RE: I remember when......
 

whats a kit?.......I am surprised this thread is still alive

RE: I remember when......
 

I remember when the average age of control line pilots was under 70. I remember a Testors plastic Fokker that I got for Christmas that I started outside my sister's window at every opportunity to get back at her. I had "rebuilt" the engine so many times that by spring the cylinderhead threads were stripped and she never had a chance to fly.

I also remember the first RC plane I ever saw. It was a highstart launched glider. $69 in the Sears "Wishbook" catalog in the mid to late $70's. Does Sears still do a catalog?

RE: I remember when......
 

I remember when drag racing was dangerous.....and sex was safe.

RE: I remember when......
 

In the early 70's hearing a plane flying somewhere in the neighbor hood and racing around on the bicycle to track it down. Turned out to be a guy that occasionally flew in a small field behind a small cookie factory. He flew there for years apparantly never bothering anybody......This was on the edge of a small city with plenty of houses within a half mile or so. He probably wouldn't last too long there today.

RE: I remember when......
 

I remember when those little pieces of balsa wood on the floor would cause my mom to scream " I just vacuumed" and the wood is all over the house. How about the smell of pactra or testors dope throughout the whole house. Not to mention how well tuned our ears were to the sound of a model airplane engine at a nearby school yard. We used to rush over just to see who was flying. The first time I went to a contest and saw all those airplanes. I remember dynajet powered speed planes and the bicycle pump used to start them. How amazing it was to see Carrier landings on a simulated flight deck. How exciting it all was, how real it seemed. Funny thing, it's still exciting, still so real. Being older now, I can remember how each new model was a learning experience, and now, when they brake I can fix them. Modeling was always an expensive hobby, but we learned to adapt, save, use over and over, and above all we were creative, we could make things work from nothing. How to squeeze the Ambroid tube for that last drop that was always there.

I remember what it was like to be one of all those young people in the hobbyand there seemed to be so much to learn. Control line was dominant, R/C was the elite, and only rarely did we see one fly. Today, R/c is the dominant, control line, well I hear it still lives but certainly nothing like the past.

Sledge_78

RE: I remember when......
 

Tab! [:'(]

RE: I remember when......
 

Yes I remember the Veco Chief, Squaw, Brave The Smoothie, Nobler & Fox. 35 stunt engine and Ambroid glue. I'm talking early 1950's.

RE: I remember when......
 

Ahh the Veco Cheif. I had one that my parents bought for me as a gift in the mid 70's. Best CL model I ever owned. It was so nice to have a plane with a built up fuselage instead of a profile.

Another that I have not seen since about the same time was a flying wing for a .35 ~ .45 called the Fastback II. Anyone recall it? We had one given to us by an old guy. It flew so nice we took it apart after a crash and made blueprints of all the parts and built about three more of them over the next few years.

RE: I remember when......
 

I remember when you could still buy a single stick radio at a reasonable price. That's how I learned RC back in the early 70's. Had to learn all over again with two sticks cause i couldn't come up with the big bucks to buy single sticks. My first radio was a Heathkit 8 channel single stick then a Kraft followed by the top of the heap Pro-line. The last one I owned was a JR. It did everything a modern computer radio could do but instead of inputting info by pushing buttons you changed everything thru about 50 switches and pots under a cover on the back.

RE: I remember when......
 

I remember Heath kits, Cox 0.049 Black Widows cost $3.95, EK Logic, Kraft radios, TANG. After crashing the COX plastic CL plane, sending an order for part VIA MAIL!!!!!! Waiting 2-3 weeks for the parts to come in and crashing again an waiting for more parts.

Guillows kits were less then $2.00. Jet Fire gliders were .15 cents, air raid sirens on Saturdays, Thunder boats with piston engines, Mom spending $125.00 for groceries for 3 weeks for 5 kids, Being safe playing out side, being told that we had to be home by the time the street lights come on. Mail boxes on the corners. Milk in GLASS bottle with card board tops, cartoons that showed the coyote getting crushed by the rocks, skate boards and roller skates with clay wheels, getting into the zoo for free, riding the bus to the beach when I was 12 and being safe, spending hours trying to start a COX 0.049 by hand with no spring starter or electric starter, Cool power was $7.99 a gallon, glow heads were less then a buck, Goldberg Super Chipmunk kits was $54.99, low bounce wheels, kraft servo brick, (2) servos in one, weighed about as much as a real brick.


