Ever do something silly....just to have fun?

How about a .049 Cox, #1 cylinder, lightened piston, TD High Compression glow plug, Killer crank, anodized case, modified timing, Teflon reed, 5x3 prop, Larry's ballon tank, 35% nitro, in a Cox PT-19? At 20,000+ RPM the thing will do loops all day long!
Rob Johnson
Orange,CA.

LAST EDITED ON Mar-28-04 AT 03:36 PM (CDT)
 
I thought that's why we're all here?

>I thought that's why we're all here?

Every single day. It's the only reason I am still alive (such as it is).

Jake

Hey Jake!
I feel the love! hahaha
I do that just to keep my sanity. Or at least what I refer to as my sanity. Some others here might debate that!

Ty,
See ya next time, and take me! LOL!!

Bill <><

That's what I meant Bro.

Jake

Hi Bill. OK, but don't tell our wifes. I may be crazy, but I'm not insane.

I do that just to keep my sanity. Or at least what I refer to as my sanity. Some others here might debate that!

SANITY?

Bill, we all like jokes, but evereything has a limit!!

There was only ONE guy in Stuka Stunt that was not ... zonkers, he was examined by the best shrinks in the country and was declared sane.

Problem was he had some bad habits, like, chasin' lizards up the wall and running in circles after them stunt ships.

I heard he's doing fine after some health problems he had when he tried to chase some F2D model in a competition...

Ion (oh, yeah, I'm also sane... ) Muniz

"For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; bt unto us that are saved it is the power of God"

Ion, But I am totally sane!!! Just ask the pilots I put in my planes.... I put a mic and headset on them so that we can communicate during the flight! Or you can ask the nice guys in the white lab coats that bring me my meals..........
Bill <><

Houston, 1976, but the bouncer made me leave. The "girls" on the table tops thought I was OK though.

Firework rocket converted into a CL model, 35ft lines, very hairy..!!

Good flying

Firework rocket converted into a CL model, 35ft lines, very hairy..!!
>
>Good flying
>
>Tony

Remember the "buzz bomb" fireworks? They would whizz around in all directions!

Some friends on mine thought it might be fun to try and shoot down a Cox PT-19 with Roman Candels during a Jeep trip to the desert.
Never happened, but could be intertaining if it were not completely dangerous! I would not want to be the Pilot!

Duct tape a C-class lower stage model rocket engine to the end of a 1/4 square piece of balsa, nozzle end pointing back along the length of the balsa, retrofire end being square with the end of the stick.

Jam the fuse on an M-80 pocket grenade into the retrofire opening of the rocket engine and secure it with a piece of duct tape.

Presto!

The world's biggest and nosiest bottle rocket.

Take a few down to the beach on the Fourth of July and shoot them into the ocean.

Cheer wildly.

Cy.

My friend did the same thing Cy, Estes C6-5 on a stick, no M-80 warhead. Lit it off in the front yard of his house, on liftoff it turned 90 degrees and went straight through a neighbors front window. The curtains caught fire but the lady put them out with a splash of water.

The husband shows up along with the fire dept. Turns out he was the Asst. Fire cheif or something. Walks out with that rocket engine on a stick and hollers " Where the H*ll is Johnny McCoy - I know he is the one who did this!!"

John spent the night at my house, and still got a heck of a whipping the next day when he finally went home.

Man - the look on his face when those curtains started burning will be with me till the day I die! Total dis-belief.

We used to get REAL m-80s from chinatown back in 76, and take D-6-3 estes rocket engines, and tape em on those green bamboo gardenig sticks, and clip the m-80 fuse to about a 1/4 inch, so it would fit nice and snug, when it was taped on top, for the ejection charge to set it off. We were lucky we didnt end up in the hall!! I mean after all, were talk,n california!! We called em D-STICKS Paul

A friend and I put mini glow sticks in the canopies of our Cox ME-109s and flew in the dark the night before we went and flew at an entirely innapropriate place

When the security guy finally came, he just laughed at us for being silly people. He watched a flight before he chased us off

LAST EDITED ON Mar-28-04 AT 06:46 PM (CDT)
 
yep, got involved in Control line flying and it has cost me a fortune......HA!!!!!

I have a friend who is trying a "raggy" an .049 tied to a rag......timed flights...( free flight ) see how long you can get it to stay up.......could be interesting.

