I posted this in the vintage forum, but thought I'd ask you guys, as well. Does anyone remember a model called the Lil' Jumping Bean? When I was a kid in the mid to late 70's, I remember Dad building one. It was .049 powered and was one of the things that sparked my life-long fascination with airplanes. Just as a sentimental trip down memory lane, I was curious if anyone knew who kitted it and if there were any plans available.

Brodak now owns the rights to all of Goldberg's control line planes.
He is supposed to rekit the Jumpin Bean, but I did not see it on his site. Here is the link to the plans.
http://brodak.com/shop_search.php?pr...ch=jumpin+bean

I have a Jumpin Bean and it is a fun plane. Of course I like all 1/2A's in general.

Jay

My first kit was a Goldberg Ranger 30 in the early 60's followed by a Lil' Jumpin' Bean during the same period. That was the begining for me also! I ended up building another in the mid seventies just for nostalgia sake. The first "Bean" kit cost me a whopping $.79 ![sm=teeth_smile.gif]

Brodak isn't showing it on his site yet, but it's done. Go to www.sshobbies.com and you can see a picture of the box there. I ordered mine from this site. I've been stunting the crap out of it for about 2 weeks now.

PS. I also had one when I was a kid, but I think I'm having even more fun with it now.

Wow! I haven't flown control line since the mid seventies and this thread has brought back some cool memories[8D]! Lil' Bean was awesome but so was a very lightly/expertly built Flitestreak with a green head K&B 19 that was given to me. The wing loading was so light that you could do a "million" successive outisde loops until your fuel ran out!! I may need to re-visit the experience!

as a kid I could loop and 8 the bean, but now being a bit older and more experienced at the handle with larger planes, the bean will easily vertical 8, clover, outside loop, inside loop, overhead 8, square loop, triangle loop....the whole pattern!! I've been very impressed with it's capabilities. If you build it light and build yourself a strong cox, you won't be disappointed.

Heh heh, I wonder how many people started in much the same way. My first airplane kit was also a Ranger 30 - I asked for one for, I think, my 8th birthday and received that and a PeeWee .020, AND a Jetex Scorpion 600 (for an 8 year old?!.. but I already had a bunch of Jetex and really needed one you see. Thanks Dad!). IIRC we lost it on the 2nd or 3rd flight - later I learned to burn off fuel before launching.

I have built 2 or 3 L'il Jumpin Beans over the years, I think it was my first built-up wing ukie ever, used a Golden Bee and TF 5-1/4-3 as I recall, and I was pleased by the jump in performance over sheet balsa stuff. I also converted one with flaps and that worked quite well.

Apart from all the fun I had with several CG kits, they were also inconsistent in wood quality and sometimes absolutely horribly die-cut. I never did finish my 1/2A Viking, got it whan I was 10 I think but could not cope with making all the parts fit. In later years I came to understand what a few old-timers told me - that a kit was just a set of plans and a box of scrap wood. Hey, not always true but back some years there were many products that indeed fit that categorization. Possibly the most horrible kit I ever had my hands on was a Sterling Waco SRE. OMG it was a piece of crap!

MJD

I had a "Polish Fighter" kit (I believe it was a Sterling kit) that I gave up on because of parts fit and various other non builder friendly hurdles for a 10 year old to deal with. I remember building a kit (I think it was a Veco Barnstormer) that had the leadouts on the opposite wing and I'm not sure why. That plane flew clockwise![sm=eek.gif]

Bass1,

In the early days of control line many flyers flew clockwise. The thinking was that the engine helped prevent the plane from rolling in on you. That worked until people started flying inverted.

Eventually the convention became CCW, although some still fly CW.

When building some of the old models, there are several things you need to take into consideration. Some used several inches of additional wing span, usually on the inboard wing, for additional lift due to the weight of the control lines. If you build one of these, make sure you extend the correct wing. Another thing is that some engines had the mounting lugs about 1/4" above center. Make sure the mounts match your engine. Some engines (such as Forster) came with extender blocks so you could use it in both centered and offset mounts.

Sorry for rambling.

George

BTW, the larger inboard wing panel was also used because the inboard wing has a slightly slower airspeed than the outside. Interesting ain't it. They both could be considered to be flying at the same speed since they're both connected to the same object, but they would have different airspeeds..... But they could also be considered to be flying different ground speeds because the inside one was flying a shorter circumference circle, therefore was covering less ground, but did it at the same lap times so..............

jeez, it'd give you a headache