Thunderstones

In my school days, I flew a McCoy .35 redhead on a ringmaster. It was all great. Then in the late '60's, I got a greenhead Torpedo .35, and it was SO much stronger! I ran it on a Flite Streak, and it was capable of anything that I was capable of, and more. I liked having the exhaust on the "wrong" side, because I favored priming through the exhaust and that made it easier. The engine got kind of a nasty temper if I put in too much though, and would kick back or bite my fingers. NEVER used an electric starter, just a leather glove. It kept me from bleeding, but it didn't reduce the pain much. Those nylon Tornado props hurt! So anyway, I fell in love with greenheads. Along about 1970, I built a flite streak Junior ( still have it, in good condition!) and put a greenhead .19 on it. That was just too much engine, so I put on my .09 greenhead. That wasn't quite enough for my flying style, and I tried a lot of different props to see if I could get more out of it. I put on an insufficient prop once, and badly over-revved it. Broke the conrod right in half. I had a welding rod that was supposed to weld aluminum with a propane torch, and believe it or not, it held for about a dozen flights! Wish I could get that aluminum welding rod again! I tried making a new rod myself out of 1/4" aluminum plate. After a LOT of filing it looked good, but the length was just a tiny bit off and it would NOT run. I tried again and did better, but it never ran as strong as with the original rod. Regrettably, I never had a .15 greenhead, so I put a .15 Cox medallion on the plane, and that was just right. It's still on there today.