The model car thread! :-)

[J. Robinson]

Roger - The Cox .049 engine has to be probably the most popular small engine ever. I have 4 of them - two Babe Bees, a Golden Bee, and a Black Widow. Cox is out of business now. I don't know if it's true; I was told that the founder died and the kids didn't want to carry on, so... Fortunately, there are still parts available on Ebay for the time being.

I started flying control line planes in junior high school and kept up, off and on, into adulthood. I even got my son into it briefly when he was in junior high. Then I took about a 35 year break. I built this nice plane about 20 years ago, but never flew it. Finally, about a year-and-a-half ago I took it to the local flying field where the club meets on Saturdays. One of the really accomplished fliers took it for a test flight and pronounced it "flight ready". A couple weeks later I attempted to take it up, got hit by a sudden gust of wind on takeoff, and crashed it. I took it home, repaired the broken fuselage and a week later tried again. This time I flew it successfully for a bout 5 or 6 rounds, handed it off to another guy, and promptly fell flat on my face!

Luckily, one of the other guys caught a picture of me and the plane in action just before I handed it off. He didn't get a pic of me "eating grass". It would have been funny if he had, I literally did a face plant.

Your display is really cool. I think I'll get my engines out a build a display for them. Right now they're just collecting cobwebs in a box. Here's a few of them; I have a couple more, too, plus the Cox .049's.