When the Cox .010 was first released, a friend built me a neat little stunt ship for it. It rained for a solid week (does that often in Louisiana) so we ran out the longest lines that would fit in the living room, (9 ft at the most) and fired up the engine. Lap times must have been between 1 and 2 seconds and the shriek of the engine bounced off everything in the room. My mother came running in demanding that I shut it off. After what seemed like hours (maybe 30 sec.) I got so dizzy I crashed into a large chair. My first and only indoor control line flight.
Steve
The older I get, the better I used to fly!

Same friend that wanted to shoot down the PT-19 with Roman Candels put a smoke bomb on it along with a Jack-in-the-Box head on the foward pilot. Thing could hardley get off the ground with the added weight, but it was funny!
This guy can loop a stock PT Trainer but comes inches from the ground. Every flight is an Adventure.

Did you have a cat?

Had a wedge shaped piece of paneling the flew pretty good.....
Rob Johnson
Orange,Ca.

I have plenty of flights on the shop rag. It is a different type of FF.

The last one however, there's always a last one isn't there?, I launched the rag and out it went from me for about 25 yards in 5 or 6 seconds. Then the engine skipped a beat, long enough for the thing to turn all the way around. Well, of course then the engine ran at full power and traveling the 25 yards back in what seemed to be about .006 seconds, it shot past my head and into the 6 foot tall fence that at this particular time was protecting the cars parked behind it. How I missed not getting whacked or not paying for a windshield or paint touch up I'll never know.

Pretty neat to watch fly though. I've been thinkin about doing it again. Guess that means the shock has finally started wearing off after 8 years!

It is 1979.A dodge van and a VW bus circle each other in a field in central PA, both have weapons specialists in the back armed with bottle rockets. Lots of dacron hang gliders on the roof of both vehicles.. Later that night, on the interstate, with the dodge in the lead, the VW demostrates that bottle rockets easily exceed 70mph. One shot overtakes the dodge, having passed inside the drivers mirror. Years earlier, the dodge driver had used the bookshelf in his bedroom to break in his .049. Don

A freind and I rigged an arresting hook on a Cox PT19 and used 1/4" flat rubber for a cable. It was hilarious! Bring it in, full speed of course, and catch it, is would disintegrate at all the breakaway points. Had the engine keep going several times and chased it across the ball diamond half helicoptering and bouncing off the landing gear. Always quit when it hit the high grass.

Great fun to be young and dumb!

I once put an Estes D size rocket engine on a 049 size solid balsa airplane and flew it in a parking lot next to Mt Carmel High School. I light the 10 second fuse and grabed the control line handle and waited for it to take off. The rocket fired and the airplane vanished. It took off so fast I lost track of the airplane. The control lines got tight and went around one time very fast in a large loop but I could not see the airplane. The airplane hit the asphalt parking lot and was destroyed. There was nothing left but several 100 scattered pieces of balsa wood. From looking at the pieces you could not tell it was ever an airplane. It looked like someone had put an M-80 firecracker in some balse wood and blew it to $#@%.

I once took the foam wing off of a Cox crusader, filled up the tank, started the engine and launched it straight up like a rocket. I soon was wondering if I would ever see it again. It angled off in the wind slightly but man did it go! Almost out of sight, it must have got caught in some stronger gusts that aimed it right at the nearby high school. Great “power on” landing. It slammed into the main entrance of the school. I couldn’t find all of the pieces. Good thing it was the weekend.

One other thing we would do:
On those nice calm Wisconsin summer nights, we would attract small aggressive birds. I don’t know what kind they are but we use to refer to them as nighthawks. They would swoop in and try to attack our Ringmasters, and Shoestrings. At first it was annoying, but soon we discovered how much fun it was to engage the birds in mini combat. I was only able to nip one once. It must have hit the wing cause it flew away just fine.

LAST EDITED ON Mar-29-04 AT 04:37 PM (CDT)
 
I remember 30 some years ago my freind Gary and I decided to go night flying. We were big time back then and a 19 was a big engine. However for this occasion we decided on our trusty 049 Babe Bee powered Veco Scout and Little Tomahawk. We flew those planes by the glow of the exhaust ports. Ever look at one these engines at night? This can be done. Flying a little orange light is difficult and loops were deffinately the ultimate challenge.

