Originally Posted by
Dragnfly53
In 1976 I was 13, first CL was the cox super sport with .049, flew like a brick, all plastic and 1 day it hit the side of the raised wood porch deck and snapped the nose off. The wind did it...Next was a baby ringmaster. Flat balsa wing with the same cox .049. Flew great and lasted a couple years. The Flying Fool bipe was next, 1978ish with McCoy .29. That was the fun till i flew the top wing off 1 day.
Your experience mirrors mine. similar happened to my Cox Spitfire RTF as an 11-12 YO. Later, I found that a simple 20" wingspan Sterling Beginner's Fokker E-III Eindecker solid balsa profile job was much more sturdy, enduring many crashes during the learning experience with very little repair required, finally wore out the aluminum control horn for the elevator before I gave it away.
Many of the hollow log and built up Scientific's were a joy to build growing up, sort of stand way off scale 18" built up Grumman F6F Hellcat, Liĺ Devil, 12" Little Bipe, ME-109 Messerschmidt, P-51 Sizzlin' Liz, 20" Dumas Mooney? (resembled a twin rudder Erco Ercoupe), 27" Tom-Tom II, 18" Grumman F4F Wildcat profile of my own design, 16" Goldberg Little Toot profile bipe, etc.
Then a 38" Sterling profile F-51 with McCoy Red Head .19, 30" Sterling profile junior Ringmaster with OS Max .15FP-S, on to a 42" Sterling profile Ringmaster with McCoy Red Head .35.