fritzke

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I picked up a Cox Fibrini foam electric ARF at a swap meet.
Anyone ever heard of it? It was a new one to me. 39" span,
early eighties, pretty sporty looking, but at 290 sq inches and
35 oz all up (17.5 oz/sq ft) I'll bet few ever lasted long.
The one I got looks like it was assembled, but never flown.
Dave

mclintock

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Never heard of it, at that weight did it run on 'D' cells?

fritzke

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Yeah, you would think so! No, it has a 6 cell N-600 600 mah pack.
If it flew at all, I bet it could gain some altitude for the 15 seconds you get
of "full blast" on a topped-up nicad pack, 2 minutes of maintain altitude,
then a powered glide to landing was probably the typical flight profile.
God forbid you stall it! It's actually a pretty sharp looking plane.
I'll post a picture of it later.
Dave

ptulmer

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I think they quit making them due to difficulties in obtaining "leaded styrofoam".[X(]

andrew b

If you want to fly it, I got a truck battery you can borrow

fritzke

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Here is a picture of the box:

mclintock

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That rig probably cost two hundred bucks back in the day..

That's pretty, maybe with a modern radio and servos that don't weigh an ounce each it would be a good plane.
Those pretty little 400xt outrunners are still on sale at HL for 18 bucks I think.. that and a balsa products cheapo esc.. don't forget the collet from balsapr too..

fritzke

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The thing came from a liquidator that used operate here called "Banks".
This plane is from the era when Cox was being run by Leisure Dynamics
here in Minneapolis. No doubt they had some of them on hand when they sold
Cox off and inventory ended up at Banks. It was $50 from them , marked
as $100 full retail. That's with a charger and one battery pack, no radio.
I have no doubt that with modern gear it would fly just fine.
Dave

smorkinrobot

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Well - I guess there haven't been any Cox Fibrini sightings for a few years! A good friend of mine gifted me with one of these early foam ARFs he found on eBay. He's also got a similarly constructed Chipmunk of the same era. Its a good looking little plane, and with some modern equipment (9 gram servos, parkflyer rx and a 2s lipo), it flies quite nicely, even with the vintage Mabuchi 540 direct drive brushed can. Its nearly silent and glides along gently on a calm day. I waited all winter to maiden on a nice calm day - The foam seems pretty delicate. Thought I'd share a couple of pics. Any other Fibrini pilots out there? Any one have any more info about this little bird? I haven't been able to find much at all.

skaliwag

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Cool looking airplane.

smorkinrobot

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Thanks - it does have pretty unique profile! I just wonder how it came about - was it one of the last efforts of the Cox company to stay afloat? I think it's from around the time right before leisure dynamics (who owned Cox through the 70s and early 80s) went under- but I don't even know what year it was made or sold. How did it fly with it's original (hefty) hardware? Someone out there must know...

smorkinrobot

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The mighty Fibrini can ROG takeoff with a lipo and modern running gear - even with that heavy stock brushed motor up front.

DCRC Walt Good Field:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRr6cUPWHlY&sns=em

WINANS

Hi Guys,

Yep, I discovered an old Fibrini sample in a storeroom while at Estes-Cox, several years ago. Installed a low cost gearbox, NiMH pack, and three mini servos. Nice flyer. IT was not designed well for maintanability, such as wing to fuselage interface and dinged landings, and would not have wanted to fly it with the original hardware and wing loading. But all in all, a nice plane, and nice lines.

Scott

smorkinrobot

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Agreed - it must have been a brick with the original nicad and standard servos! Even with light park flyer equipment it's quite fragile. I've only brought it out a few times on very calm days. Do you think the Fibrini might have been made by Kyosho? It seems similar to their planes of that time period.

WINANS

Oh absolutely it is a Kyosho product. I just enjoyed the lines of the plane - nice mid-wing format which is not all that common (also lends itself to troubles as I mentioned with the wing to fuselage interface - wing tends to slice top off of fuselage in any landing or crash that inolves a wingtip).

Anyway, yes, definitely of the Kyosho era and configuration. They made some pretty planes though.

Scott