I came across something pretty cool while collecting used planes, kits, and equipment to get into flying. I got an old kit in a package deal with a bunch of equipment and I’m not sure if I should sell it or maybe try to build it someday. The kit is preaty much complete and in good shape except for a few worm holes and the dope being dried out. Is there any antiquity value in these old plane kits? I hate to screw it up by putting it together if it is of any value other then a conversation piece.

Not to someone like me...... I think it's neat and cool to look at but to me no value. Now if you were to list it on here in the classifieds it maybe worth some big bucks to a collector.... By the way what year is it from

That's an old free flight kit. Some of them sell for $100 or so, though I don't know about that particular model. Its designer, Sal Taibi, was famous. He just died last year I think.

That model would not be a good beginning plane for learning to fly R/C. Planes like that were designed to climb very steeply on a short engine run, then glide as long as possible. That's a completely different style of flying from what you'd want in an R/C trainer. There's a sticky on trainers in this forum. Some of us do compete in events that use planes like this, with R/C added. The events are pretty much like the free flight events except that having R/C makes it easier to get your plane back.

Daveinfl, i'm fairly certain you could sell that kit for the cost of something much newer to build. You might ask around on one of the vintage sites or SAM sites to find a person interested in it.....Gene

Agreed. Kits are the only thing I know of in the hobby that hold or actually appreciate in value. Really old engines are another one, but they have to be in good shape. You can probably get a good trainer ARF for what that kit is going to be worth.

I’m new at building planes other then a Sig Kadet”?” I built in the 80’s! It’s tough to catch up with all the new technology let alone find out about a 70 some year old plane kit, so I appreciate the help, Thanks! There were no instructions with the kit other then the building plans. I didn’t even think of it not being RC, the plans are showing batteries and electronics with a timer of some sort? I tried to Google the kit without finding much information; I never thought to look up the designer. Sal Taibi was a talented and interesting guy with 70 years experience! I may just keep the plane the way it is to display in my workshop someday. I already have a RTF Avistar 40 waiting for me to learn to fly, a Great Planes PT-40 along with a Sig Kadet LT-40 kit I didn’t even open yet. These should keep me busy a long time so I’m really not looking for another one to put together.

Not that you would want to do this, but a display at the national museum with your name on it might be considered. I have some old Braniff stuff that I am thinking about donating to our local air museum.

It is an old freeflight from the 40s but depending on the collector it may be worth about $100.00 on the open market, that's just a guess, maybe a bit more with the original bottles inside and all the items? I have run across a number of the really old 1/2A kits and made templates of the parts then built the plane with my own wood keeping the kit then giving the original kit to a collector. I like to build them from the templates and then adapt them as two channel electrics. Just a fun thing to do, I hate to destroy the original by building it, they are fun just to see how it was done in the days gone by. It's a keeper but you can use your scanner to make templates and have a copy of the plans made. The wood was silk screened then we had to use a razor blade and sanding paper to make all the parts before building. Pain in the butt but it's how things were done. There were a couple types of timers for freeflight. Some had a battery and others had a plunger that would cut off the fuel flow. I started building in 1956 and about half of my planes were the silk screen type and the other half were die cut, well, sort of die cut. About half way through the wood.

that is one great kit!! almost all of Sal Taibi's designs were for free flight. Sal did die very recently, (October 2013 I THINK... ) he was a heck of a great guy!
I came across this advertisement... that kit went for almost FOUR DOLLARS!! (in 1941 )


BTW, the timer is for activating the dethermalizer... after a set period of time it would cause the entire horizontal stabilizer to go full trailing edge UP....
(in the event the airplane flew into a thermal that would be the last time you'd ever see it without a dethermalizer...)
all that on a 7 second engine run...

I don't think the timer on any 1941 design would have been a dethermalizer. Much more likely, it killed the ignition engine, since by then they were engine run limited.

The first public mention of the dethermalizer was in the September 1943 issue of Model Airplane New in an article called "Bring them down safely" written by Carl Goldberg. Goldberg was quite an innovator, since he also introduced polyhedral wings and pylon mounting of the wing into free flight.

The pop-up tail was investigated by NASA in a report on "Ultra Deep Stall Descent" back in March, 1981 where they used a 1/6 scale model of a Piper Tomahawk.

I have never seen a DT tail with a true timer but the 40s are before my time so? The timer I had looked like an aluminum tube/can with a plunger that pulled out. It had a threaded end on it with a round nut on it so the timer could be set. The other end had two battery tabs on it. I assumed it was for ignition cut off but never really knew how it all worked. I had another plunger type that the fuel line was laced between so when the time was up it just cut the fuel supply to the engine. By the time I got into free flight the DT tail was controlled by slow match. Two metal pins and a rubber band held the tail feathers down with the slow match/fuse between them and the rubber band. When the heat hit the rubber band it broke and the tail poped up and the plane floated down in a sea saw manner. Before I was taught about the DT tail I had lost a couple of planes that got caught in a thermal.

