Really nice bunch of planes

I really know nothing about this guy or his collection apart from the pictures he has posted and the brief comment "...finally finished putting all my TD-1s together." Not sure if that means that he's restored them all or just been gathering a collection. Pictures were in Google Photos and not posted normally, so I have had trouble figuring out how that works.

Whichever it is, this is certainly one enviable (and valuable) collection of early Cox RTFs

Eat your heart out Mark.

Those are cool planes. Anyone here ever fly one? The wings are aluminum right? How did they hold up?

How did wings hold up? Quite well provided perfect no bang up flying. Once they hit some little something or another they were difficult/impossible to repair.

ticomareado wrote:How did wings hold up? Quite well provided perfect no bang up flying. Once they hit some little something or another  they were difficult/impossible to repair.

Nice historic planes, I imagine the hobby shops carried extra parts like wings for repairs. I remember back in the early 1970's, one could buy Cox engine parts at Sears and at Montgomery Ward. Sometime towards the late 1970's they were clearing out parts, one could by spares on sale, then no more.

His name is Shawn Magrini, a long time gas powered collector. Here's some pics:

Nice, just curious, are there any photos of the underside of the TD1's?

Nice collection , Is that SBJ s for power and the different colors on the appropriate plane ?

The thing about these planes is that they perform pretty much like a built-up balsa version of the same external design. IOW, they were pretty snappy flying little units that almost guaranteed an instant total loss first flight for some kid trying them out them for a typical Santa Claus toy bought at Sears. If you could fly one right out of the box, you had probably had built and flown several 1/2A c/l sport/stunt planes already. No telling how many wound up in the first January curbside garbage collection.

Problem with a high lift undercamber wing like that is that into the wind it likes to climb, with the wind it tends to fall with the decreasing lift, making it more tricky to control. Also, balsa survives a crash much, much, better, plus is lighter. I learned to fly CL on a Sterling Beginner's E-III Eindecker. I crashed it many times learning, but it was resilient enough that I'd just straighten the music wire landing gear, brush any dirt of the engine, and fly again. Only after about the dozen-th crash, I split the fuselage. Some glue and overnight drying, and I was flying again the next day. I flew it so much I wore out the aluminum elevator horn.