My Four Star 40 Boiler Maker Express

by Matt
(Kentucky)

Four Star 40 piloted by Purdue Pete

The Sig Four Star 40 was my second nitro powered airplane after graduating from the Sig LT-40.

This was also my first kit. Considering the fact that I was completely new at building, this sport plane was very simple to put together. The directions explained each step in detail. All the parts were well labeled. The laser cut parts make building this plane a lot like putting together a jigsaw puzzle!

The covering was the most fun part about the build. Being a Purdue grad, I decided to make my Four Star a Boiler Maker Express! I even carved Purdue Pete's face out of a block of balsa!

It didn't take me long to figure out that I needed to replace the covering on the bottom of the wing with white covering that I could actually see! Being a fairly new pilot at the time, I had a hard time seeing the orientation of the airplane with the same color on both sides.

My Four Star Boiler Maker Express was powered by an Evolution .46 engine. It had plenty of power to do what I needed to do! The radio system was my Futaba 6EX.

Considering all the time I had put into building this bird, I was scared to death to fly it at first. But once I got over the first flight jitters, this plane was awesome to fly!

It was stable enough that I could handle it confidently and it was capable of just about any type of maneuver I wanted to try. I would recommend this plane to anyone for a second airplane.

I sure do miss her though... I accidentally picked up the wrong frequency pin one day at the field. Someone came along and turned on their radio on my channel. That was the end of my Four Star Boiler Maker Express. But her spirit lives on!