Man, those were the days ! Love the noise, smell of nitro and the fear
of crashing a brand new model. I have put many Cox PT-19’s the yellow
and blue ones into the pavement noise first, picking up all the peaces
to do it all over again. I was not a very good flyer but it was still 10 on
the fun meter. My fav plane I got was a small all brown Testors P40
Warhawk very fast with a 049 glow engine in it. How about you did you
fly plastic control-line planes when you were a kid ?
Ryan PT 20 with the 020. The blue and white one. Had the home made plywood box with fuel, battery and glo plug wire.
The failure mode there was that unlike the PT-19 which had wire landing gear, the 20 had cast plastic fairing legs and spats with plasic wheels on them on plastic axles. One “carrier” landing and it was all over, baby blue.
Those were fun.
Want to get me in deep weeds, bring up slot cars on hobby shop tracks.
I had a Cox P-51 that came in a blister pack. It was made and flew like a plastic model. The sound of the .049 engine suddenly screaming to life scared the crap out of me! I never really like the whole control-line concept. Even as a sixth grader, I felt it was a lawsuit waiting to happen. Like Kabonkers - glass bolos in the hands of elementary school kids…
Those engines were machined to some very tight tolerances. No piston rings.
Later in life I became involved in motorcycle mechanics. Two cycle engines with carburetors connected to the crankcase, no big deal.
I had a P-40 but I never could get the darn thing fired up and running; let alone fly it. I was deathly afraid of getting my fingers caught by the props every time I tried to start it. Eventually I gave up on it. Never could remember what I did with it.
I had quite a few of them. Every one dug a hole in the parking lot. They were a lot of fun though. That’s why I switched to the Ringmaster and SuperRingmaster. They flew a lot better than those plastic bricks. Got tired of getting dizzy so I switched to Free Flight and then to R/C. Those were the good times. Just sold a Top Flight P-40 Stand-Off Scale kit that I still had down in the basement a few months ago. Didn’t think I’d ever get around to building it.
Jim [cptn]
Tried one, when my kids were young, mostly for their enjoyment. Control line models are hard to control, as I soon learned. After a few revolutions, I would get dizzy and fall down before the gas ran out, so I never really did a controlled and successful landing! First, old Dad would crash, followed soon by the airplane! But we all had fun with it, while it lasted.
Yep, like many, they were my gateway into RC and balsa scratch building.
Clenaing out my parents house, I found parts to my brothers old WenMec P-47 and the MK XII .049. The .049 still fires up. Also the old Honda 3 wheeler tether bike. I had a Cox Spitefire. I remember spending time in the toy section of KMart and Woothworths looking at all the different types of Cox planes and cars.
Ah, yes! Half A was a great boon to school age kids in the fifties! My first gas Ukie was a Goldberg Nifty with an OK 29 in it, but that was a fairly expensive model and engine. Got it as a Christmas present. But, when the half A engines came out the kits were cheap and so were the engines. I could afford them on allowance, and then from my paper route.
I began to fly half A free-flight competitively, and jumped ship from the Cox engines to the Atwood Wasps. There was quite a horsepower race in the fifties between Cox and Atwood. Both brands began to overpower the planes of the era. I had one going straight up in the climb (with a slight corkscrew path) when the wings folded backward (exceeded red line!) Thing nosed over and went ballistic- literally. Fortunately the ground at the field was a bit wet and the engine survived- only broke the prop.
They put out some nice ones back in the day,
P51 Miss America
P40 in camo
Spitfire, I like how the RAF decal color changed
after time from the fuel
Stuka in black, looked to nice to fly and crash
I remember that STUKA.
IIRC, there was also a chrome plated Ryan trainer; pretty !
Yep, I remember them well. A bit vague on the types, one was a red bi-plane like a Pitts, small engine, maybe .020, terrible flier, descended like a streamlined brick when the engine ran out of fuel.
One was like the Wright Flyer, I think the .049, another pig with wings. A yellow T-28, .049, not bad.
The best was a Cox aerobatic .049, big wings with actual airfoil shapes, ribs were externally molded in place. Flew quite well, lasted a long time. 65 years later I still have all of the engines, likely they would still run well if cleaned up and serviced.
They all led to eventual forays into balsa free flight and then RC. I still build free flight scale, great winter activity, then fly them in summer.
Patrick
Ah, yes- the Stirling Ringmaster. Built a bunch of them. Great plane!
Oh My Gosh !
Don , I had forgotten all about mine .I had the one from the Flying Circus with the Red Wings and and one with the Checkerboard wings . I had two .Dad crashed the first one ( the red winged one ) and I managed to keep both flying till I enlisted and gave them to my little brother .he still has the Checkerboard one !
Both had the .049 and flew like bandits ! Got more things from COX when I worked in the Lab at Avecor plastics in L.A! They sent everyone in the plant a goodie box at Christmas . I got the Stuka and one other plus a boat . I don’t remember the other plane well , But I think it was the Yellow and Blue Ryan P.T.19 ! T.B.
ya. use to build lots of wings with cox 049’s . they were cheap and quick builds. we use’t to tie 3 ft. ribbon on the rear stand back to back, then see who could chop the it off the closest.lots of position changes,crossed lines and chopped up tails. pull the engine off , put on another,( always had a couple spares with us) and go again. many fun afternoons. the sterling ringmaster was mentioned a few times in replies, great kit. thx for the memory.
Never flew one but my brother had the black Stuka. It had a little red bomb that was supposed to fall off in flight or something. I found it up in the attic back in the late '70s and really wanted to play with it but he would have beat the snot out of me so I left it alone. It vanished shortly after. 
Ardvark, we used to build 3 or 4 of those wings at a time and cover them with wallpaper that we got from the paintstore. The guy used to save the leftover rolls for us and didn’t charge us anything as there wasn’t enough on the rolls to do a job with. IF you survived a days worth of flights, you had to change the paper as it was fuel soaked and you weren’t allowed to bring it in the house. Wow, those were great times. They still do “combat” flying. I’ve seen some on U-tube that were R/C. Now, that’s fun, but can get very expensive.
Jim [cptn]
I had the P-51 Miss America. Thanks for bringing back the fond memories. 
Built a lot of stick and tissue,that ended up as smoking holes in the ground. Great memories. Thanks for rekindling them. Mike