Model Airplane Engines

[Danwin22]

I discovered Model Engines in 1951 and have owned hundreds of them over the years.

In the mid-90's I met an engine maker from Sweden, Arne Hende', who was making half-sized replicas of famous engines.

I bought several and was amazed at their jewel-like quality. Arne was delivering them in simple plain-looking white cardboard boxes did not do them justice so I toyed with the idea of a display box that would allow them to be seen but not exposed to dust or handling mishaps.

After designing a folding insert to fit a Baseball-card clear plastic box I sent a few off to Sweden. Roughly a week later Arne called me and asked if I could make a hundred of several engines and he would bring over bags of engines which we would box up for a big show I Toledo.

Here are a few engines that Arne made after asking me what to build for future projects.

https://pix.sfly.com/hWsOXG

[BrokenolMarine]

Those are really cool, but they bring back memories....

I flew a couple model planes when I was a kid, with the small 409 (?) engines on them. You had a glow plug and spun the engine with a spring on the prop. All my planes were flown with the hand held elevator control and the "pilot" spun around in a continuous circle until you got dizzy enough to land the dang thing. I had a large underwing model that was very slow due to the weight, and was easy to fly... but the main components of the plane were held together with large rubber bands. Hard landing? Crash? Fell apart... but no damage. Pocket full of rubber bands, and it was back together in a couple minutes.

I got cocky after six months or so, saved up my money and bought a piper cub half the size but it used the same engine. This pup glued together and was fast and agile. They recommended a certain length on the guide lines to keep you from spinning too fast, but it make the corrections lag. I didn't have a lot of luck with the dang thing and after a couple crashes, and some half successful repairs with superglue... it wasn't as fast or as agile. A couple more crashes and I salvaged the engine to use on a large wooden plane I built, heavy, slow, and STABLE.

[Danwin22]

Hi Marine, I think you mean .049 which is a popular size for small engines. Cox and OK Cub were the biggest sellers.

Here are a few others that were popular.
https://pix.sfly.com/hQXRwO

https://pix.sfly.com/Bnbp_b

[BrokenolMarine]

That's the one...
I was nine or ten... so fifty years ago.
But I still loved it.

[mlrifleNY]

I build and fly radio control planes. I have 5 that are ready to fly at almost any time. Two use a .61 glow fuel and 3 are gas powered. 2 26cc and 1 20cc.

Jim

[Conax]

I used to build and fly R/C planes, I built a Sig Kadet senior with a .40 Saito, A Stinger aerobatic plane with a Super Tigre .90, lots of little .20/.25 size sport scales, a Steerman bipe with a Saito .80 and a few scratch built old timers.
It became too time consuming with the job I had at the time and I finally stopped about 20 years ago.
Great hobby if you have the time, space and money to do it.
As a kid I bought, flew and finally crashed every .049 U control Cox plane they ever sold, I think. I even had the prop driven tether car and a UFO thing. I love the smell of burning castor oil in the summer time.

[mlrifleNY]

here are a couple of what I fly.

SANY0014.JPG (2.16 MiB) Viewed 7051 times

P-51-11.JPG (2.01 MiB) Viewed 7051 times

[Conax]

Those are both beautiful airplanes. Nice job!

[Blackdog]

I remember the Ba-Bee .049 and the "trainer" airplane from the same company. About half the time it would start backwards, and being a kid we never noticed until we released it. The darn thing would fly backwards for about 7 or 8 minutes then run out of fuel.

I went to Navy "A" school in Memphis - we had a model shop and people would get their orders out and leave partly built models behind. We turned them into franken-planes and flew the heck out of them.

Then we got real planes, on big flat boats, and it was less fun (but that's a different story).

M

[Mags]

I love that P51! Looks awesome.

[PT7]

Very nice airplanes! Excellent photos. This thread reminded me of a very enjoyable afternoon I had a few years ago.

There is a model airplane club field located about two miles north of my apartment. It's called "The Sunchasers Model Airplane Club" and is an AMA Chartered Radio Controlled Airplane Club based in the northern part of Kansas City, Missouri. I don't fly these airplanes myself, but I'll bet it's a blast.

Back in September 2014, I visited their Open House. The day was beautiful, and there were a lot of really sharp-looking aircraft there. My very favorite comic strip character is Snoopy, especially in his heroic role whenever flying his WWI Sopwith Camel.

Snoopy flying in WWI.jpg (17.55 KiB) Viewed 5773 times

Well, at the Open House, there was an aerial dogfight between Snoopy and the Red Baron. Here is a "vimeo" clip of the renowned battle. If you bring the timer button forward to 11 mins 10 seconds or so, the battle begins! https://vimeo.com/110899031 (There are quite a few great pics of other planes and demo flights, too).

Not shown on the video is a second battle they fought later in the afternoon. Sadly, the Red Baron slammed into Snoopy from one side, and Snoopy came crashing down onto the field. His craft didn't make it... , although Snoopy walked away. In a way I'm glad they didn't make a video of that. It was an unhappy moment to see my hero spiraling out of the sky.

Great overall model airshow that day. Almost wish I could have flown one of those aircraft...looks to be a lot of fun!

[Henry88]

I love models..............

[mlrifleNY]

I have flown RC airplanes for over 30 years off and on. My wife keeps telling me I need to pick just 1 hobby. I only have 3 major hobbies, RC planes, shooting sports. and tropical fish. I just started keeping saltwater fish after 40 years of freshwater fish. I thank you all for your kind words and on another note, I may just get that 1860 out soon to shoot.

Jim

[Firearmfanatic]

Nice P-51. I love the invasion stripes on it. Once when i was really young I had one of those line control F4U corsair line control planes that Cox made. My wife bought me a P-51 from harbor freight. It's all Styrofoam and battery powered. I haven't flown it yet. But it looks really cool hanging from the ceiling. It a decent size plane.

[mlrifleNY]

Nice P-51. I love the invasion stripes on it. Once when i was really young I had one of those line control F4U corsair line control planes that Cox made. My wife bought me a P-51 from harbor freight. It's all Styrofoam and battery powered. I haven't flown it yet. But it looks really cool hanging from the ceiling. It a decent size plane.

Its amazing these days how many people don.t know what those stripes were for. I don't fly it to much but it is a shoe stopper when I have it out.

Jim

[BigAl52]

Airplanes and Fish. I Have done both. Had about 6 tanks of fish 55 gal and bigger in the past. Both salt and fresh. I also did the airplane thing. Just not enough time to do it all to many other things of interest. But none the less I still like the planes and the fish. I had a spitfire with a 120 Saito in it at one time. It was a fun plane to fly. I also had a Big Stix with a 90 OS on it. Those stix are hard to beat for just plain fun.