Hey EXT2Rob,
Yeah your story sounds almost just like mine, I had the Sanblaster I got for Christmas one year, and the Christmas Story Movie with the BB Gun, take that out and put in the Cox Sand Blaster, i did everything like Ralphie did in that movie,I swear, I was leaving hints for my Mom and Dad, And my Mom kept telling me they can be dangerous and that i could burn myself on the hot Engine, And Christmas Morning i opened everything just like Ralphie and i didnt think i got it, and my Dad the Same thing as Ralphie's Dad, my Dad was looking around and told me ..Hey you forgot to pass out all the Presents there is one under the Coffee Table, go see who its for?? I look and it had my Name on it,and i was already excited because of the size and Shape of the box,and sure enough it was a SandBlaster. I'am not making this up it really did happen, Also about the control line cox Airplane it wasnt me it was my brother, got the orange Pane,I remember it has the number 5 On the Plane, all I know he did exactly what you did, he didnt make about 4 revolutions on the and he went up a couple times and down maybe twice and stuffed in the ground, and destroyed it, even where the motor was it caught fire and melted the front of the plane, he was going to throw it away after he removed the engine, i dug it out of the trash, for weight i wedged a big rock into the nose part of the plane, and tried to manually spin to just pull it around in circles i only went fast enough a few times to get it off the ground then gave up..
but i wish Autoworld would start reseaching it again to get the motors produced, i been emailing Tom lately, He is the owner of Autoworld. i dont know if you saw the pictures on here of the Funny Car that Autoworld was doing ,but the motors had problems and they didnt bring them out, and they were so close too.