bolar

My Feedback: (5)

For those interested, I noticed Cox is running a "Web Special" on the Comanche, $14.99. They can be fun on CALM wind day .

Tee Bee

I've got the older Skyjumper version. It can indeed be fun on a CALM day. No wind period unless you brought your walking shoes. It's always fun trying to find the camo green copter in the tall grass hundreds of yards from the launching point. $15 is a good bargain. I think I paid 4 times that for mine about 10 years ago. My son and I have enjoyed it and got some good laughs out of it.

bolar

My Feedback: (5)

I had an Airwolf that I learned the hard way not to fly in the wind. I lost it in some woods, and took me two days to find hanging chest level in some trees. It seems like that little tank just goes on forever once you get to the edge of the field .

I got one of the Comanches, I plan to mess with it after I pack up at the end of the day and the wind has died down [8D]. Now when people ask I'll be able to say I fly helicopters .

fizzwater2

My Feedback: (61)

Don't remember what model it was, but we had two of those "for the boys". It was great - I'd help 'em start and launch them, and they would chase them!

We eventually lost one on a day when it was too windy, but we sure had a lot of fun with them.

flyinrog

My Feedback: (1)

Thats the cox engine , that I learned you could run on gas and oil if you kept the battery hooked up to it, I think gas/oil was about 50/50....sure did stink up the basement that day....Rog

catracer343

Just got mine today!!! I feel like a 10 year old again! -It was neat too, to see the look in my boys eyes when I opened the box. Kind of like looking back in time!

bolar

My Feedback: (5)

I know I've go a lot of more sophisticated R/C stuff, but I can't wait to get out to the field and get this going .

cncswiss1

for windy days an el cheapo fishing pole with [light 4 lb] line tied to the tail gear proved usefull to me, kinda like walking a dog up in the air. don't tie it to the front gear, a pull there makes it nose down/nose over, then wrap up the fishing line in a nanosecond, melted twisted mono is a pain to untangle.

500 lb. koolaid man

I've been searching to find a video of one... youtube... google... strange how it seems there's not a single one.

Tee Bee

I've got several clips of my old Skyjumper flying but it's all on 8mm and not digital. They fly pretty well and are entertaining as long as you don't mind walking a bit.

MJD

My Feedback: (1)

The fun ones are those that never seem to quite climb out of the cirle of death mode. We had three of these 'copters at work, scored from the proverbial "guy with a basement hobby shop" clear out. Two flew great, they spun up a few hundred feet then auto-plummeted back for more, sometimes drifting several hundred yards in the process (drifting as they go up mostly, not much time to drift on the way down). The other rarely climbed over 20-30 feet, but instead would terrorize the spectators and ground crew with mad circles, like a demented flying lawnmower bent on decapitating it's owner in a Gahan Wilson cartoon. Great fun, and certainly a return to the simple fun of yore.. dodging wailing Cox .049s and Jetexes screwed to homebrew FF creations..

MJD

Clean

I used to fly one of those shoprags, you simply mount the darn engine on a piece of wood and pin a couple shoprags to the block. With a knot tied in the end of each rag. The idea is that when you release the thing the rags spin up like an old Steam locomotive governor and it stabilizes like that and climbs out. When the engine quits the rags unwind and add enough drag that no real damage comes to the engine/prop/block combo. I had a whole bunch of fun with this thing simple as it be. Then one day I launched it and it was flying about 30 yards away from me when the engine burbled once, it turned and then flew like an arrow right past my head.

Lost my taste for it after that. Not so much for my safety, I could have dodged it, but it hit the fence behind me and that was the only thing that kept it from taking out my buddies windshield. Couldn't really afford such damage from a hobby at the time, my kids were pretty little and the money was even tighter than it is now. Still, it was pretty fun.

MJD

My Feedback: (1)

This is something I have never tried or seen, but have now heard about from a handful of people who've done it. I think I recall seeing a how-to sketch in something like an old Aeromodeller annual or something like that. I really need to try this out this year for myself!

MJD

build light

Ken Willard once had an article about this in American Aircraft Modeler and also published it in his book.
He used an .010. much safer than a larger engine but by todays standards, really unsafe!

Robert

Yuu

When I was in grade school, I heard of the 'older' kids putting a Babe Bee onto a bushel basket lid...to make a helicopter. Anyone from an old farm might remember those; lids had the two 'tabs' that bent under the wire handles on the bushel basket. Anyways, the first flight was SO GOOD that it flew right over the lake bank and easterly out over Lake Michigan.... gone forever!

MJD

My Feedback: (1)

I suppose at some some point someone has or will (or should?) screw a couple of old shirts to a .40 on a mount with a 1 ounce tank.. [X(]

I miss the old plans books with all the weird free flight contraptions. Were those Aeromodeller annuals, or what were they? I recall small paperbacks full of "thumbnail" size plans.

MJD

cncswiss1

as a kid I had an .020 mounted to the bottom of a big ole plastic cup (from fast food place), that thing was a hoot, fire it up and run. we made hovercrafts using .049's using a big frisbee, cut 3 sides of a rectangle in the middle, bend it back and screw the motor on it, it filled the underside with air to hover and made it go foreward for speed, err stoopid speed, very very fast on calm/frozen lakes, or big parking lots

I also took 20" bicycle tires and hot glued a 20" cirsle masonite or cardboard or luan to one side of it, cut a circular hole in the middle the same size of the 3 bladed cox pusher prop (man those were the best for hovercrafts) mount the engine pointing down using bent up erector set parts as the mount. fire it up and play life size air hockey on the street.. this design evolved into an rc framed up balsa/monocote one using 540 rc car motor in the middle (reverse it and have "brakes") and a pusher .049 for thrust, with rudders for vectored thrust.

then there was the empty milk jug with an .049 on it.. poor mans free flight for sure (saw it at a hobby shop and copied it at home)

ahh the days..

and I also learned how to fly on a pt 19, and that jet looking pusher. then a CG gentle lady with a tee dee .051 on top..

flyinrog

My Feedback: (1)

Dude, what was your neighborhood smokin back then!!!...sounds like a blast...Rog

cncswiss1

we were smokin castor oil!

if I only would have kept 10% of the cox stuff I played with and trashed... almost all my paper route and grass cutting and snow shoveling money went into cox stuff or similar. Indy RC liked that dorky little kid for sure.

bolar

My Feedback: (5)

I fired up the Comanche last weekend, and had a blast. After flying it awhile I noticed it has some rudder built in, so it does slow circles instead of straight up like my Airwolf use to do. I wasn't expecting that!

It took around four tanks of fuel to get it running right, now it starts first or secnond flip. I can't wait for some more calm wind days.