av8rsodt

My Feedback: (23)

During this year's SMALL in Little Rock, I had a chance to see Steve Staple's Skycopters fly (he had a fleet of about 4-5 of them). I knew Cox made helicopters, i.e. Airwolf, Comanche, Huey, etc. but knew nothing about the Skycopter.

It looked too neat to pass up, so recently I bought one off of the bay for a very reasonable price.

Today I disassembled the engine and cleaned everything up. I also removed the tail rotor since Steve mentioned these fall off and get lost easily. I then took my 7yr old, 4yr old, and 2 yr old boys with me to a local school yard. Of course I had to test start the engine at home to make sure it ran... started right up the first or second try.

The boys all loved it. Neat to see their faces and expressions as it went higher and higher. I made the rule that whoever launched it got to retrieve. They encouraged each other with how good each one did launching which was great to watch.

I also had lots of opportunities to teach them about safety, re-fueling (which each one did a couple times), and how I start the engine. They want to go out again tomorrow and had a hard time going to bed tonight.

Trying to get my video so everyone can see my son launch it, just need to figure where to put it and how to do it.

Brian

Mr. Mugen

Glad to hear you's had a blast. I had one of those many years back in the early 80's....for me thats a while back. It was a blast. Glad to hear folks are still having fun with them. I may have to look one up myself. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Kevin

Remby

My Feedback: (3)

Also had one a number of years ago. It was the best running .020 of all I had run in the Cox RTF's.

The body on mine rotated on the way up, making it look just like it lost the tail rotor, just like yours shows in the picture.

I cut a peice of clear plastic out and glued in the tail rotor cutout, to slow the body rotation. Then, after starting the motor, adusting it to run rich, it would leave the hand and do hovering circles for about two minutes, the whole time the tail doing what it should be doing as a copter, it was very cool.

Trick is to tune the engine for the hover, (it takes a few trys to hit the right speed). Once the fuel runs low, it would lean out and take off for the sky, and get around 100 feet or so up before the engine shuts down.

It was somthing else to try over the sky high flights, although it did a lot of those as well.

Glad your able to share the fun with your kids, they will remember it forever.

flyinrog

My Feedback: (1)

My wife bought me an Apache .049 back around 90 and it was fun....that engine was the one after a fatal crash, I found out you could run an .049 on gas and oil in that tiny tank..as long as the battery was left on the glow head...Rog

exocet-RCU

My Feedback: (1)

That was the first model aircraft I ever flew. I think I was 11. Flew it so much the plastic fuel tank broke, three times. If I remember, the tanks didn't stand up well to glow fuel. After going through 3 of them, I finally bought the smallest square metal Perfect tank I could find and held it on with rubber bands. It still flew really well. Had to have a really big field after that because the engine just kept running and running.

Just recently, I went through a box of my mother's pictures and found a picture of me with the copter at a field ready to fly.. Turns out, I now work at the insurance company that owns that big soccer field and I look at it every day. Full circle, I guess.

MJD

My Feedback: (1)

Cool! Any modeler who turns his nose up at these sorts of things doesn't deserve to be called a modeler! Well, you know what I mean.