding designers, had come by the test field. When he asked Bruce how it flew, Bruce handed him the transmitter, and as he relayed it, Maxey just literally “stirred the sticks” for a few min- utes and said, “This is great!” The .40 size kit went into production with no changes—and that was the start of nearly a quarter of a cen- tury legacy for the design.
Bruce went on to design the much larger 4-Star 120 and the Spacewalker, among oth- er outstanding models for Sig before leaving the company. His start-up of Bruce Tharpe Engineering has been notable for its own classic designs like the Venture 60, the Fly- ing King, and the Delta Vortex, all still in production and accessible through the firm’s web site at
http://www.btemodels.com. The latest run of the Venture 60 kit is still avail- able, I’m told. [See Larry’s review of the BTE Models Venture 60 in the January, 2013 issue of FLYINGMODELS–Ed.]
OCTOBER 2013
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