Man, does this thread bring back memories! I started my love affair with planes when I found an old Testors CL plane in the attic. Tried for days to get the engine to run, but could never get more than a few pops out of it. Finally persuaded my parents to buy me a Cox PT-19 and was amazed that the little .049 started on the first try! Flew that for a while and got the Messerschmidt. Loved it, but it was hard to keep the wings on becaue the tape holding them kept coming loose. First balsa plane was the Lil Wizard, followed by the Lil Jumping Bean. That one was a handfull! Graduated to my first 'big' plane with the Goldberg Whitman Buster with a Fox 35 or 36, can't remember which was first. . Loved that one. I bet I reglued the tail on it 100 times! After that it was a string of planes, includine Flite Streaks, Sig Mustang and Chipmunk, Goldberg combat plane (Nemisis?), some V-tail thing that I can't remember who made, and finally a Nobler. About that time was when I moved to RC. Haven't flown C/L in over 35 years. Kinda miss those days!

OK, I wish I held on to this one, 1958 it was a fully built plastic P-51D very scale looking, electric powered, 40' of wire for the control lines, U,Control handle with button on top and you held a 6 Volt lantern battery in your left hand while flying. I can't remeber who made it, but an electric U control in 1958.

My first C/L model was the Thimbledrome . LiL Stinker. Mine was Red body with the white wings. My bro was White body with red wings. I was all of 6 years old.

My favorite Cox that I had was the T-28 Trojan. I have one of each to this day.

Found my first Fox 36x today. With the original box. Paid $11.95 for it. That was 3 yards of grass @ $5 each. Change for a coke and a movie.

It was called a wing ding (made by scientific?) and had an ok cub .074. It was all balsa. My dad carved a little pilot figure that was fittingly called jughead. We flew it from a schoolyard. Then on to fox 35 and k&b 35 on ringmasters, thunderbird, smootie and a lot of combat planes. So simple, pint of fuel and squeeze bulb, drycell batt, hand proping. Great memories.

Still got A McCoy 19 and McCoy 29 green head I bought from Richard McAlpine in 6 grade with every thing including 2 planes and a box of stuff to fly them. let's see that had to be 1956. They are still in the basement cause I bought the house in 84 from my parrents and every thing is still there. Broken planes that will never fly again hanging from the basement rafters as a reminder of good times. Still have 4 control line planes hanging on the east basement wall. when I die my children will have to deal with them LOL OH I still got my Fox 36X I bought at Chunute AFB while I was there for HOUND DOG Tech school in 65 got an article 15 over that stuka .

Used to be a hobby shop in Rantoul call Slot N Wing or something like that. I watched a guy build a Ringmaster in the day room winter of '69.

Ray W.

Built my Stucka in the barracks in 65 bought the whole thing from the base hobby shop. Got an articul 15 from SGT Peters
For having Flammables (DOPE) in the barracks.

In '69, there was dope in the barracks except it wasn't produced by Aerogloss or Sig.

Bulldog? missile wasn't it?

Ray W

Nope Hound Dog Gam77a or AGM-28B
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-28_Hound_Dog

That stinks (the Article 15 not the dope). Surprised they didn't simply warn you first, allow you a chance to alter things to their satisfaction. I thought they'd be glad that you were keeping out of trouble.

I agree .... Seems like be gla you're building instead of getting in trouble.

One of the old cox planes. (If the pic post from this ole guys phone) I took a flashlight and rewired it for larger capacity glow power and used the switch to preserve battery life. First soldering experience. D batteriesd were always plenty around my house. The 1.5 volt cox batteries were expensive. Lil-bro's looking on. They never had an interest other than watching.

HoundDog. Article 15 for that? We had guys bring loaded M1s and 45s to the barracks and they were told to remove them. No punishment. You must have had a gung ho sarge. Dan.

Who the heck ever heard of an ameco trainer with a pierce .29 in it ? (1947)

Testor's SBD Dauntless W/an .049 Wen Mac. It had a bomb that dropped & that was why I HAD to have it!

It flew like a turd.

I then graduated to a balsa profile W/a built up semetrical wing & a Cox .049. That sucker really flew!.. I built several Sterling & SIG 1/2A C/L planes after that.

My last C/L airplane (about 1969) was a 34" WS "Flying Fool" biplane W/a .29 McCoy "Red Head". It few well but I tried to get in 1 more flight as a thunderstorm aproached. I got caught in the air when the winds picked up. I saved it once by running backwards as the wind blew slack in the lines. On the next go-round it blew clean over my head & went straight in.

Oh, I did have a Red Baron version of the "Lil Stinker" W/the Cox .020 Baby Bee @ about the same time. I could fly it off the drive way in the front yard. 20' lines if I remember correctly.

Yep, HoundDog, some of those guys just have no sense of humor. My punishment was not nearly as bad as yours. I had built a big wing-like model in the barracks when I was only about 3 weeks from graduating from USAF Aviation Cadets. I left it in the cleaning room one Sun. night, returning from the outside world almost late, which a Tach. Officer ( LT.) located on Monday A.M. I thought I was OUT! Fortunately the Captain over my group, made me take it to my car, promise to never do such a bad thing again and I got those silver wings. Shucks, they only flew when I did !

My friend had the WenMac Dauntless. Yup, I'll second the "turd" description. Only his Dad could keep it airborne for any appreciable time. Spring starter too if I remember it.

My experience with flying with close by electrical storms proved that wrist loops were a good idea. Trying to squeak out one more flight before a thunder head covered us, I flew a wing over with my Sterling Lark and it was like trying to hold onto a spark plug on Dad's lawn mower. Later in life I learned about electrical induction and how magnetos work. Huh.. metallic wires moving through a magnetic field. "Pa Pap"

Great memories are made of this stuff.

Ray W.

Oh, I could keep the Dauntless aloft, but I had to supplement the forward thrust W/some centrifugal force generated from the center of the arc!

Hmm, I wondered how he did it. Whipped it around... and we thought he was an ace. Well, he was one of the last enlisted blimp pilots the Navy had.

Ray W.

I never had the guts to try a loop W the Dauntless. Probably a good thing too! My Red Baron version Lil Stinker would loop on 20' lines.

First was a Cox PT 19 my older brother and I owned. First flight was a wingover. I could barely keep it in the air and broke it a dozen or more times. A friend from school taught me to fly with his balsa slab model, i think a Goldberg kit, with a Cox .049. After that I built a bunch of those, then a Lil Satan, then moved up to the "big Iron" a Goldberg Voodoo with a Fox .36 I bought used for 5 bucks from a friend. I was hooked then on bigger motors, bigger planes and "more power" Then on to numerous Goldberg models like the Buster and Cosmic Wind. Still love the smell of Castor.

Now that i think about it, it wasn't a "ukie" that got me started in hobby. An F-86 strombecker pine kit of 6 or 7 pieces, pre-shaped did it. I used provided templates to sand, Testors glue, and painted it silver. Applied water decals. I was really proud of it.

I am shocked! This is amazing!

Most old timers here are admitting their started their modelling career with an ARF! I just realized I started my modelling life with an ARF! (Yellow, Cox powered, it's all I remember). so, we har U control ARFS in the 50's... t as not until decades later, that the RC ARFS became popular... I never thought of this.

Gerry

Actually I think RTF would be a better label since these airplanes only required setitng up the C/Ls, fueling up the engine, starting it & setting the needle valve.

Yes, and I just found (Google is your friend) that what I had was a Varga Shinn manufactured by Thimble Drone. And yes, it had everything included:-)

There is a list of the models at the bottom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cox_mod...odel_Airplanes

Gerry