Concerning the question to which manual to use in my case the Hanger nine has been about the best of the lot, geared manuals.

I normally keep six cans and pumpsto serve my needs best. I only use manuals on anything up to about 14 ounce as they have a hugh advantange in keeping tabs on your flying time and endurance by the simple mechanism of counting. This is even more useful when you fly a large variety of airplanes.

I have used virtually every manual avalible (I may have missed a few early ones) Anyway I will now only used a geared manual. They indeed are less reliable than the six shooter however as mentioned the are far more difficult to use. I did include a photo of three of mine which I did not use long. Every other one that has showed up at our field seems to not get used very long before disappearing. The SS does work better if it is hard mounted to the box or can and no strap because of the difficult uneven turning.

As to the geared manuals the Thunder Tiger and Magnum appear to have come from the same moulds as do most of the others seems to have clones. I suspect there are three basic geared manuals being sold under a variety of names.

I have found that the Hanger Nine in my use seems to be the most durable and the Tower hobbies pump the least

Just for the heck of it I posted a picture of my old Dubro EZ Fill from I think the late seventies and no it is moot and no relation to the modern Dubro offering.

John