(Vanity) The end of an era, The Cox model engine

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[mowowie]

So i'm supposed to suprise my 7 yr old nephew next thursday and meet him for lunch at school for some kind of whatever thing... Anyways i thought i'd bring him a cool gift of one of those Cox .049 engine tethered race cars only to find that they they don't make them anymore? I looked it up on wiki since amazon seemed to be down. Production stopped around 4 years ago. Aparrently wiki is barred from FR so i can't post the thread but i had no idea of all the variants of this motor, wow......anyways.. JEEEEEZZZZZZ.....i grew up with those things, the planes, the helicopter, the cars, the stupid things i built with those engines attached..... Really makes me sad. There's still E-bay i guess and all but still. It seems that there is almost nothing left....

[mowowie]

Anybody here remember the "Glow head"?

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Wasn’t it a glow plug? I still have the scars on my finger from starting an airplane with one of those things by hand, almost 59 years ago. I’m sad my grandson won’t have that opportunity.

[kosciusko51]

Try here: http://coxengines.ca/

[al baby]

I still have a scar from prop starting one of those devil engines

[illiac]

Also some on ebay....

[mowowie]

Oh yea “Glow Plug”.

Glow Head was the nickname we gave to the kid down the street.

[Bryanw92]

The old tether planes died because RC is so cheap now. The Cox .049 engine is gone as well because brushless electric motors are cheap and much easier to deal with. If you want gas-powered fun, there are plenty of engines available for cars, boats, and planes, but they are bigger than .049. They still use the old glow plug ignition system, but the new carburetors work much better.

Don’t mourn the end of the old tethered plane with an .049 engine. Rejoice that technology has given us much better toys!!

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I can still remember the smell of that fuel. It meant long, hot summer days with nothing to do but have fun.

[mowowie]

“I can still remember the smell of that fuel. It meant long, hot summer days with nothing to do but have fun.”

Yup

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

Wasn’t it a glow plug?

Cox engines used a 'glow head', which is to say that the platinum element was built into the cylinder head. When the element wore out or broke, you replaced the entire aluminum cylinder head.

Other, larger engines glow engines use a glow plug, which is separate from the cylinder head.

[fireman15]

I don’t have any scars, but I lost a few finger nails over the years. It certainly left me with a very healthy respect for prop safety when I got into flying the real thing.

[ArrogantBustard]

Rejoice that technology has given us much better toys!!

I agree ... with electric power at the low end, gasoline power in the middle, and real live turbo-fan engines at the high end, the "good ol' days" of remote controlled toys are Right Now.

[Roccus]

The Cox .049 and the “Red Head” McCoy .35 along with Amberoid, silk-span, hot fuel proof Dope and castor oil infused fuel kept me well occupied in my youth.

[Vinnie]

I built a boat. Used an .074. Lots of fun.

The new RC planes are incredible, jet engines , retractable gear.

Remember chasing a friends RC for miles after he lost radio contact.
The thing had 1 channel, rudder. The rudder fluttered back and forth. Plane turned depending what position you stopped the rudder.
Let’s see. Hmm either left(x) or right(0).
By jolly, it was digital.!

[Tijeras_Slim]

Had one of the things, never did get it to run.

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

They still use the old glow plug ignition system, but the new carburetors work much better.

As with all small displacement glow engines, the trick to reliable operation is to keep from trying to leaning the needle valve to get every last rpm out of the engine.

When I was younger, my brother and I would get flight after flight out of our .049 engines simply because we knew how to properly tune them. The engines started on the first flip and ran until they ran out of fuel.

Even with larger carburetors, it's possible to over-lean the mixture and cause unreliable operation. The real secret is to set the needle once, then leave it alone.

[Charles Martel]

Both terms were used. "Glow head" was the term for the Cox engine's design (and some similar small ones from Testors), because the glow plug was the entire cylinder head. I still have a glow head wrench/spanner in a tool drawer somewhere.

Control line airplanes are still available - do a bit of hunting online.

