The model car thread! :-)

[rspears]

Roger - Cox Babe Bee .o49 or Pee Wee .020? McCoy .60? I have an assortment of engines from .049 to .40 including OS Max, Enya, McCoy, Fox, and Cox. My only complete airplane is a Shoestring Stunter with a Fox .35. I've only flown it once myself and I had to hand it off to another flyer. In my old age I can only make about 5 revolutions and I fall down! I've let other people fly it occasionally and they say it's a good one.

I figured that you must have some type of enclosed cabinet!

On the engines, the little one is an early Cox .049, which had one of the first spring start attachments, making it a 1956/7 I believe. It was on a polystyrene Piper Cub that I got as a birthday present, maybe for my 9th? My dad affixed the very fine controller wires to the eccentric on the plane and we took it to the baseball field on a chilly December day. Fueled & started I held it at home plate and dad went to the pitcher's mound where we'd placed the control handle. The plan was that he'd make 3 circles to confirm the setup, then I'd run out to take over. In the 2nd time around he cranked the elevator up and the plane took off nearly straight up, the control wires floated down to dad and at about 150' the plane nosed over and came down, engine screaming. The impact put a big "V" bend in the fuselage, ending it's flying days. Years later I did start the engine, but I've never yet flown a control line plane!

The bigger one is a K&B Stallion 35. The tag on the box says it was $9.95, and I don't know it's history or really where I got it! I believe it was in some "stuff" that was given to me many years ago.

At the Gift Shop in a large Museum I was drawn to some vintage instruments from airplanes, like altimeters, MAP gauges, horizon indicators, etc mounted to nice wood bases, but they also had an assortment of these old little engines polished and mounted much like these two, priced around $100. As usual I thought, "I can do THAT!", but this time I really followed through. They'd have been relegated to the barn when Susan was here, but they fit OK as an entry display to my space....