Bill

1.Cox with a spring starter and a 3 blade prop. No prop nut!!
How far can you fly your prop. No fuel or battery needed!
2.Comet ROG: ROG off one sidewalk, takeoff & fly a 180 and land on the opposite sidewalk. TOP THIS! A Policeman was watching & asking a lot of questions about model airplanes. As he drove off, he wanted to see me fly again. It flew right through his open back door window & landed in the back seat!!
3.Building an "aircar" with some wood, 4 wheels and a Cox w/3 blade prop. Had to put some weights dragging behind it for stability. Would travel in a straight line for @ 6', spin around a few times due to torque, and head off in a different direction. Wore the wheels off that thing!
4.Built a 1/2A VooDoo DIRECTLY from the 35 plans. FAST!!
5.Tennis ball cannons!! LOUD!!
6.Ralph Wenzel teaching me to fly Goodyear Racing in a Mall parking lot DURING BUSINESS HOURS!! Didn't last long! But fun!!

Used to fly my 1/2A Puddle Jumper with a .045 Spitfire engine in the front yard when I was a kid. We lived on a corner. Finally finished a new plane with a .099 OK Cub. Thought it was the cats meow. Mom said you can't fly that big thing until your dad gets home. Dad gets home from work, so I said, "dad sit on the pourch and watch this". Of course bigger plane used longer lines. Plane took off went 1/2 lap just missed my dad and hit the house. Busted the motor and the plane in a million pieces. Never seen my dad laugh so hard !!!.

We also did tennis ball cannons in the seventies, the new version would be pneumatic spud guns. (google it, they're made from plastic pipe)At the field a few years ago we used one to knock down a sign during a flyin. weight of projectile most impressive. Don

There aint nuthin like a 'SPUDZOOKA' to kick it up a notch on a boring afternoon!! < Paul

by any act, error, or omission, I have, intentionally or
unintentionally, displayed any breedist, disciplinist, sexist, racist,
culturalist, nationalist, regionalist, localist, ageist, lookist, ableist,
sizeist, speciesist, intellectualist, socioeconomicist, ethnocentrist,
phallocentrist, heteropatriarchalist, or other violation of the rules of
political correctness, known or unknown, I am not sorry and I encourage you
to get over it.

I remember when I was a lot younger,about 11 in 1956, the local hobby shop owner was a very lazy builder and had a model with a cigar box made into the stab because he was too lazy to hinge up a proper unit. On top of that his Fox 35 was the dogs end and even the fins were completely gone covered in a thick non porus coating of congealed castor. This plane and motor were to put it mildly 'ratty'.
One of the older flyers Jack S. wanted desparately to get rid of this plane and offered to start and release it for George. George went out to the center of the circle and Jack slit his wing and inserted 2 M-80's in it. After the prerequisite squirt of 30 wt oil to get the motor going the fuses were lit and the model released. Oh I guess George got about 3 laps or so before the both bombs went off literally reducing that plane and motor to absolute rubble. I thought that we'd have to peel Jack off the pavement he was laughing so hard. Yes, things were a little different in the 50's and in a mining town. Dennis

Brasilia. 1962:

I used to fly combat (!!??) with my friend Alex.

We had the same equipment, a Tamanco B (profile kit made by Casa Aerobrás), a WB.25 diesel engine (did that stink!)plus nylon (yes, nylon!) lines.

The engines were sooo lousy and the aerobras balsa was soooo tough and heavy that we got away with this for some months. The darn planes would get tangled and we crashed everyday, but they flew too slow to get any serious damage ffrom hittin' the ground.

The real problem was the parking lot. We lived in an affluent sector of town (SQS. 305), and our neighbours were senators, Supreme Court Judges, etc.

It took a month for them to realize their cars were gettin' a new "color", and another month to realize who where the *culprits*.

Fortunately my dad was a professor at UNB, and Alex's father was a with the poleice department (coroner) so instead of givin us what we deserved they found it wiser to smile and tell our pops how "brilliant" we were.

Had this hapened 2 years later (after 1964, when dictatorship was goin' on) and had them caars belonged to some ill tempered 5 star General we'd be up s**t creek!

I could finish the story saing that I had more fun with them Tamanco's and WB's than with my nice VF.25, .32F, Magnum .40 or the CB.46, but...

they are a LOT more fun then those poor excuses for planes and engines.

Ion

I found a picture of a Tamanco B...

I missed the tennis ball cannons or spud guns in my youth. What did you use for propellent and did a pvc pipe do?

Bob Smiley
A Lancair 360 builder/pilot trying to be a modeler.

WD 40 works great. The ignitor from a Coleman lantern will get things going.