There is more.


Dru.

RE: I remember when......
 

Joe Ott kits with cardboard formers (because there was a war going on)and some kind of hard wood for the wood sticks.

Cleveland models with a seven foot Condor glider for a buck and a four foot Eaglet for fifty cents.

When the glue just smelled good without trying to get "high"


Frank T.

RE: I remember when......
 

I remember when kits out numbered arf's in the tower catalog.... That was in the 90's I also remember when a .46 was a hot engine on a 60 inch wingspan plane, and that electrics were horrible performers guess it doesn't take long for things to change and I've been at this hobby for about 10-15 years now

RE: I remember when......
 

I remember when burned glow fuel at the flying clubs smelt much like a home hot soup!.

Did you also recognize that smell there in the USA well before nitro bacame so popular?.

Greetings from Spain,

Jesus Cardin

RE: I remember when......
 

Yes, Jesus, we in the US also remember the various smells of different types of fuels with various lubricants. I still prefer to smell fuel with 10% nitro and all castor oil lubricant. But I also enjoyed the aroma of K&B 500 fuel with synthetic oil. All bring back great memories.


Ed Cregger

RE: I remember when......
 

A very good friend now has Hazel's old Pitts, and is doing a restoration on it.

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I disremember when we melted down old toothbrush handles in acetone to make balsa cement.

RE: I remember when......
 

I remember when anything larger than a .049 seemed big.

I remember learning to fly with plastic underpoewered testors and cox planes that exploded beyond repair when they struck the ground. Sometimes the crappy product engines would not have the power to carry the plane into the air unless they were set screaming lean!

I remember my first C/L balsa wood kit .049 flight. Finally, a plane with some real performance that wanted to fly! My first Tee Dee .049, Wow, even more performance!



Now I buy a 80cc gas engine like it was a bag of potato chips. Not nearly as exciting as buying that first TD .049 when you are 11yrs old.

RE: I remember when......
 

I consider alot of us rc guys to be "Cox" survivors. Cox was put on earth to weed out the guys who really did nt have the heart for the hobby. I am not saying we flew them just that we surived the hand cranking, back firing, rubber band breaking , dizzying flights , bruised finger all day wasted great times with those cox planes.a

RE: I remember when......
 

That's great, LoL! We could flip a cox prop over 100 times to get it to fire and not thing anything of it. Fingers cut up and the sting of glow fuel in the cuts, would continue all day till the sunset or my tiny can of fuel ran dry.

We paid our dues to the modeling gods for sure!


Someone learning to fly today would never understand why we put ourselves through that torture.

RE: I remember when......
 

I remember when I bought my first RC radio all 6 Channels and computerized for $400.

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i remember when santa brought me a cox cessna rc plane complete with kraft 2 channel!!!

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I remember flipping a FOX .15 for over 30 minutes to get it to start....................then it would fire once and smack your two fingers

I remember hiding in a trunk of a car to sneak into a drive-in.

I remember trying to take-off a control line wing when I had the handle up side down.

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I remember when I had to put my transmitter in a line behind 15 others for a chance to fly for 10 minutes every weekend in the California Bay Area. Good times.....[>:]

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I had an .049 Cox dune buggy that was free running. I also had several Testors .049 cars that went around in circles attached to a tether.

RE: I remember when......
 

***********


You had Cox engines? You lucky dog. I had to suffer through three versions of Wen-Mac engines when I first started out. We couldn't afford those fancy, good running, easy to start, Cox engines. Then Wen-Mac came out with the IV series and all was well, but it still wasn't as hot as a Cox engine.

Later, all of my Cox engines were retrieved from the neighborhood trash cans a week or two after Christmas, or were given to me. The only Cox engines I've ever paid for was a Sportsman .15 back in the Sixties, which truly did suck and the .049 Babe Bee that came in the PT-19 trainer that I bought my new wife in 1969 to teach her to fly control line - which she did very well.

To this day, even though I own large gassers and glow engines, I still have a special affection for smaller models. I contribute that to flying 1/2A control line for several years as a youth.


Ed Cregger