proptop

My Feedback: (8)

My brother is quite a bit older than I am, and had moved out and gotten married by the time I was old enough to start messing around w/ models. He had however left behind some partially built controlliners, and a couple of engines.
One day as I was exploring the basement, I stumbled across a profile fuselage job with a Fox .15 in it and a full fuse. P-40 stunter (I think now that it was a Berkely kit? ) with McCoy red head .35 in it.
They were way too big for me, at about 8-9 years old, to start playing with, according to my mom so after some begging and pleading, I talked her into buying me a Wen Mac P-26 for my birthday...that was in '68 or '69.
That airplane lasted about 4-5 laps after my big brother "showed me how to fly it"...got dizzy...and crashed it. (I still have the engine )

I later found an engine-less Cox TD-4 in the attic...
Went to Nichols department store and got a Baby Bee in the bubble package for $3.95 and that was my first successful controlline flying...that was around '70 or '71. I also had a couple of green Cox P-51's, and the red and white Bushmaster Super Cub that came with wheels/skis/floats...(that one actually flew well, I thought )
The Cox Sopwith Camel and Fokker D VII didn't fly well at all.

I bought a few Goldberg C/L kits and built those..learned a lot about balsa construction, and tissue and dope...had the Swordsman 18, and Lil' Jumping Bean...built some original designs,then moved up to a Shoestring Stunter w/ a McCoy .29 as my first "big" airplane in '73.

OzMo

My Feedback: (3)

Had a TD 049 for glider launching it worked well around '85. Still have it. I built a Joy Stick for it soon after I soloed a .40 trainer. NOT a good choice of second plane! I scared a few of the other flyers more than once[>:]. I quickly became very good at rebuilding. I still have a "kit" of that one as I made some for others but hung on to one. All wood fuse 36" fully semetric 1/16 sheeted foam wing. basically an 049 low wing stick. 2 ounce tank would get the adrenalin going!

digital_trucker

1984 (I think), in high school. I'd been drooling over M.A.N. for several years, and managed to get a Black Widow. I got a Craft-Air Piece-O-Cake kit and a Tower 4-channel micro radio. I flew the snot out of that plane for two years. It was the traditional Cub yellow, and by the time I was done with the fuselage earned the nickname "flying banana". Y'aint seen NOTHIN' until you've seen a Piece-O-Cake do a circuit around the field inverted (starting at altitude, of course....for some reason the BW couldn't maintain altitude on that airframe ). Second airplane was an already-built Papillon from a swap meet. The fin balsa was horribly soft and punky, so I amputated it and put on the fin and rudder from a wrecked mini-mousetang that was salvaged from the trash barrel. That was an awesome flying plane (I'm gonna build another someday). That plane flew on the BW until the conrod started coming through the piston. I ran TD heads and didn't know anything about resetting the rod. After the BW was decently retired I flew it with a product engine and then I upped it to a Queen Bee...flew beautifully on it too. Third plane was a scratch-built job straight out of my head without plans, featuring a corrugated cardboard fuselage and tail with the wing built using the cracked rib method and full house control. The club's official test pilot maidened it and it flew straight out my hand with no trim required. The guy said that except for the size he couldn't tell it wasn't a .40 size sport job. *chuckle* I remember flying that plane in the club fun-fly and boinking it into the ground, folding the fuse right behind the wing..I glued two popsicle sticks inside it to hold it straight and placed second in the camel-back event. After that I moved up into the giant-scale jobs with a Kadet Junior powered by a PAW .19...insanely overpowered and a hoot to fly.

davidgeorge212

My first experience was when I was 21, (last year) . I got my dads old Ken Willard "Cannon Shot" with a td .020 on it out and dusted it off and flew it around. Ever since then I have been dabbling a little here and there with 1/2a. I built an 1/8a littlest stick with a pee wee .020 and I also have a Cox S-tee with a black widow .049.

David

ProBroJoe

Nah, these were the internal spring-start deals... I still have two of the engines crashing around here. I remember trying to make my own fuel with rubbing alcohol, mineral oil, and blue food coloring. Never ran obviously, but hey, I tried....

My first flight with a 1/2A engine was a HOB 2x4 glider with a Cox Black Widow.... that was around 1990-91.... Still have the plane, but the engine has gone though several different "customizations". Some successful, some not so much...

Flew mostly .40 size birds from '90 to about 2005 when I started to really get serious with 1/2A... even managed to machine a few of my own.

Still fly 1/2A all the way up to a gasser (a converted Ryobi 31cc) now...

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

Those scratch built engines are great! What size are they?

I made a few friction drive motor bikes with Ryobi 31cc engines. Harbor Freight was selling reconditioned leaf blowers for something like $55 for awhile.

ProBroJoe

Those are two Midge .049 ci diesels (mirror image of each other) and my "Next Generation EZ" (my avatar) .056 ci diesel... and of course the "Coholic Geared Twin" that I built... If ya look back far enough (2004-2005), they've all been posted here. I'd post links, but ya know, that's not the point of yer thread now is it?