Bill

LAST EDITED ON Apr-10-04 AT 08:22 PM (CDT)
 
When I was a kid we had a piece of pipe welded to a car backing plate for a stand
( the one brake shoes mount on). Anyway we drilled a hole in it for a spark plug, plugged the other end and wired it to an old model "T" magneto. All you needed was a drop of gas and it would launch a tennis ball 4 blocks every time. Of course the train got sand blasted every time it went by too. If it would fit in the pipe we launched it!! Still don't know why I'm hard of hearing.

WD40 doesn't work anymore, they changed it.

Day and Night from Kmart (imitation Right Guard) will fire your spud gun all day long AND smells pretty good burnt. 4th of July will see 4 of our mail youngins with a 50 pound bag of spuds, using the guns to shoot across my sisters yard.

Cooler at night with the white PVC, the pipe glows and shoots a pretty good flame. I took one to SIG one year and we stuck a glow stick in the spuds then shot the glow sticks for the kids to chase down. Also tied glow sticks to the Charybdis for the kids to chase as well. That was a good year at SIG. Next day the parents were thanking me for playin with their kids as they had all passed out by the time they reached the end of the drive. I'm really thinkin about getting a Twister kit and going back. My Banshee just isn't working anymore. A twister with an OS25LA, one of my Skyray kits with a Mognum 36 for Carrier and the old Skyray with a Fox back on for racing, could be a bunch of fun weekend after fathers day.

Does anyone remember the Hornet & Wasp nest killer with the 20 Foot reach spray BEFORE they made it non-flamable????

Heh.... It really got the nest good! Fine for certain conditions, but don't use it where fire is a hazard, cause you may start somthing you didn't want to finish.

I'd help a friend in NH do controlled field burns on his farm with it. He'd call it a poor mans flame thrower.

Eric (pyromanaic) Viglione

Here's one that scores low on the silliness scale, but works well, is safe, and a lot of fun: Hi start launch cheap foamie gliders.

The spirit of this project is to buy everything you need from Wal Mart and/or the drug store. My particular situation was an extended stay at a very desolate desert airport for a scientific balloon launch. I always try to bring some toys, but I was bored and wanted something different.

Go to Wal Mart and buy one of the big foam plug-together gliders from the toy aisle. The kind that comes in a plastic bag. There are several varieties available. Typical wingspans around three feet. Also buy a box of large paper clips, a bag of #19 rubber bands, some five minute epoxy, a roll of the cheapest nylon fishing line you can find (or kite string) and a cheap wooden ruler. And a big roll of glass-filled strapping tape.

Cut a 4" chunk of ruler and attach a paper clip tow hook to it with epoxy and some thread for binding (dental floss is good). Assemble the glider (plug it together). You can add strips of strapping tape to the wing undersides for spars, the wing leading edge for ding protection, the underside of the fuselage for ding protection, etc. Do some hand glides and get it going *straight* from a shoulder high toss. Now tape the tow hook plate you made securely to the bottom of the fuselage so the tow hook is about an inch in front of the balance point.

Now make your Hi-Start. Link a bunch of the rubber bands together to make a long rubber strip, say 20' or so. Tie them to 50' of fishing line and tie a loop in the end of the line for a tow ring. IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTE: DON'T USE ANY METAL PIECES (PAPER CLIPS, ETC) IN THE HI START. THEY COULD BE DANGEROUS TO EYES ETC. IF PROPELLED TO HIGH SPEED. The Hi-Start should contain nothing but rubber bands, fishing line (or string) and a piece of cloth or colored plastic tied 1' from the end for a tow release flag. You can wind it up on a coffee can or empty wire spool (I had one handy).

Take it outside, stake down the rubber (use a piece of dowel, wooden stake, etc.) and run it out downwind. Attach the loop to the tow hook and walk back 20 paces or so until you get a good firm tug. Level the wings, point the nose up 45 degrees or so, and let her rip!

The trick here is to try and trim the model for a straight glide from hand tosses. You won't succeed, and the model will still have a tendency to fly in large circles once released from the line. But it is close enough to straight that it will track OK on the Hi Start and make it to the top. Experiment with tow hook position, model trim, etc. to get the best flights. My record is just one minute with a little light lift. More typically 45 seconds.

This is great fun for kids, is cheap and very quick. Just be sure to treat the Hi Start with some respect to ensure that it doesn't present any safety hazard.

Thermals,