Heh, remember the Cox-powered dragsters that ran along a taut string? I think there was a bead on the string that shut off the engine and popped the drag 'chute.

[Obama_Is_Sabotaging_America]

YES! We used to have sooooo much fun with those little engines and would wonder how something so small could generate so much power. We would take those engines and duct tape them to crudely made Styrofoam 'cars' with four little wheels then set them in the street and watch them go.. Where? No one knows! LOL The fuel would eventually eat through the Styrofoam but we sure had fun.

I had the red, white and blue P-51 that you hold on two strings and go around in circles.

Check this out! http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&_sop=10&_nkw=cox+engine+049&_frs=1

[Gadsden1st]

Put stick and tissue planes together and found out the dangers of “sniffing glue” by accident. Made sure I was in well vented room after getting up from the table and “WOW”.

[Charles Martel]

I built a boat. Used an .074. Lots of fun.

I had the small Dumas Swamp Buggy with a Cox .049 and a 2-channel radio. It may not have had the speed of the hydroplanes and the big tuned-pipe engines, but it would run all day long. Later, I put an O.S. .10FSB on the boat. Boy, that woke it up.

[intenseracer]

Oh man! I haven’t thought about those in forever! Had those silly things by the box in my youth. I remember the pee-wee which was .020, and then the larger tee-dee which was .049 to the even larger .090 good times!, my ears still ring when I think of one of those silly motors dialed in just right!

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

The old tether planes died because RC is so cheap now.

I meant to add that control-line flying is still alive and well and as popular as ever, even with the advent of R/C. So is free-flight.

The only real difference is that there are a lot more people participating in the hobby because the advancing technology has allowed everyone to pursue whatever aspect of model aviation that they find interesting.

[central_va]

the thing had 3 moving parts. Amazing.

[cuban leaf]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19LumXm4z4s

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

Put stick and tissue planes together and found out the dangers of “sniffing glue” by accident. Made sure I was in well vented room after getting up from the table and “WOW”.

They don't call it 'dope' for nothing, eh? (heh heh heh...)

[Little Ray]

Yep. Another wonderful thing from my childhood disappears.

[mowowie]

what i meant by “It seems that there is almost nothing left”
is it seems nothing left from my youth.
Here in MA i can’t even buy my nephew a cap gun..or even just caps for that matter let alone snakes or sparklers....

it’s amazing i’m still alive.

[pabianice]

The sound of the Cox .049 Glow-plug engine was the background music of my childhood! It was a great day when I discovered you could buy a spring-starter and thus save hundreds of lacerated index fingers. The smell of the castor-oil fuel burning, the high buzzing of the engine, the smell and feel of the grass you were knelling in in your brown corderoy pants, the taste of the smoke, the U-control lines waiting to pick-up the load as you whirled in a left-handed circle, trying not to crash your still tacky wet red-and-white painted "American Boy" balsa model, the sounds of the kids in the playground as a backdrop... THAT was a rare part of childhood that was bright and shiny and wonderful and all yours for an hour or so. Kind of like the TZ episode, "Walking Distance."

With the Cox .049, flying became my life's work and passion.

[mowowie]

your comment is cracking me up.
I can’t tell if you are being sarcastic or not.
LOL

[Slump Tester]

Was there ever a crummier .35 made than a McCoy? I had a 2 or 3 McCoys when I was a kid, and they were all junk. Hard to start, no power, etc..

My OS Stallion, Enya, and Super Tigres were all great though. I'll bet they'd even still run if I dug them out.

[mowowie]

From what i gathered from the wiki article was that Estes, The model rocket manufacturer is also out of business..........Damn.

[Charles Martel]

Yep, I remember the city park near home had a circular concrete runway with a round concrete pad in the center, where you stood spinning in a circle. The entire area was surrounded by hedges over 20 feet tall. Very cool.

Unfortunately, interest in control-line models waned in the '70s and '80s and that flight area was torn up and became part of a golf driving range.

BTW, that "American Boy" model is available at the link in #3 above. Looks like a total of $100 or so for the kit, engine and all the bits and pieces. Seems pretty inexpensive for a glimpse back into childhood.

