gcb

Here are some small Anderson Spitfire engines:
First are three .065 "Royal Spitfire engines. Next is a close up of the lower right one. Then a Spitfire .049. Finally a Spitzy .045 in a "Little Bipe"...the reverse pitch prop is just for show.

George

JohnBuckner

My Feedback: (1)

I still have my two original Spitzys. You have given me the motivation to clean one up and make a runner, Heck maybe even build something for it then.

John

William Robison

My Feedback: (3)

My first engine was not a Spitzy 0.045, and my first control line airplane was not an A. J. Firebaby.

But that combination was my first successful control line airplane. Flew the pooh out of it with the metal propellor. I used the engine's tank instead of the supplied bladder tank. Didn'y have a long engine run, but it was long enough to enjoy.

Bill.

JohnBuckner

My Feedback: (1)

Never had a Firebaby, but those two Spitzys flew just about all the Scientific little hollow log ships, shoot there must have been 15 different ones with the only real differance being the wing either on top or the bottom.

John

William Robison

My Feedback: (3)

John:

Your "Hollow Log" is a good way to describe those Scientific kits. Another line that was similar but a bit larger was the Monarch "Spittin' Image" planes.

One of my favorite early planes was a Monarch P-40 with a K&B Allyn twin cylinder engine. I don't remember if it was the 099 or the 15, but I do remember I've never had any other engine that even approached being as hard to start. But when it ran it was sweet, it had a sound all its own and it really hauled the P-40. Must have been a 15.

Bill.

Dan Vincent

Bill,

Do you remember the color of the head inserts on your Sky-Fury Twin?

Natural aluminum was an .09
Blue was a .12
Gold was a .15

I had one of those Monarch P-40's too, with a Cub .09. Those Monarchkits were beautifully made.

Monarch also had a P-51 a Spitfire and a nice team racer that I lusted after. Great kits. I think they were the best ever of the hollow log types.

Dan

William Robison

My Feedback: (3)

Dan:

As best I remember the heads were natural aluminum.

I had some of the Spitfires too, but I built a whole bunch of the P-40s.

I was using the Allyn twin as I said, the planes I had it in eventually were replaced just because of the hard starting. So much flipping would eventually break the engine mounts, and the constant re gluing would turn the brick into a lead block. And this was using the beam mount adapter with hardwood rails inletted in the hollow log.

My main alternate power plant was an OK Cub 0.075 diesel, The planes it was on got replaced when the diesel fuel turned the balsa into mush. But I got a lot more flying with the Cub diesel than with the Allyn twin.

A long time ago.

Bill.

Dan Vincent

Bill,

I was really into that 2-screw style of .049 that started with the Atwood Wasp. It was a quick way to mount everything. Very neat

When the Anderson Spitfire .049 came out it had the light blue muff, like the one George showed. Later on Anderson made them with natural muffs and I saw a couple with dark blue, almost black muffs.

With people doing their own anodise now I wasn't sure if the dark blue was factory or not.

My biggest complaint on the Spitfire is the prop shaft was very short. Mounting a prop with the prop washer was difficult with thicker props. A Grish Tornado was thinner and worked fine. Forget using a spinner on the Spitfire.

Here are the 2-screw types I remember. I have pictures of most of them. Just realized I need to box up the McCoy Baby Mac and I don't have either OK Cub at the moment.

Atwood Wasp
Atwood
Atwood Shriek
Atwood Signature
Atwood Cadet
Royal Spitfire
McCoy Baby-Mac
McCoy diesel
OK Cub .039
OK Cub .049X
Holland Wasp
Holland Hornet

William Robison

My Feedback: (3)

Dan:

And with the two screw mount the Allyn twin was flopping freely inside the cowling immediately. Didn't matter how well the firewall was glued in, the engine was so long it would break loose. That's why they sold a sheet steel adapter to mount the engine to, and it had "Wings" coming forward to bolt the assembly to hardwood rails.

