Tom Nied

That's cool. I envy you. Thanks for sharing that. How are you doing the throttle, (three line handle) or RC?

slkret123

Hi Tom
I control the throttle by RC. I use an inexpensive 3 channel RC car radio from Hobby King. I put a hatch in the bottom of the fuselage as far back as I can get the equipment to fit. Since an RC engine is heaver than a CL engine the weight in the back helps with the CG. I use a 250 mAh 2 cell LiPO battery. The car transmitter has a trigger control on the throttle so I simply hold the transmitter in my left hand and the control line handle in my right. Easy to get used to. For a profile model such as my Banshee, I install a hatch between 2 ribs about half way out on the right wing. the weight of the radio stuff eliminates the need to put in a tip weight. I install a cable in a tube between the servo and the carb on the engine.
I chose to use the radio approach as it's pretty simple and I didn't want to buy a new Roberts control handle / bellcrank setup and also deal with the additional weight and drag of the third line.

Steve

JohnBuckner

My Feedback: (1)

Hey steve, by the way welcome to the forum. Definitely could use some more throttle devotees here. Those endless touch and goes, what fun man. I fly a Magician (OS .40FP) and a Kaos (OS.35AX) originally with a trigger grip over the wire system but now 2.4 is much better. Because I need the free hand for maneuvering my wheel chair I use a two stick tranny hanging backwards so I can make the throttle changes when needed.

My newly minted controlline buddy also uses 2.4 but does like you with a pistol grip tranny.

I just finished the refurbishment of a Skylark that belonged to a friend many years ago, It
likely had a Fox before but I thought a nice little Saito .30 may work out. Any way will do the maiden in he morning.

John

Stickslammer

Cox PT 19 for Christmas in 1972 when I was 12. I would love to get one on E-bay but always get out bid.

Tom Nied

Actually had a dream about that. I didn't have one, but learned on my friend's. He was a good sport when I crashed.

Hobby Inn

P-40 purchased at Disneyland in 1959...age 10.

H5606

Guessing you're talking about a Cox demo circle that was there to introduce C/L to the general public. Only know about it through Model Aviation mag. I was never there - it was too far away and was probably long gone by the time I came around.

Remembering a Cox PT-19 being used to introduce newbies to control-line at the Transpo Airshow at the then - very new - Dulles International Airport all the way on the other side of the country in the early '70's - also a guy flying a huge, C-124 Globemaster (IIRC) - 4 engines running and holding on to the handle with both hands while leaning back at an incredible angle. At the opposite end of the scale concerning line tension - also remember a demo of the then new, Art Scholl rendition of the Pee Wee .020-powered Cox Pitts Special which I thought flew well enough in mid-afternoon winds to want one.

Were they flying P-40's at Disneyland that day? Were you invited to fly anything while you were there? Do you still have or fly the P-40?

Lou Crane

There's U-Tube of the Disneyland flying circle action somewhere on the web. Saw it recently...

A member of my CL Club, Cholla Choppers of Tucson, flew for Disneyland for a while, Yeah, he was much younger then. So were we all.

Bart is most likely one of the featured Disneyland fliers in the U-Tube, but I don't recall it naming the guys. Interesting stuff, anyway.
They had practically a 'factory racing team' setup going. Always planes that started and flew (or were quickly replaced by one that did.)

ekir

My Feedback: (1)

My first u-control airplane was a Jim Walker Firebaby. I was 9 years old.

I lived in Bowling Green, Ky. and my mom was driving me over what is called Resovoir Hill, water tank top of the hill. I saw an individual flying u-control. I asked my mon if I could give it a try, she said sure. I have been in R/C most of my life and I am still flying R/C at the age of 68.

big_G

Jr. Ringmaster with an Enya 15.14 years old. 1968. Still have my Second plane, a Ringmaster with a Fox35. Still have my red handle and steel lines.

Ultracon46

A Wenmac plastic Corsair. On a cold day on the golf course my Dad suffered and finally started the Cox .049. One huge loop into the ground and it was done... So much for my incredible Christmas present. But it was a start. The second was a Goldberg Shoestring stunter.... K&B Torpedo .29. Lots of fun until I planted it. But it was my second.

Cosmic Wind

First control line model airplane:
Carl Goldberg Cosmic Wind powered by a Fox .35.
I still have the engine and pieces of the airframe.
I was 13 years old and got it for Christmas in 1971.

