Jason, don't mind the old geezers and their imaginations. As for the Cox engines they are just yanking your leg. Yeah they can be a bit of a pain to learn how to start but once you get the hang of what they need to run you'll find they light up easily time after time and run just fine. The crack addiction angle is just for the ones that got their engine to burp a few times but they weren't enough of a proper modeler to keep them running consistently.....

As for the banter and nonsense just consider it as your initiation into the Small Model Flyer's Club...

As you're finding a lot of us cut our teeth in modeling with control line models. And I suspect it's very fair to say that most of us did that with Cox powered models. And despite the rants and proddings we all have very fond memories of those days.

As for your own efforts I think you'll find that you need a buddy to get into this with you or at least a helper to come along. Small model flying over grass fields (STRONGLY recomended) means you need someone to hand launch the model when you're in the middle of the circle. So see if you can get one of your buddy's hooked on this as well.

Successful operation of any small engine requires a smaller fuel tank mounted close to the engine and connected with a small short length of tubing. For control line even a 1 oz tank is too large. You need something more like 1/2 to 2/3 at most. Or run with a slack balloon tank. (do a search on "balloon" here in the 1/2A area).

There's a lot to learn with this hobby. As you're probably finding out these things aren't just another toy. There's a lot of technology, thought and learning that needs to go into just getting a simple corroplast CL trainer to fly and survive.