ppkk

Can anyone explain the differences between these two engines?

Are they generally good engines to buy if I can find one in good condition?

propjobbill

I am sure there are some here that can tell you more than I can. The Baby Bee is slightly lower performance than the Black Widow. The Black Widow may have been one of The most powerful reed valve engines made by Cox. The baby Bee has been around for over 40 years, the older Bees had a smaller tank and may not have the power of late model Bees. They are both good reed valve engines. As you may know Cox is no longer making parts for either of these engines, but you can still find parts on Ebay and at many large swap meets.

The Baby Bee is a good entry level engine for trainers and sports plane. The Black widow is good for many stunt planes or combat. But for serious competition you need a TD or a Norvel engine.

With the older Baby Bee engines the tank is so small they offer only about 1 minute of flight time, or maybe two at most. The black widow and Bees with larger tanks will give you about 3 minutes of flight time.

on pipe

The main differences from the Baby Bee to the Black Widow are; Two transfer ports, extended port timing, larger venturi hole in the back plate, and a larger four minute run fuel tank. The later (1996 and up) Baby Bee's also had two transfer ports. The cosmetic differences are the black tank and crankcase on the Widow. On some later models the tank is silver, but the crankcase should always be black. They run good but, most times cost as much as a Tee Dee, which makes even more power. Golden Bees usually sell for even more online, and make less power than a Black Widow! (must be the pretty gold anodizing) As a result, I usually go for the Tee Dee's. Ross

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

What makes the reed valve engines with built in tanks a bad choice for a newbie to is the O-ring seal in the fuel tank. They are a hit and miss proposition to fix right. In general, Cox engines require the user to get his hands dirty from time to time to keep running their best, if at all sometimes. I've had a few TDs that were too tight to run right and had to learn how to deal with that. It really helps to have a local guru, but there is a lot of information to be had here...keep your eyes peeled.

av8rsodt

My Feedback: (23)

I guess it is similar in topic...

How do the Killer Bee and Black Widow compare? My understanding is the Killer Bee has a special crank and probably different ports, but I do not know power-wise how they compare.

Killer Bee's seem to be rarely mentioned when it comes to reedy .049's, so it makes me wonder.

Thanks,
Brian

ppkk

Thanks everyone. I had an opportunity to buy one but decided against it. They look like neat little engines, but I do not have extensive experience with engines so these might give me more trouble than I am looking for.

planebuilder66

My Feedback: (8)

They're not hard to run, but a cox .049 in any labeling will only produce so much power, except for the Tee Dee's. They are known as fiddlers engines, people who like to tinker and tweak little engines to get the most out of them, heck, if you can get an extra couple 100 RPM, the power to wieght ratio goes up dramatically, but it's also a curse, if the engine isn't tuned right, the plane will struggle. You just have a smaller window to work with, a common .40 engine will fly with only 75% power, a 1/2A will struggle.

gcb

Just remember that no matter what engine you name, some folks will like them and some will hate them.

There are some maintenance things that you learn to do and to look for in Cox reed engines. I have enjoyed them since the early/mid fifties (year, not age ).

George

ppkk

Well folks, I am really intrigued by these little things and couldn't resist, so I ended up buying one from that aution site (by the way, why is it that we are not allowed to name that site? It is not really a secret any more you know...) It is a new in box 0.049 that was advertised as a Babe Bee but looks more like a Black Widow. Paid $45 for it, including a couple of new fuel filters, props, and one glow head. I don't think it was a bad deal. Question is whether it is rusted internally, or it is as good as new; I guess there is only one way to find out. The one thing that I am not really clear about is the muffler: it doesn't seem like a muffler was included in the original packaging. What are you supposed to use for the muffler?

Now I need to find a plane for it. There are a few very good suggestions in an another posting that I made a few weeks ago, and right now I am leaning towards either a small Ugly Stick from select hobbies, or a J3 Cub from Herr. I am not used to an engine that does not throttle and runs at full speed until it runs out of fuel. This, combined to my limited experience with RC planes altogether, and I think I need to get myself something a little more gentle, so the Cub may be a better choice.

Dukester

My Feedback: (31)

If you are interested in building from scratch, there are a couple of planes that are very well suited to that engine and are also fairly easy flyers. Both the LS150 and the DNU (both can be found by doing a quick search in this forum) are easy building, easy flyers that will do very well on a basic Cox .049.

Duke

Dukester

My Feedback: (31)

DNU plans are available on www.ulmer-rc.com. You'll have to navigate down to the tested plans section.

I went looking for the LS150 plans and didn't find them too easily, I went looking on my laptop, but they must be on my home PC. Maybe someone can post up a link.

Duke

gcb

It is probably a new or near new engine. The last bunch of both Babe Bees and Black Widows used the same parts...the Sure Start engine with a black plastic tank with no vents and a plastic vented backplate. I have no idea if the intake size on the backplates were different, my guess is no.

Those engines do not have mufflers. Several types were tried over the years, but all discarded.

When you install your last glow plug, you might consider getting a Galbreath head/Nelson plug combo as a replacement. The plugs are great, and will gain you some RPM. They can be purchased from http://kittingittogether.com/

As for planes, the DNU mentioned means "Das Not Ugly"...took me a while to figure that out. [&o]

George

lildiesel

I agree about the later two bypass port Bees being much stronger than the ones from the 60s. I've recently flown C/L with a couple of late Bees (1998 production run, I think) and they just about drilled me into the pitcher's mound on 35' lines. I don't remember the single bypass port Bees from the 60s doing that, but I was 40 years younger!

[link=http://www.freewebs.com/doughtyhobbies/049tips.htm]Cox .049 tips page[/link]

Nice page on how the reed valve Cox works and getting it running reliably.