Cool deal with the bikes.... do a youtube search on "davidsfarm"... he actually gives a tutorial on how to build something along the lines of what you're talking about, along with a WHOLE BUNCH of redneck engineering projects.... it's hilarious! This guy knows how to have fun and doesn't care what the world thinks.... oops.... sorry, I'm cluttering up your post again....

Rain, rain go away. I have a TD powered flying wing to fly!

RCER88

My Feedback: (25)

Cox p-51 control line. Cox free run dune buggy. Late 60's early 70's. Thank god it rubber banded together the p-51. It took a beating and with a friend of mine we flew all through high school. I bought the cox mess and built some profiles and flew them. In 88 when I got out of the service I caught up with him. I had built a R/C trainer and he taught me how to fly it. Been in R/C ever since.

I still have a 049 in a box have not run it in over 20 years.

gcb

Would this be the same Grish that later made "Tornado" props?

Not sure about the .61 but the Dooling .29 had such good metal to metal fits that no gaskets were used...so it really was incredible!!

My own experience with 1/2A powered models started in ~1953 with trading my "Daisy Defender" BB gun for a Scientific Little Bipe powered by an OK Cub (.049). My first NEW engine was a Space Bug Jr .049. Lots of Scientific models and scratch built planes followed. I "dabbled in RC for awhile but mostly have stayed with CL.

Don't really have an interest in lekkies, but have nothing against them. Engine interests range from .010 - .60, but mostly .25 and under.

George

alcarafa

First contact with 1/2A was in 1963 when I turned 8 years .

My dad was then airline pilot for Mexicana Airlines and brought from the USA a COX Stuka as birthday present, I remember it was not a very fast plane.

After I got some other Cox 049's I found out the STUKA engine was more powerful than others and plane was history , in a trip to Los Angeles Cal I bought my first kit a 1/2A Flite Streak my dad helped me to build and used the Stuka engine on it, I havent stoped building since.

Max_Power

Mine was prolly about 1986 at age 12.... a Black Widow bolted to a scrap of 2x4 (I was strongly reprimanded as that board WAS in the "Good" pile) chucked up in the old vice on Dad's workbench. I had traded some goodies from my Tamyia "Frog" RC car for the engine which was found in a friends big brothers room and well abused. Most of the runs were no longer than the prime took to burn off...But at some point I got it to run for 60-90 seconds at a time. This was my only source of that great burnt nitro smell except the occasional times when Dad was surely gonna be on a oil rig for a while and I'd brave to drag his Kadet out of the rafters and run the Enya .09.....wish I had hung onto those engines... About a Year later I saved and bought a Telemaster 66 kit which I actually was able to get together and Mom helped(did) the covering. I went to Larry's Hobbies in Houston and emptied the rest of my piggy bank on a K&B .65 sportster...And was rewarded when Dad drug home a new Gold Box Futaba 6-channel(pretty expensive back then I remember) a few days later. This is all more clear than the rest of my RC life between then and now Todd

mtntopgeo

My Feedback: (12)

Yep, Believe that Tony had the plant in St John, Indiana. The Dooling in question was indeed a .29. Tony held the "B" speed record for awhile. He briefly got me interested in speed. I got a "good" 1/2A engine (don't remember the brand) and a speed job that was in a kit. (name was HELL........??? (helldiver.? or hellraiser? , don't remember that name either. Never made two consecutive laps with that thing. Didn't matter anyway. even a dumb-ass kid could figure out that he couldn't support that plane on a 10 cent/hr job. ....... The memories keep coming back. ........................... George K.

Believer

~1969-70 Cox Red Baron (Pee Wee .020 powered pitts special) that I flew in the front yard on 25 foot lines. Had a couple of low bushes that we flew over. When the Pee Wee quit, we'd dump the RB into one of the bushes. No damage! We did have to hand launch. From there we went to PT 19s, P-51s, a very nice flying P-40, a Stuka (crash), a Corsair (crash)all Cox products. We also flew a Testor's Cosmic Wind, and P-38.

Later we moved up to a Sterling Eindecker and Scientific P-40 "hollow log". Finally and friend of mine and I stayed up all night building a Magician 15 with a Fox .15X. We didn't realize we had to break in the Fox, so we'd usually get only one flight in before the little Fox would overheat. I still have that engine, and I STILL haven't broken it in properly.

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

Some of you guys are making me jealous of your early days!

Sometimes I think my fascination with these childish toys is to make up for all the toys I never got to try out as a young punk.

In fact, I know this is true.

The other side of the coin is that this is just as rewarding as being into the "hotrod car" scene, [if not more], for a lot less money.

.049s have that frantic, high pitched, do or die aspect that is pretty exciting. I think COX brewed their fuel with addictive smell additives, also.

BTW, PBJ...you might be able to "out-engine me" with your home made deisels, but do you really think you can "out-beer me"? [8D]

Believer

The funny thing is, most of my friends and I had little money, usually what we could scrape up by mowing yards, sacking groceries, etc. Most of the planes we flew were crashed repeatedly, and often suffered some kind of damage. We learned very quickly to repair even the Cox planes (of course, the balsa variety were much easier to repair) in order to have something to fly. Often we would trade something for a plane some other kid had crashed and given up on. We would dig into our parts stashes, use some plastic cement or epoxy, and get it back into the air. Fortunately the Cox and Testor's/McCoy engines were practically indestructable, and were transferred from wreck to wreck. What fun we had!

