O/T...old model airplane engine

My grandfather gave me an old....I mean OLD!....model airplane engine. It's got great compression, a really nice straight prop, and an ancient glow plug up top. I rigged a 9 volt to the breaker points on the cam behind the prop, sprayed carb cleaner in the carb and...nothing. Can't locate a Champion V2 glow plug. I have to make a fuel container of some type. Anyways, am I running juice incorrectly or is the carb cleaner not enough?
BTW...it's a mid '30's engine so maybe it's not so off topic.

 

You can see the glow by plugging in the plug off the engine, and on many you can see the glow reflected on piston top through the exhaust port...if it doesn't glow, I dunno, bu surely theres a community of ancient model nuts out there...
By the way, there's a neat display on the history of model airplane engines at the Smithsonian Air&Space museum...

 

What makes the glow plug glow?

 

Sounds like you have an ignition engine.They used a coil,condencer and points just like a car engine. A lot were converted to glow plugs. You need to pull that plug and see if it is a spark plug with a gap or a glow plug with a coiled heating element. It sounds like a spark plug. I have a wiring diagram that I could send. You would need the coil, condenser and battery to run it that way. A glow plug would be easier. What does it say on the side of the engine? Cyclone,Brown Elf, O&R etc?

 

Glow plugs only used 1.5 volts. I used up many a large door bell battery. 9 volts will instantly fry the glow plug.

 

Those old model engines are very cool. Some were even multicylinder and four strokes. Some bring big bucks from collectors. Not that your wanting to sell it, just if you do make sure you research it a bit.

 

Electric current passing through a coil....produces heat and a small glow..

I had one as a kid....talk about high RPM....it probably would have cut my hand off if I got it in the prop...

 

Anybody else start them up holding them in you hand. That was fun!! Kinda like a tiger by the tail!

 

I still have scars on the top of my right index finger from being whacked by the prop on an 049 !

 

how bout some pictures of the dam thing already...that will answer alot of questions on what kind of motor it is..if it has a glow plug or ignition if its 2 stroke or 4 it may even be a nitro engine.

 

I would think you would need some better fuel and a good glow plug. I flew RC planse for a few years. with no glow, no start.. check on line for a place called Hobbytown or something similar to find parts. I used to hook a 9v up to my glow to aid it on slow approaches (idle) to ensure it would keep running if i had to throttle up real quick.

I miss flying them

 

Man I've still got about six of those .049's along with a Fox .15 and part of one of those Fox .36 bb combat engines. (ball bearing crank, screamer!)

 

I have just one shiny scar(I learned) from one knuckle to the next on the right index finger, from an .049 as well. And of course, the finger had that witch's brew fuel on it, which soaked into the cut. At that age, my vocabulary was inadequate for the explosive throbbing pain that followed a few seconds after the thwack. Yep, every scar has a story.

 

I was thing the same as Andy. We used to use a D cell battery to start them.

 

Some of the real old ones ran on diesel fuel. the newer glo-plug engines run on nitrometahnol.

 

only diesels ran on diesel fuel.just like a reg diesel eng it uses compression to run, heat . this is an ignition eng, but can run on reg model airplane fuel. just replace the spark plug with a glow plug and use 1.5 volts. Beleive me it will run. Give a pic and some one might be able to identify.There should be a name and possibly some numbers on the side of the eng. I have several, and keeping the ign coil, condenser, and batteries up is a chore.

 

Last year, I gave all my engines to my son. 2 OS Max 35, 1 Fox 35, 1 OK .019, and a couple .049s. They are wonderful little engines and with reasonable care, they last forever. You should by the 2 cycle fuel from a model shop and the glow plug issue has been well covered. I used an ohmmeter to check the glow plug for continuity. It is the same as checking a light bulb, low resistance = still functional, high resistance = dayd. I always used 3 volts and never had a problem. It has already been explained, but the battery has to be connected to the plug until the motor starts. I would never start one in my hand, because if they have the perfect mix and hit max rpm, anything could happen.
I have seen some beautiful engines over in Japan, radials, Wankels, horizontally opposed 4, 6 and 8 Cylinder, with timed ignition. They were beautiful. I regret that I didn't take pictures of them, but in the 70s, it was a pain in the butt to carry a bulky camera everywhere. I never got in to radio control, just control line. Be careful, it is addictive.
Bob

 

There's some memories.

