jaymen

Here is an obscure blast from the past, a TNT Toys Mini-Chopper, catalog no. 2003, circa 1972, powered by a special version of the Cox Pee Wee .020. The body is based on the Hiller Hornet, a one place, ram jet powered helicopter. My neighbor had one back in '72, and it flew great, so I got one too. The only problem with both of them was that the nitro in the fuel quickly cracked and destroyed the plastic, especially the critical motor mount and they fell apart after a few weeks of flying them. I obtained this one in 1980 while working at Cox Hobbies in Santa Ana, it was mistakenly returned to Cox, because by that time TNT was out of business. It was new in the box, the fuel and battery had been removed, and the box had been opened and badly damaged. Cox had issued credit to the store and it was sitting in the returns area awaiting to be thrown into the scrap dumpster when I spotted it and saved it. It has sat all wrapped up for decades and so I decided to take it out and photograph it for you guys to enjoy. It was superior to the Cox Sky-Copter in that it was lighter, had greater blade area, a counter balanced engine, and the engines were produced before Cox removed the tapered bores and pistons, so they ran much better. Note the tiny vent hole in the top of the tank, and the tubing that closed off the normal vents so the fuel would not be thrown out by centrifugal force. The downside was the plastic just did not hold up to hot fuel, so any that were ever flown have not survived intact. Later on, Estes bought out the remaining stock of Mini-Chopper parts from TNT (Trid-N-Tru) and offered them as a kit they called the Command Copter, which came with no engine.