Steve Landron

This is exactly like the first plane I received for Christmas in 1972, a Cox F1 Trainer. My Dad crashed the F1 on it's maiden flight smashing it to pieces. Dad never flew again, niether did the plane! 38 years later, I found one just like it on EBAY, finally! Don't think I'll ever have the courage to fly this one.

[&o]

glowplugboy

My Feedback: (17)

My first successful experience with glow power was in 1972 when I built a Sterling Shoestring balsa sheet U/C trainer and had a Cox .049 Golden Bee on the nose. I was 13. My parents had bought a Cox P-51, a Pitts Special, and a PT-19 before this, but my dad could never get the engines to run, and the models were consequently taken back to the toy store. Of course, if I knew then what I know now, the needle valve was just a hair too lean, and the engine was running only primer. Dad wasn't very good with figuring out mechanical things.....

p51Dpony

Great memories, mine was one of those cox .049 "UFO" free flight jobs in middle to late 70's, the first one I wore out the engine before ever flying it, eventually got another and flew it, fairly stable, and yes it hit neighbors houses, cars, and got stuck in neighbors trees.  Definately the .049 opened my aeromodeling door, the next flying machine was the cox .049 turbo centurion, an all foam cessna style plane with .049 qrc or something, when body ultimately beyond any more repairs scratch built several balsa slab fuselages around the cox "turbo centurion" foam wing, once that wing was toast then found the ace 36" foam wings and built more planes around that wing and the .049.  Literally my first 10+ rc years was all around .049's and I still play w/ them because they're great and fun, great glider motors too up to 2 meter.  Several folks have mentioned and I agree, the smell of glow fuel coming out of a 1/2a engine, nothing's better! Thanks!

rambler53

My Feedback: (494)

I think I started around 1970-72 in C/L in the back yard. I think the first plane I built was a Lil' Toot, with a Golden Bee .049 on it for longer flight time. We didn't like the plastic Cox models. We learned early wood flies better, epoxied back together when we fell down dizzy. Then we abandoned flat wing airfoils and built a Lil' Jumping Bean .049 plane. They flew great on calm days. Once we had a handle on flying, quickly we left the .049s for .15 size models, Ringmaster Jr., Magician .15 were my favorites. We needed more room so to the school yard we went. On a tank of fuel I could make 36 laps, and 36 loops on the down wind side of the circle before the lines felt tight on the elevator from the twists. Nothing had mufflers on them. Goodyear / Super Tigre .15 (red venturi), and Taipan .15 were the strongest .15 sized engines we enjoyed. I have a hard time remembering other details except jumping for joy when I made my first loop. My Fox .15 was a dog, Enya .19 was pretty cool on a .15 size stunt plane. Flite Streak .35 / Magician .35 were two of my biggest planes near the end, the prop size and noise were intimidating to me, to say the least. Dad was always there, handling chores of tuning, experimenting with props, engine swaps, and clapping at our landings.

RC made more sense as the radio prices fell and "606" in Manchester NH had an enormous inventory to buy from.

acobra

My Feedback: (40)

Christmas 1948, Jim Walker Firebaby with OK cub .074, had to go to grandparents in the afternoon so I took the engine, fuel battery and prop with me and went down in the basement and mounted it on a board which I put in grandpa’s vise ant tried to get it to run and could not get more that a short burst out if it……….I had no one to tell me you couldn’t have the tank 6” below the engine. Finally did get to run on the plane and flew it a lot.

acobra

My Feedback: (40)

Sorry for the double picture post ment to show this..I have this now, who says you can't go back?

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

Steve, that F1 is a beaut! If you aren't gonna fly it, drive over to Merced and hand it over to Roger Menke. I'll bet he's got a Jett .35 that will fit?

vicman

My Feedback: (10)

I thought that F1 looked tough too!

You boys don't want to play drinking games with me. LOL [sm=stupid.gif]

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

Vic, "beer officionados" like me and PBJ quaff our elixirs for a higher purpose.......

iflyg450

Well I might be the youngest at age 32

I had a Cox PT-19 u/c about 86'. My days were spent earning money to get the cox flight pack I would ride my bike 9 miles to the toy shop to get that box with that sweet smelling fuel the dry cell battery for the glow clip. I went out of the hobby for sometime started back 4 years ago in 40size Rc. A fellow club member PT ulmer and Flyswatter got me hocked on 1/2a Rc first was the morris yellow jacket with a Norvel 074 then built a TD 051 blink a Norvel 061 sure shark and quick shot. even gave a go with TD 09 kress ducted fan planes home grown, had a few good ones. Right now a fly the piss out of my Brodak Pathfider U/C powered by a revlite 061 what a machine. What other type of planes offer so much fun on 1oz of fuel God Bless 1/2a. Sure it has a few hick ups but I am man enough to get a 1/2a running