Still have a Torpedo 35 and a pair of McCoy 29 Redheads that've never been run.
Bought those to build a twin Mustang (F-82).
A pal had built one from a P-51D kit, used the kit fuselage sides as a template for the 2nd fuselage, added a wing center section etc. and ran a couple of 19's.

It had about a 4' wingspan which was big for a control-line plane.
Hauled ass, but like any hot rodder, I figured the 29's, which were more than enough for the single fuselage kit - and we used 35's there - would do some serious ass kicking.
Got married, moved and the project got shelved.


An engine started in the hand would probably be let go in a few seconds due to the heat generated.
The little devils get hot.

Here's one we did to ourselves.
I'd built a Veco Warrior kit, an about 36" wingspan U-control stunt plane with full fuselage, full flaps, stunt wing etc.
The Warrior was designed for a 15 to 19, but with me bein' a hot rodder to the core I stuck a McCoy 35 in it.

Painted white and emblazoned with WW2 German markings we called it the German Ambulance plane for some reason.
Probably cuz the damned engine would pop back and rap your fingers a good one . . . and the bandaids came out.

Anyhow, I got pretty good at flying it and was zipping around, just off the schoolyard grass when the inner wing hit the 1 1/2 V battery my pal had left sitting upright.
Bad crash I thought, balsa everywhere, but when I looked it over only the inner wing was smashed.

Since the first U-control I'd ever built - a few months back - was also a Veco Warrior, in the garage, in a box in pieces - cuz I'd crashed it learning to fly upside down - and stripped of most of the usable stuff I had a good inner wing.
That got spliced onto the busted wing of the new plane.

Did the scarf (angled) cut, reinforcement etc., glued on nice and straight, got it recovered and painted and we took it out to fly a couple weeks later.

Did ok until I did a hard wingover which put the G's on the airframe and the inner wing collapsed.

It was really strange, the fuselage was still pointed up and the plane climbed vertical to the end of the 70' control lines where it stopped and hung in the air like a helicopter.
I figured it would roll over and crash, but it just hung there.

I did a little flip with the U-Reely control handle, kinda like you would with a rope or hose when you try to get a loop out.
The plane did a lazy rollover and ended up pointed straight up once again.

I did the handle flip bit again, the plane rolled, the prop - spinning along at 13,000-14,000 rpm or so - caught the thin braided steel control line and there was an airborne balsa explosion the likes of which we'd never seen before.
The prop, along with yanking the snot out of the control line got into the plane like a mixmaster running on the top end in dry flour, chewed up and spit out balsa like nobodys business.
Aside from the wingtips - and there wasn't much of them left - the biggest piece that floated down was the vertical stab.

The amazing part was, the running engine complete with gas tank freed itself from the airborne wreckage and took off to the north.
It flew horizontally for a short bit, doing ok in maintaining altitude then it looked like torque or gyroscopic precession tipped er over a bit and the thing looked like a Wasp on speed.
It went every which way, but not too far, it was still hewing to its original course and finally it buried itself into the JCs center field about where the fence would be if it had one then.

The prop - as you'd expect - was a broken stub still bolted to the engine hub, the engine had one of the wooden engine mounts still attached, the other was gone, a small piece of white painted balsa was still glued to the engine mount and the amazing thing was, the fuel tank was still hanging onto to the engine albeit only by the plastic feed hose and the hose was held on only by friction although it this case it probably acted like a Chinese finger trap.

Good thing the fuel tank was still attached to the engine, aside from the broken prop blades in the vicinity we may not have found the engine which was buried below ground level in the soft ground that was covered with grass.
The little fuel tank was sitting sedately on the grass when we got to the engine crash site.

