Model Airplane Engines

Cheryl found a box of old model-airplane engines in the basement, in some of my stuff from high school. Four 0.049 Cox engines, circa 1976, plus my .25 Fox engine from my SNJ model.

Insatiable curiosity drove me to see if they would still run.

I never flew any of my powered models, other than the cheesy electric model (which didn't survive the number of crashes, and was unable to handle a slight breeze). Dad and I took the P-40 Warhawk (from Grandma Meyer) out a couple times, but we never could get the engine to start reliably, or the wind got too strong, or something. Eventually I trashed the plastic body but kept the innards for later projects.

And then they got boxed up when I went away to college in 1981, and stayed in the box until 2006.

They still looked good, so I stuck one on the end of a short 2x4 block and proceeded to try and start some of them up (after running down to the local hobby shop for some glow-plug fuel).

Forty-five minutes later, after innumerable spins of the blade and primings of the cylinder, one of the engines had run on its own a grand total of 5 seconds.

Odd. That's about the same success rate I remember from 1976.

Oh, well. Can't give up now. I still have fuel!