flyingagin

I was in my early teens visiting my cousins and a neighbor of theirs was flying a sheet wood cox .049 powered plane. They let me take the controls and I was hooked. My mother then bought me a Cox plastic P51, which did not last one flight. So I made my own sheet wood plane that I designed just from rough memory of the one I flew at my cousins. I eventually move to .35 powered kits and then to RC.

I have been in love with designing my own birds ever since.

Ken

HoundDog

My Feedback: (49)

Amazing what we had access to back in the 50's thru 70's now kids sit in front of a monitor and play KILLING games. Some kids do figure it out that it's much more fun to participate then vegetate. Example Trevor a 13 year old man from Canada started flying A Foam T-28 Teo years ago while on Christmas vacation in Apache Junction AZ. Now flying %%cc gas and .60 Glow P-51. with real skill. Anyway when he started I mentioned to his mother and father that he had about 3 years before he found girls and cars. Well this Fall he showed up for a couple of weeks of flying and his statement to me was Mike U were right them girls wont leave me alone.
No wonder he'd a good looking talented 6'4" Blond young man. Who flies better than this OLD 70 year old. Gett'm girls.

SrTelemaster150

I built a lot of those sheet balsa planes from kits & hung my Cox .049 Bee on them. I think they were Sterling kits. I bought my hobby supplies @ "Arts Camera Shop" on Burnumn Ave in Calumet City, IL. I remenber a single engine P-38 profile & a Focker D-VII. The Focker was really nice when I finished it but my 22 year old brother (I was 15) insisted on the maiden flight. He did a wing over on the first go-round & put it straight in on blacktop in the school yard.

toolmaker7341

I'm looking for a copy of plans for a Scinentific Bonzo prifile built up wing 28" span. Anyone remember this one? I will try to find a picture of it.

5skyhawk172

1966 cox pt 19
1967 Ringmaster McCoy 29
1968 Sterling corsair McCoy 35
1968 First RC Carl Goldberg 1/2A Skylane OS pet 09 Citizen-Ship single channel.

landeck

My Feedback: (1)

Hi neighbor! I grew up in Munster, IN. I used to ride my bike down Ridge Road to the hobby shop in Lansing, IL on the south side of the street about a block before the movie theater. This was in late '40s through 1959 when I graduated from Hammond High. I started building solid wood models in Cub Scouts and have never stoped. For Christmas 1952 I got a Herkimer plastic control line plane with an OK Cub .049 in it. I spent many hours in the spring of 1953 learning to start and fly that plane. Then I found in, I believe, AAM magazine the plans for half A plane. It flew great and for 20 years I flew control line. Then in 1973 I got my first RC plane and I have been flying RC ever since.

Bruce

zippome

Cox P-40 that made it about 2 laps before I piled it in. THEN i went the pt-19 route! Between my brother and I we had a bunch of those cox planes. P-40, pt-19, "Invasion stripe" Mustang, Super Sport, Me 109 stunter, F-8 crusader, are the ones that I can remember. I also built the sterling beginners Eindecker after the pt-19. After we got better we built combat kittens, and the CG lil Toot. Built a sig akromaster with a medallion .15 for power, then we moved up to r/c !
Back in college, some fraternity bros and I were talking about the fun we had with those cox planes and made a trip down to Toys-r-us and picked up a few planes. We had a ball with then all summer long.
I have a sterling beginners sterling bipe down in the basement that I picked up shortly after estes bought them, maybe its time to pass on the madness to the kids...

ZIp

GallopingGhostler

Actually I started out with "ARF" chuck gliders at age 5, the Guillow, Testor, Pacific Ace and etc. Then graduated to rubber powered PA Skeeter landing gear-less all balsa "ARFs" (I call them "ARFs" because one had to separate the wings from the balsa sheet and assemble them.) Then to the Sleek Streak ROG's with wheels and a few larger ROG's.

Also put together North Pacific "ARF" diamond layout 2 stick kites in paper that required a tail. They were $0.10 and shortly after $0.15 in 1965. String was $0.10 per roll. They were in various light pastel colors of blue, green, purple, red, yellow, orange, brown and etc. They also had printed in black ink drawings of real aircraft such as the F-86, F-85, F-80, B-47 jet planes on them, none of the sissy stuff we see now on kites.

So yes, as kids we had "ARFs", LOL.

Then in high school I flew several Cox RTF's, but they were one shot devices. A half loop later with engine screaming ended in an NTSB worthy crash site scene. If there was a plastic pilot, he died in the crash.

But I started out in RC as kit builds. There weren't many ARF's then in the 1970's and those available were expensive and not that great.

GallopingGhostler

I had one of those Eindeckers, was the first CL plane I really learned to fly on, real sturdy, learned that balsa really does fly better and was more crash resistant.

jimamosn8cah

First control plane - Testor's Cosmic Wind - No luck, couldn't keep engine running. In hind sight, probably had bad fuel, but I spun that prop all night trying to get it started!

First control line plane to fly - Baby Flight Streak + Cox Black Widow. Much better luck, flew the wings off of it several times. The weak spot seemed to be the fuse breaking right behind the wing. Of course 5 minute epoxy would have it flying again as soon as the epoxy would set! I Actually cloned it several times for my brothers and myself before building a bigger .15 sized Midwest mustang with an Enya .15.

Latest control line plane - Brodak Pathfinder + LA46. Great setup!

GallopingGhostler

Regarding the Midwest Mustang with Enya .15, how well did it fly? Got it's brother, the Midwest P-40 Warhawk for .15, a future build.

Dzlstunter

All six of my kids "soloed" with the Sterling Eindecker with a Baby Bee up front. Of those, one is a very good modeler and flyer today. Dzl

HighPlains

My Feedback: (1)

Comet Rookie, McCoy .35 in 1959. Five year olds don't fly very long. Built a rubber powered model 3 or 4 years later, then a Scientific Mustang with a Cox RR1. Ten year olds fly fine, but every flying session ended with the motor knocked off. Epoxy would have helped. After a couple years moved back into the big stuff with a Veco Warrior, Goldberg Shoestring, and a number of Midwest Magician, both .35 and .15 sizes, and was building a Super Ringmaster when the Falcon 56 got on the building board. Never finished the Ringmaster.

jimamosn8cah

The Midwest Mustang flew OK with the Enya .15. It was not overpowered, but I think that the plane came out heavy because of the wing covering I used. Also, I was 14 at the time, and not great at trimming a plane. If interested I could weigh it to see where it's at (I still have everything hanging downstairs!), which is something I never have done.

I later used the same engine on a much lighter (and larger) Aldrich Peacemaker, and it flew great. So, today I think I would still use the Enya, but get better results.

HoundDog

My Feedback: (49)

Nothing Wrong with Keeping Old Planes, got a bunch hanging in my basement Including 4 C/L.
Never know might have some gran children some day.