We found later that the fuel tank was ok and it was used to carry fuel for other planes.

The engine came through it all with no problems other than requiring disassembly and cleaning out all the dirt.
We looked er over and did the proper scientific tests to make sure the hub wasn't bent.
That little bit entailed a bit of looking, somebody said, "looks ok to me", we bolted on a prop, fired it up in a test stand and revved er to the max.

So . . . as you can see an engine larger than an 020 or 049 would be far too dangerous to hold onto when firing it up.
If you're dumb enough to try it, I suggest the big box of bandages.

All's well that ends well.

Except that cleaning up all those little pieces of balsa was a bitch....

 

So there's hotrodding translated into aero models! Power to weight becomes "thrust should be greater than weight"! Whoopee! If you have enough power, no need to waste time cutting out all those wing pieces....

 

Several years ago I ran into an old "Prop-rod" and bought it. The purchase was made to remind me of the one I had as a kid. I couldn't ever get the thing to start, so I recruited an uncle who had a history of building great control line planes. He flipped and flipped and the little beast still wouldn't start. Finally went an got a different battery and the monster about ate my finger before I could get out of the way. Wasn't really very fast but pretty entertaining if a cat or dog was around. The cat's in the neighborhood weren't very fast but they were shifty, and they cheated by jumping over fences.

 

"Prop-Rod"...that was like a midget racer with headrest extended into an engine fairing for rear propeller?? Monogram? Dim memories of old ctalogs bubbling up here...

 

C9, loved your story. Sounds like you and I did about the same things when we were younger.

When my buddy and I got our garage space about 5 years ago, I found a good place to put my plane from ages ago. My dad sent this plane to me in '57 from a trip to Amarillo Texas. We flew the crap out of this pane and I wanted it in the garage to remind me of my Dad. There is a white circle in the attached photo. That is my P-51 profile model. The McCoy 35 is laying on the wing. Fits well with the T don't you think?

 

Oooooh....want a real one! There's no back on the engine cowl, so the swap to a 3310 should be easy...

 

Looks right at home.

I gave my last three U-control planes to little brothers boys.
They're still hanging in his one car garage which is pretty much a storage shed nowadays.

One of them, a Veco T-Bird.
It flew ok, but I found it hard to believe that it had won national stunt contests.
Another, an off-brand long nosed built for stunt competition plane that looked pretty good and flew quite well.


Far as the profile planes went, my pal preferred the Top-Flite Streak I think it was and I liked the Ringmasters.

The Rings were great flyers in the 29-35 size and the little one with an 049 flew better than any 049 stunter we'd built to date.

My flying partner used to help his wife build 049 stunters and she did a good job on them.
Trouble for her - a cute little blonde Texas girl - she'd fly em till she got dizzy, sit down and the plane would crash.
She finally quit when she determined to stick it out, got really dizzy sat down and tried to keep flying while she threw up.
Yeah, a couple of circles and her little plane was balsa dust.

Flyin' the big circle and getting dizzy was never a problem for me.
I was a free-style and dance skater at the time and had no probs with spins and the like.

Last model I built was a Top Flite Nobler and the third one hanging in little bro's garage.
I rounded the wingtips ala Spitfire, put a P-51 D style canopy on it to make it look like an end-of-the-war Spit.
The tan and green camo paint job was the finishing touch.

Since you flew control-line you know about gyroscopic precession and how it would put an additional load on the control lines during an inside loop and take load off during an outside loop.
Sometimes severely enough to have the lines sag and if you didn't back up quick enough you'd plow up some dirt with your useta was a bitchin and good flying airplane.

To that end I hinged the rudder so that it was almost straight when full up elevator and down flaps were applied, but when elevator & flaps were opposite the rudder went further to the right thereby adding load to the control line aerodynamically.
Worked pretty good.

Most interesting flying I ever did was on a weekday at the Newhall, California little league field out in the riverbed.
It was about 200 yards from a 220kv (220 thousand volts) and the wind was blowing from the tower area toward us.
Fairly good wind with gusts to 20 mph or so which was usually more than we flew in, but by that time I had a pretty good handle on flying.