Sold my last Holland Hornet NIB a few months ago, the only engine I still have of that type is a Cub 0.049, and it of course is three screws rather than two.

Bill.

docsteam

Mention of the Atwood reminded me that this was my first successful engine. I put it on a 4-Bullets (anyone remember those?) and flew the heck out of it. My brother got a Wen-Mac at the same time I got the Atwood, but we had a lot of trouble getting it started. It came in a red plastic airplane that flew....but not very well. And as hard as it was to start, not very often.

Isn't it great wallowing in nostalgia?

Ron

Dan Vincent

Ron,

Was that Wen-Mac engine on a red plastic Aeromite? Bill Atwood designed the Wen-Mac engine and some of the parts will fit on an Atwood. Same bore & Stroke...also true of the Atwood Wasp.

You could always tell when an engine came from an Aeromite. It had a single large stud on the back of the tank. Other engines used in the Aeromite before the Wen-mac was ready were the OK Cub, Anderson Baby Spitfire and Atwood Wasp.

I liked the Atwoods more than the Wen-Mac. The Atwood was a serious engine.

gcb

Well Here's some Atwoods and a Holland Hornet...all 2-holers.

Photo1: From lower left, Atwood .051 (with wounded muff), upper left Atwood .049, ur Shriek .049, lr Holland Hornet .049, center Atwood .049 similar to Shriek except 1/4x32 plug.
Photo2: Note there are no size markings stamped in the circle...perhaps so they could use same case for both.

George

Dan Vincent

George,

That lower picture of the blade type case with no displacement is a new one on me. I have a picture of a similar blade type Cadet that has Atwood in vertical letters.

There were many versions of Atwoods.

iskandar taib

My Feedback: (5)

Interesting how the Holland Hornet is so much beefier than the others. Kinda like today's disparity between Norvel and Cyclon engines and the Tee Dees.

gcb

If I understand correctly, and I may not, when Bob Holland and Bill Atwood disolved their partnership, both produced a very similar engine: The Atwood and the Wasp.
The next improvements on them were the that the Holland Hornet replaced the Wasp, and the Atwood was improved with the Shriek.
The Holland Hornet became a neck to neck competitor with the Cox Thermal Hopper in 1/2A speed.
Bill Atwood stopped producing engines and started designing for other brands. Two engines that immediately come to mind are the Cox TD series and the Cox Conquest.

Corrections and additions?

George

William Robison

My Feedback: (3)

George:

The Holland Hornet never did well at all in 1/2A speed, but it was a very popular engine for 1/2A free flight, and using the 0.051 Hornet on the same plane, class A free flight.

Bill.

Dan Vincent

Hi Isky, long time....still miss your old board.

George,

Bob Holland was a free-flight champion, Bill Atwood was the engine designer. When they made the Atwood "Wasp" .049 in 1949 I suspect Holland may have put up the money for the project.

When they had their falling out in '51 or '52 Holland took the rights to the Wasp with him.

Bill Atwood then designed his "Atwood" .049 and .051 engines and sold them under his own name.

Bob Holland stamped an "H" on the side of the case on his '52 Holland Wasp. After that Holland dropped the "H" and made some case modifications like shaving the top of the case to lower the cylinder down into the Wasp letters. He also shortened the ventrui.

When Bill Atwood made his "Atwood" line of engines he also advertised a "Hop-up" kit for the Wasp which included an Atwood lower case with heavier crankshaft. Since the Wasp and Atwood engines were designed by the same person, the cylinder & piston of a Wasp would slip right into an Atwood case. You ended up with an Atwood with the Wasp head.

Atwood also designed the '52 Wen-Mac .049 line of engines so some parts will also fit the Wasp or Atwood. The B&B timer tanks were another Bill & Bob product.

The Atwood was the hotter of the two and you didn't hear much about the Wasp after Holland took over production under his name.

