Pre Production Space Hoppers

I know the word prototype is way over used, almost to the point of meaningless, but these are real preproduction engines. My guess is the initial idea was to inclose engine in plastic airframe, like the Cox Shinn or the later Testors planes, saving the cost of four screws.

Good Question Mauricio.
The prototype engine in this stage is more concerned with proof of concept rather than aesthetics.
In other words, instead of developing the whole engine, the minimum is patterned to see if it’s worth developing further.
If it is, then the user needs and manufacturing requirements are engineered into the rest of the engine.
I always enjoyed studying engines of this sort because it allows one to see into the mind of the engineer.

Thank you Mark for posting the pix. Much Appreciated.  

Could be that the long crankcase neck was supposed to be used as a camping point for the front of the engine, and the other clamp point would be the carb body between the needle assembly and the crankcase. Or maybe it is a "proof of concept" unit and supposed to be held on a clamp?

The other one looks like it has a bushing in front to enable the use of the longer crankshaft edit: Or is that crankshaft from a Space Bug/Thermal Hopper?

Off topic...
It would be so neat if someone produced a bee-compatible crankcase with side mounting lugs. The asking prices of postage stamp backplates would skyrocket! Imagine some mounting lugs on this:

here's a beam mount design, if you look close it's actually a radial mount, extruded 'T' the 'beam' is not attached.


lol, and one of the fastest reedies in the world:

KariFS wrote:
It would be so neat if someone produced a bee-compatible crankcase with side mounting lugs. The asking prices of postage stamp backplates would skyrocket! Imagine some mounting lugs on this:

*** SIGH ***

You just had to say that, didn't you?!?  I can think of a way to do it in about 45 minutes to an hour.  Now I'm gonna have to find time to make one...

The Prototyping Mark

Here's another photo of Leo's K&B Tornado with custom beam mount.