Clean

Like many, my first CL plane was a Cox PT-19. I think I was in the 2nd or 3rd grade. I know my brother who is 3 years older was still in grade school with me. He got the much more spectacular P-51 so he had that for the amount of time it takes to do the infamous figure 9. Then we shared flying my PT-19 till the pieces barely resembled the rest. We'll assume 3rd grade so thats 71? Was the coolest gift for Xmas I think I ever had and the last plane I had for quite some time till I was mowing grass in Jr. high. I bought one of the Cessna 235's? that had even less performance then the PT-19.
Later, after a couple of starts at a career, I bought a Ringmaster kit, which I built several of but had never managed to fly before they were destroyed. The one before this one I had built, it was looking good but I moved from one side of town to another. When I opened up the trunk to the car I found a box where my plane was supposed to be. Scratch that, I found a box stuffed full of books, a good 50 pounds worth, on top of my now 2 dimensional ringmaster. Even busted the carb on my Fox 25. My wife swears she doesn't know how it got there. It was of course all her college text books though, hmmmm. Girl only weighed 100 pounds at the time but she did have friends.
Built that one out of nostalgia and joined the Topeka Control Line ASSociation and learned to fly the club trainer. And then I wore my Ringmaster out. Plenty and not enough planes since then.
But, with 20 bucks and the right connections, sometimes you can re-live old dreams. Flown it a couple times and keep it whole.

jwfly

My Feedback: (2)

My first plane...1967, Cox PT19. At first we couldn’t get the motor to run so we shortened the strings and whipped it through the circle. We finally figured it out and the rest is history.


50 years later I’ve come “full circle “ having converted this ole 19 to electric...cheers!

jpooch00

I was 8 years old, so that must have been the summer of '57 - also a great year for Chevy coupes, as it turned out.

Ringmaster with a Fox .35 (natch). Lasted about half the way around the circle - maybe. Great bonding experience for me and my father. We built (and crashed) about one-per-week, on average, of one profile kit or another. Once we graduated to built-up fuselage kits, that went up to about one every other week!

Now that I'm pushin' 70, I'm getting back into the hobby. It's great that these old kits & motors are still easily and affordably obtainable on Ebay and from the current kit producers. I'm just finishing up a Brodak Ringmaster & have a nicely broken-in Fox .35 for it. Maybe it'll even last for a full lap around the ol' circle this time!!

Update: Finished the Ringmaster, but haven't flown it yet. Already starting on a"Green Box" Nobler I got on Ebay. I've found that I like buildin' 'em a lot more than flyin' 'em now!

I also scored a static-display Hasegawa Sopwith Camel kit for 200 bucks still in the orig. factory-sealed box ($1200.00 MSRP for that kit back in the day. The price tag's still on it.) and that might well be my next project after the Nobler. No chance of crashin' that!! Yay!!

jack steward350

My Feedback: (7)

Hi, anybody known anything about the manufacture of this mono line control handle?

JohnBuckner

My Feedback: (1)

Having no experience with monoline past or present, I do have a suspension that is one of the Stanzel Brothers systems. Starting with 'G' line I beleve they had at least four different variations. The Stanzel Flying Model Museum is still in operation, located in Schulenberg Texas as is their web site.

I would contact them directly with those photos and they may be able to shed some light. Do you also have the matching onboard device ?


John

GallopingGhostler

Don't know much about Stanzel mono-line system either, but I gather that speed fliers used them, I guess because it provided finer control over level flight than a standard U-handle system.

Lou Crane

The mono-line system was most likely more to rid the model of the drag of the second line. Even with the solid wire single line of larger diameter than needed for two lines, there was a definite reduction in line drag. So, naturally, speed fliers got in it more than guys who flew stunt or other CL events.

Dale Kirn flew mono-line and promoted it. His published original designs included a stunt model, which either Dale or his son flew at an early Vintage Stunt Championships inTucson. - Demo. - I don't recall if he competed with it. I seem to remember -possibly Dale- demonstrating monoline one day at the 1973 Oshkosh Nationals, after most Official events had finished. Another advantage of monoline is that line tension isn't life or death essential like it is for two line CL. Rainy afternoon at Oshkosh, and the flying line lying loose in puddles on the ground. No matter, it took off under complete control and flew right well
.
Speed CL models never lack line pull, if they get into the air at all., so this feature didn't much matter. The reduced drag definitely mattered!

The peculiar thing to monoline is that the control is by twisting the flying line - that's what the button does. The controller handle has of two wires, twisted into a longish spiral hung in a bearing so it can be twisted. The button holds those wires side by side and when you slide the button up and down the twist, you rotate the actual flying line. It then transmits that 'torque' (twisting force) into the model's control surface linkages by sort of a reverse action - a 'spiral' moves a link back and forth the way the button's movement put twist into the system.