In 1957 Holland introduced the chunky little "Hornet" with it's large bypass ports and rugged case. Later (around '59) Dynamic Models took over production of the Hornet and added a "II" in a circle on the side of the case. Once Cox made their TD engines (another Atwood design) it was all over for other half-A's and they took over the competition scene.

Payton

I had as I recall a Baby Spitfire .035 when I was a kid. I bought it used, found out it had very little
compression, and never did get to it run, but I was facinated by it and wish I had it today.

I have been on Ebay a lot over the last couple of years and I have never seen an .035 listed. Did
Anderson ever make an .035?


Thanks

Dan Vincent

Payton,

Spitfire never made an .035 but K&B did.

Spitfire made the .045 "Baby Spitfire" with radial mount and a single screw tank on the back. They came with aluminum heads, brass heads and some had extra long tanks that were made especially for the Wen-Mac "Aeromite" plastic U/C airplane.

Spitfire also made the "Spitzy" .045 which had an underslung tank as part of the case. K&B did a production run when Mel Anderson had a fire in his factory and K&B made a longer tank and a much simpler backplate.

Around 1951, Anderson released his "Royal Baby Spitfire" .049 which was a 2-screw radial mount design that aped the Wasp, Atwood, Cub .039 and .049X. The Royal Baby Spitfire was a very pretty engine to look at, with it's light blue anodized muff. As someone mentioned above, compression was weak and the prop screw portion of the crank had very little space to install a prop. The shaft should have been longer.

Jim Thomerson

I have a Royal Spitfire 065(?) off ebay. It looked pretty used, but turned out it was not broken in. I put maybe 2 hours running time on it over the last couple of years and finally got it broken in. It now starts readily and runs reliably, but it sure vibrates. Am I correct in thinking that the 09 Hornet was never produced?

Jim

Dan Vincent

Jim,

When I saw the Spitfire ads in 1951, stating the new Spitfire "Hornet .09" would be the hot new engine of the year.

Well...........I waited, and waited.....never did see one for sale. Turns out they made a couple of prototypes and even made Pistons, cylinders, head and a few other parts but the project was then dropped. Don't know if it was due to the factory fire.

A fellow named Fred Dunne took the Hornet parts and incorporated them into the "POGO" .091.
For some reason there were two versions of the Pogo, one with beam mounts, the other with radial.

A couple of years later, the POGO was sold to Pagaluso and it was motified by Bill Atwood and became the "Pagaluso" .09

I just tried to post pictures but it would'nt take them...I'll try again later

gcb

As luck would have it, I was perusing some old mags looking at the Scientific ads when in the 1159 issue of American Modeler I found an engine review for the PAGCO "XF-9". This used the POGO crankcase with redesigned Pagliuso-Atwood innards. With a 7x3 Tornado wood, it turned 16,000RPM and would throttle (exhaust throttle) down to 7,500. The review said it ran smooth at higher RPM and a bit rough when throttled.
As an aside, I seem to remember this engine available in an RTF XFV-1 or XFY-1, (whichever was the Pogo probably).
Physically, it had a single side exhaust with throttle baffle, long front intake on the bottom, beam mounting.

George

Dan Vincent

Jim & George,

I downsized my pictures from 2500 pixels wide to 800 and they popped right in.

POGO .091 (true 1.5cc) in beam mount configuration

POGO in radial mount showing the exhaust throttle was availble on POGO, before the Pagaluso

Pagaluso .091 (one of many different configurations and heads)

PAGCO and POGO, showing changes to prop mounting.

JohnBuckner

My Feedback: (1)

Thats fantastic Dan thinks for the pictures. I,ve never heard of those engines and while I,ve flown my share of fused stab dethermalizers I,ve never heard of or seen a fused throttle shut off.

John

Dan Vincent

John,

That is a pneumatic chamber..it connects to a black hose that had a line running back to the control handle where the pilot had a bulb he squeezed to operate the throttle.

I doubt the weight of the hose on the lines would have been worth the minor change in RPM.

It was real tricky looking but I doubt if it was really practical.