Very good points, I'm sure you're right, heck I wasn't born till 1962 (My Dad started in the 30's though )
I always assumed they used the ol' eye dropper fuel 'tank' for engine run timing, but the timer certainly does make more sense.

Jim, I wasn't born until 48 and into modeling glow powered planes until 56, free flight in 60 and even then things were changing really fast. There are a lot of items I saw but never understood. Ignition engines were still being used but were fazing out really fast. I'm glad we no longer have to crank up rubber bands and count the knots to fly RC these days. Out on the lake bed there are still a lot of free flights and they have a huge contest every other year out there and I see a lot of the old systems but the free flight guys aren't all that frendly and shun the RC guys so they don't like a lot of stupid questions from us.

Hi, The timer that Gray Beard is talking about were called Flight timers and that spring loaded plunger worked by opening the primary circuit of the battery powered spark ignition system for the old spark ignition engines. I will add another photo of that basic ignition system on my Brown Junior in a few more minutes.

The first two photos of my little John Pond rubber job shows the two position of the stablizer. A rubber tensioned to raise it and in this case a rubber band at the rear held it down. A fuse passed through this band and into an aluminum snubber at the rear and when it reached the band the trailing edge was released and the stab when to a full 45 or so degree forcing a deep stall and most all forward motion stopped as the aircraft descended almost straight like a parachute.

In the third photo is a Tatone Tick Off timer a wind up mechanism as the spool rotated the trip wire riding in the spoole was released and the rubber tensioned cord released the stabilizer. There is also a double spool so that a second trip wire could be used to kill the engine by a number of different methods.

The last photo is very interesting and was the power system for my first electric airplane. It was built from a Japanese kit called the TK-1. It was an extreme lite airplane of bamboo and balsa that used four pen cell flashlight batterys of the time and it was a free flight. I purchased the kit from Reginal Dennys about 1961. Look closely at the bottom of the battery case and you will see a rubber band that kept a spring switch closed. A fuse was inserted in this rubber band and lit before launch to prevent flyaway. when the fuse burned through the rubber band the circuit opened stopping the motor and propellor would push back on a spring disengaging the gears allowing the prop to freewheel.

John

ah now we're bringing back some memories I used Tatone aluminum engine mounts FOREVER! (I think I may still have a couple kicking around)
I KNOW I've got an old escapement too.
I do recall my dad getting a bit miffed at me if I interrupted him while he was counting winds on the escapement rubber band
years later after switching to purely multi channel proportional systems, he couldn't bear to get rid of his old transmitter case.... so he converted in into a FLIGHT BOX!
(the doggone thing had 4 retractable legs, a car battery and an 8 foot whip antenna)

I am SO glad there are still folks around that remember this sort of stuff!

Remember yes but still have any on hand no. When we moved to Calif. my folks had a limit on what I was allowed to bring with me. I have never seen the electric motor John is showing. When I moved to Calif. I lived in Panorama City and would take the bus to Mr. Dennys shop. Those were the days when every sop was wall to wall kits and the prices were right. I still have a bag of a few glow engines I used back then on my free flights. That's about it.Tatone mounts I still have. Several on my bench right now. Used to ride my bike to the dam basin with a plane tied to my back and my gear is a sack.

There is some interest in the UK and elsewhere in models like that. They are flown with one/two/three channels and climb out for a restricted time then glide for as long as possible with a spot landing requirement/bonus.

It gives a new lease of life to stuff like this as in windy old UK we no longer set off downwind on a bike to retrieve it.

Grey Beard, I met a young lad a few years back that was riding his bike down a busy highway with a J3 Cub on his back, lol. I stopped and talked with him and we became flying buddies and friends. Turns out he was a pretty good pilot flying that little J3 down at a local school yard.

When I was 12 or 13 I built a 72 inch Cub with a Veco .19 free flight I used to haul on my bike. All was OK unless the wind came up. I had the wing running along the cross bar and the fuse on my back. Any cross wind and it tried to move the bike. I have had the fuel leak and get the paper bag wet and all my stuff fall out. Those old 1 1/2 volt dry cells were heavy. I could have put a basket on my bike but then I would have gotten into fights for not being cool. Baskets and ape hangers didn't go well together. Life was better when my dad would haul me out to the dam and pick me up later in the day. Then I could take several planes and do free flight in the morning and U-control in the afternoon. Once in a while Clarence Lee would teach us kids how to tune and engine and answer questions for us. Watching all the RC planes crash was high humor. More crashed then flew back then. We have it really easy these days.