After take-off I flew level for a few circles, did a few wingovers, some of which were inverted flight at the end and some that went upright at the end.
Funny part was when you'd get the plane flying level at about a 40 degree angle of the control lines, the electrical field from the 220kv line would charge the line and when the voltage got high enough it would flash over to ground between tennis shoe and the dry grass earth making a heckua popping sound.
Hurt like heck, sorta like stepping on a short nail.

A couple of those and I flew level till the fuel ran out and never flew there again.


Then there was the attaching one of the 049s - we had several - to a straight piece of thin balsa about the size of a ruler, rubber banding a 'fuselage' which was another piece of thin balsa about 18" long, firing the engine and pointing er straight up.

It climbed like a helicopter until the 12" piece couldn't keep the rig from spinning so fast that it killed fuel flow at about the 200-300' mark.
The whole thing looked like a cross with an engine on top.

After the engine shut down, it would flutter back to earth somewhat ungracefully, but slow enough we could track it visually ok and the landings on the schoolyard grass were soft enough that the engine wasn't damaged.

Until . . . the day the whole rig got almost out of sight, nosed over and went straight in with the little engine just screaming.
It may have made 500' at the least.

The schoolyard, down at the beach with the usual strong ocean breeze that filled in, in the early afternoons made the screaming little 049 balsa wood rubber band combo go straight into the cement street next to the grassy area.

We didn't know that an 049 could rip up small chunks of cement.

We pretty much gave up on trying to send an 049 into orbit after that one....

 

Little brother got one of these for Christmas one year.
Neat little car.

Since I was flying U-control at the time it didn't take long to get one of the Candy Red painted 50 Ford hubcaps off the shelf, drill a hole dead center, and rig up a pivot with an old rink roller skating wheel complete with ball bearing.

Went to the high school tennis courts, dunno why we just didn't use the parking lot, got the spare out of the 50 sedan, laid it down in a wide area, popped the hubcap/pivot thingy onto the spare, tied on some airplane U-contol cables, fired it up and let er rip.

The little car hauled ass.

Faster than some of the wheel driven tether cars I'd seen.

Little brothers still got the darned thing somewhere.
He always was good about saving stuff.
He's still got my Daisy pump BB gun....

 

i've got a shiny index fingertip too. could be a new hamb club. when i was 12 i learned that .049s run nicely when properly clamped in a vise. i also learned that it is better to reach for the throttle screw from *behind* the propeller. i got an eyeful of my own blood spray and had to hide that injury for a week. back in the day, if i got injured badly enough by a particular hobby - no more hobby!!

 

Probably not funny if you were involved but makes a great mental picture. The uncle that was the plane wizard kept wanting my dad to fly one of his planes. Dad was a paraplegic (paralyzed from waist down) since a month before I was born so there were some problems to be overcome. The uncle got the plane running and released it while my dad held the handle. As the plane began to taxi off, uncle ran to the center and began to turn my dad's chair around and around so he could fly the plane. After a few minutes the uncle got so involved in the plane that he stopped turning the chair, unfortunately the plane continued going around for awhile, wrapping dad in the control lines. Unc ducked out and in a minute the plane made a sub surface landing. Dad talked about it for years.

 

Would like to see a pic of your old motor. I can probably tell you what it is. make/ fuel etc..

I have been into rc planes since 1988.
Here is one of many that I currently have....
http://img5.ranchoweb.com/images/alltech/extra232.jpg

http://img5.ranchoweb.com/images/alltech/capbottom1.jpg

 

Like C9, my specialty was turning a flying model into a scrambled version of its original components. We used to spend all our time doing the air combat thing. There were many mid air collisions. As a result, we took to using nylon for the covering instead of the standard paper. This made the model heavier, hence the larger engines. It sure was fun, but I could only afford one hobby, so after starting on my first project ( a 39 Ford coupe ) I lost interest in building models.
Bob