Posted on Tuesday 05 November 2013

I've recently had the pleasure of seeing and testing the highly anticipated combination of the popular Zenith chassis and the twin cylinder, 2-stroke Bailey Hornet! Popular demand for a high performance, lightweight yet reliable machine was a tall order but the team at Bailey seemed to have pulled it off admirably.

Being over 3.5kgs lighter than other machines in this performance range, it’s immediately got a great advantage and off the scales and on the thrust tester it doesn’t disappoint either, currently making more than any other sub-200cc motor at around 75kgs. In the air it’s a real delight too with smooth and linear power delivery all the way through the rev range, it never feels like it is being stressed and has very little torque-steer. It’s also got an amazing cooling system and on a 3000ft full power climb, remained totally composed with never a threat of getting hot and flustered. With these types of statistics when combined with the Zenith chassis I can see this being a fantastic competition machine with ‘a sting in its tail’.

The one I flew was a pre-production prototype but the majority of the components were finished and ready for full scale production. Having the fine attention to detail Bailey still wants to try a few more tweaks for final production but I would be more than happy to fly this engine exactly how it is. Only time will tell with regards to reliability, but the with the care and attention that has gone into designing and manufacturing this engine and the way it feels totally composed with cool running temperatures, I don’t see that this will be a problem.