In stunt, models fly consecutive maneuvers. After, say, the three Inside Loops are completed, the neutral position of the handle button has moved while the model 'orbited' around the flying line doing the loops. After each maneuver, we fly two level laps to let the judges rate and record the score. During that time, Dale, or young Kirn, spun the button back to where it would have been - about the middle of the twisted pairs' length - so he could 'reach' the end of the next figure's control inputs.

I only tried monoline once, after several years developing instinctive 2-line control reactions. Ah, well, the engine wasn't badly damaged....

JohnBuckner

My Feedback: (1)

I have an original Stanzel Sky Shark kit and it was set up or the first 'G' Line. It included an adjustable articulated elevator. The pilots end of the single line was attached to an eight foot bamboo pole. The CG of the airplane was set slightly forward of the wing leading edge and the airplanes end of the single line attached to the fuselage at this point through short stand offs just in front of the wing. The intended engine were sparkers of .30 to .45 displacement.

This predated Jim Walkers invention of U-Control and his successful Patent. There ended up a patent battle between Walker and the Stanzels when the Stanzels attempted to use a two line system although without a bellcrank in he airplane, just fairleads to the elevator horns. I believe the Stanzels lost the battle thus their long association single line systems. So I think the first articulated single line systems was invented really done just to avoid further legal battles.

John

GREG DOE

Jack Steward, It is my opinion that the handle you have pictured is a modified Stanzel Monoline. When it became mandatory that the handle had to be in the "yoke tower" for the speed run, the original Stanzel handles had to be modified. As a side note the tower came into use, to stop whipping models during the speed run. Today it's standard practice to whip the model up to speed before the handle is placed in the pylon. Years ago there was a video (actually it was movie film) of a flyer who got so far ahead of his model while whipping, that the wire was wrapped around his shoulder! Since it was a monoline unit he probably still had control, but he was also shortening the lines, which would gave a false speed reading that was higher then the actual speed. Remember speed runs are done by a stopwatch, based on a specific line length. Stanzel had a standard challenge that they would give $1000.00 to anyone who won (or maybe placed?) at the Nats with a monoline unit in Stunt. The problem is that there is a lag in control response, so square corners are a big challenge. I never flew a monoline, but I've seen a lot in use over the last 60 years.
.

GREG DOE

Another observation. The hardware on the actual "handle" appears to be aircraft A&N hardware.

aspeed

That monoline handle looks home made but uses the standard twist unit. If Stanzel offered $1,000, I am sure it stayed in his pocket, and he sold enough units to pay it off. I could barely fly straight and level on a windy day, using full up and down for the whole flight. Oh, since I should stay on topic, my first plane was a Ranger 30 set up as control line with a Babe Bee. It was another full up, full down on a windy day airplane. I think it was 1969 or maybe 1970. I must have been 11. Next was a Little Toot. It didn't last long. Second flight I tried an unsuccessful loop and it was toothpicks. just sorting through some pics with my monoline units and handle. The handle twist unit looks the same. I don't think it would be much good for anything bigger than a .15.

CE Taylor

My first control line model was a P-40 Cox. It flew, but not very well. After it met its demise I started building balsa 1/2A kits. After that I built a Guillows trainer with a Fox .15 that flew very well, and was tough to hurt. I built flight streaks and ringmasters and eventually got into flying rat racers. I was about 10 years old in 1967 when I started. The Flying Chaparrals was the club in Midland, Texas that I flew with. I stopped flying after high school. I got back into the hobby about 10 years ago by buying a ready to fly plastic control line plane with a Norvel engine. I still have all my old control line engines, and they still work fine. I picked up RC when I restarted in the hobby. I couldn't afford it when I was young and earning a dollar an hour working in a bakery. Now I fly more RC than anything else, but I still enjoy control line and even boats. The second childhood is the best childhood.

fix-n-fly

My Feedback: (1)

Christmas 1969, I was 12 and received a Cox PT-19 trainer after years of begging. No one to help - took it to a church parking lot and tried to fly alone without a stooge (didn't know what one was or that it existed). After a couple of huge wingovers into the asphalt, it was in more pieces than could be rubber banded together. Later the next year, my friend bought a Cox P-51 Mustang which he asked me to help him fly. We both managed to learn how to fly on that plane - pure luck as it was much faster than the PT-19. Good times!