[Joe Brower]

Looks like Estes is still in business.

My brother, friends and I build, broke, burned and rebuilt so many of their rockets, I think NORAD had a dish dedicated just to tracking our flights.

We were big on all the Cox cars and planes, too. Most of my allowance and lawn-mowing money went up in smoke on those.

[NCjim]

Fox super fuel - castor oil and nitro - I can still smell it!

I remember the first few times getting dizzy until I got used to turning around for a few minutes. :-)

[mowowie]

Cox-powered dragsters sounds like it was a fun idea. i wish i had gotten into it...

[mowowie]

thanks for the link. i’m def gonna buy something......prob for myself. lol

[Charles Martel]

Fox is still around - and still makes Super Fuel:

They still have "Duke's Fuel" on the website, too.

Alas, no more "Missile Mist".

[FatherofFive]

I still have a scar from prop starting one of those devil engines

Those were great times. Life before the Nanny State was so much fun for kids. I used money from my paper route to buy my first bike, Hardy Boy books, MAD magazine and my first gun. Among other things.

A paper route is a remarkable way to teach a child business principles, responsibility, independence, customer service and planning.

[19th LA Inf]

Had one of the things, never did get it to run.

I think the worst of the non-runners was the "GHQ". It must have been about a .60 displacement, die-cast, coil, battery & spark ignition. These apparently were even made during WW2. Shortly after the war, a friend unloaded one on me for $5. I never could get it running until, around 1948, Glo-plugs came out. I had the engine mounted on a bench with a new glo-plug and the tank filled with glow fuel. A couple of flips of the prop, the thing ran all-out for a couple of minutes and evidently wore itself out. That was the first and last engine I ever owned. I stuck to rubber power after that.

[Syntyr]

We have grown up and play with toys like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn4RezmEpqM

RC SR-71 with jet engines... Okay I WISH I had enough money to play with these but they are cool nonetheless.

[mowowie]

My freinds and i built many a model rocket, my second being “Big Bertha”, my first rocket i got on my b-day the day Elvis died....can’t remember the name of that one.....My mother was crying her eyes out the whole day.

Ayways, over time we realized that the rocket body itself was a money waste....We started to glue the fins right onto the engines.

kinda took the fun out of recovery but half the time there was no recovery.

we called them pocket rockets.

[Noumenon]

Same here. Sigh. A much simpler time, or so it seemed.

[mowowie]

i was just thinking of the Cox UFO flying saucer.
Man, I always wanted that thing as a kid but never got it.......

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

I had the same luck as you.

[steve86]

found out the dangers of “sniffing glue” by accident

The cause of my one true, full blown panic attack about 2:00AM in the basement 40 years ago. That wasn't fun at all!

Now I've changed to the R/C stuff and all we have to worry about is lipoly batteries exploding LOL

[VeniVidiVici]

I had these. I think the dragster Evil Knieveled on me and I blew-up the Stuka.

[gorush]

You might enjoy this. I think it is extraordinary, but we’ll see if it catches on:
http://circlecycleice.com/page9.php

[SJSAMPLE]

I had three or four of the tethered airplanes;
P-40 Warhawk
P-51 Mustang
F-4U Corsair

I even had the competitor (Estes ?) acrobat airplain in bright orange.

Loved those things.
When I got bored with them, I’d shave the vertical stabilizer, which was always pointed to the left to cause the tethered plane to turn left. Then, I’d lock the elevator in a 10-degree position and let the plane roar down the street until it took off and careened into some neighbor’s house.

I now recall the Stuka, which we loaded with M-80s for her final flight.

[Hot Tabasco]

Why be stuck on cords when you have RC?

[SJSAMPLE]

Not to mention the engine life.
I have a box of Megatech, OS and Traxxas engines, all dead before their time because I ran them lean and HOT.

Now, I run them fat and wet and while I don’t get the acceleration or top end, they start within two or three pulls every time and my glow plugs last through a gallon of 20%.