Show and Tell

Here are some pictures of my MVVS 5.6 cc rear intake stunt engines. A similar engine was used by Josef Gabris in his Supermaster Stunt model to win in stunt in 1966 and 1968 at the Worlds Stunt Championship.The engine is depicted in the plans of the Supermaster.

                                                                                                                    Juan

Juan, my buddy Dan has one of these engines. We were aware it was a MVVS, what we don't know is the displacement. His looks like yours with the exception that his head is a dual plug head. To me, it resembles the Dooling .29 and we were thinking the same in terms of short stroke. I never thought of it as a stunt engine but our thinking could be certainly incorrect. We just run it on the bench. I own about a dozen modern MVVS engines from .15's - .40's. The appearance of the newer casting is very high compared to those earlier versions. Ken

Hello Ken
                 The engine your buddy Dan has might be a speed engine derived from the MVVS 5.6 stunt engine. One of those engines set a record at the time of 152.5 Mph= 244 Kph. I found a place where you can read about the history of MVVS engines. I also have two of the new MVVS engines.  The engines I have are not from the first batch of 20 engines made since they have an attachment for a muffler as can be seen in my photos. The link is this:  http://modelenginenews.org/ad/mvvs.html

                                                                                                                                        Juan

Just unpacked a few engines from 25yr storage.
Used these engines in F3D 91 Wangaratta and European comps until 95 when they went into storage.

I converted a Picco 40 Pylon from drum valve to front Zimmerman intake. This engine runs fantastic however it was just too much work to make a few spares. Only had one plane that would take that engine. All these engines were set up to run between 26000 and 28000 on the ground, adjusted to a certain exhaust temperature before release and had permanent glow with a AA cell keeping the glow while flight. Have not unpacked my planes yet...
I don't know what bits I got to convert one R40 Pylon fron drum to disk.









edi

Wow, that's a neat intake and looks sharp!

Strange that this engine needs an on board battery to keep the plug glow...platina and iridium, base metals for the glow filamenr, are catalysts to burning methanol..why was the battery neede to be constantly wired to the plug?

I was the only one in that time playing around with constant glow attachment on all my Pylon engines. I was lucky to do part time work in a company with electric connectors that suited the glow plug and held the vibration. F3D used 80/20 FAI fuel and with very high exhaust port timing the engines were very finicky. Most races were lost due to engine flame outs. We were also chasing a low compression rate approach meaning lean setting and very cold plugs like Rossi 8, later Nelson plugs. The constant glow helped hugely reduce flame outs and I will do that in future again as I believe one could run the engine richer. Later at the Australia Worlds I learned a lot from one Australian team that ran their engines at twice the compression rate we did, their results were quite good and we looked at telemetry data from them. Was new to us. I made a few heads to replicate the compression ratio also with slower revving engines and the performance was unbelievable. Simpler engines like ASP cracked the crank housings but Picco Pylon and Rossi held. You generally run them rich.
BTW I was never one of the better guys, was a student and it was difficult to finance international competitions as well as gear. Only due to engine reliability I managed to squeeze on to the Nat team that time.
edi

From what I've seen in electrics, it sadly is making glow obsolete.

Ken Cook wrote:          From what I've seen in electrics, it sadly is making glow obsolete.

Sadly is right. I am not interested in electric motors. Being a mechanic (Pfaff Sewing machines Germany) by trade I love playing with mechanical bits. Even just enjoy running on a test bench.
edi

EDI,

I dated a German girl in Kaiserslautern DE, while stationed at Sembach AB. Her father was a supervisor at the local Pfaff plant. Great machines, and a wonderful family.

We were planning to marry, but the AF had other plans for me. I was transferred to another base where my skills were still needed.

Welcome to the best forum on the web!

Bill

Hi Edi
You're going to love it here,but beware, the more you learn, the more you want to buy

Welcome
by the way I love your pylon engines.

smooth_bill wrote:EDI,

I dated a German girl in Kaiserslautern DE, while stationed at Sembach AB. Her father was a supervisor at the local Pfaff plant. Great machines, and a wonderful family.

We were planning to marry, but the AF had other plans for me. I was transferred to another base where my skills were still needed.

Welcome to the best forum on the web!

Bill

Small world,
in what years were you around K-Town. We as a family lived near Landstuhl and had wild times in Ramstein clubs early 80's. Also visited the air shows every year except the year the disaster hit, I was at a pylon race up the country my sister and her husband were at the ill-fated air show, luckily they had just moved to safety before the jets hit... my sister was just pregnant and had a gut feeling things were not going well. Guys from our model club were extremely lucky as well as impact was very close to their group. Later my mom moved to Eglin AFB with my stepfather who was also AF. I got a room in Kaiserslautern after my stint with the German army and went to engineering college.
Fun times, was lucky to meet Chuck Yeager's son at our model field in Wallhalben.

edi

Davenz13 wrote:Hi Edi
You're going to love it here,but beware, the more you learn, the more you want to buy

Welcome
by the way I love your pylon engines.

Thanks, don't even know where to start. Most companies that I used to buy stuff from are gone after 25 years. I was shocked to see Rossi, Picco, Graupner Germany gone.

edi

Hi Edi, Welcome to CEF! An old friend of mine; "Don McStay" (now deceased) belonged to a Pylon racing club called the National Miniature Pylon Racing Association.. or NMPRA. Don flew regularly at a field located in Bridgewater Massachusetts. NMPRA's district 6 covered the New England area.

Below are a couple weblinks to some past information on that club. You may it find interesting. There are some vendors advertisements that could still be actively serving the hobby.  

NMPRA

NMPRA High Performance

roddie wrote:Hi Edi, Welcome to CEF! An old friend of mine; "Don McStay" (now deceased) belonged to a Pylon racing club called the National Miniature Pylon Racing Association.. or NMPRA. Don flew regularly at a field located in Bridgewater Massachusetts. NMPRA's district 6 covered the New England area.

Below are a couple weblinks to some past information on that club. You may it find interesting. There are some vendors advertisements that could still be actively serving the hobby.  

NMPRA

NMPRA High Performance

Thanks for that.
Don McStay somehow rings a bell. I had met Dub Jett of course at one of the races possibly Virginia 89 at the F3D/F3A and helicopter guys comp.
I recently stumbled across this old video from Milan Italy, fantastic racing down there. The Malina brothers, Manfred Pick, Victor Cassut, Waldcheck etc. were all present. God I miss those times.
My wife and myself flying around minute 38-39.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B814KiTtiLA
edi

Thanks Edi, I enjoyed the vid.! I had become interested (whole-heartedly) in aero-modelling in the early 1990's when I was in my early 30's. My earliest exposure to the hobby was toddler-age (early 1960's) when my dad was building Veco and Sterling C/L Stunt kits on the dining-room table.. (I can still smell the Ambroid and Aero-Gloss) to fly with my mom's brother and father.. (dad's in-laws). I now have a few of those old engines.. and some of the models/kits.

Don McStay.. would be in his early/mid "90's" now. He was my dad's employer back in the early 1960's.. but the two of them hadn't crossed aero-modelling paths. My dad's interest in the hobby faded by the time I was 10 yrs. old or so. The hobby was shifting more toward R/C.. and the C/L activities (at least around town..) became far and few between. Don McStay lived in Franklin, MA with his wife "Beverly" and their 4 children. Their family was also active in equestrian activities. Don's Pylon activities can be traced to the 1st/1993 NMPRA link that I posted (on NMPRA's news/page eight) where Don appears in a photo; Dallas, TX Labor day, 2nd place winner in Formula 1. Don was a "stocky" fella.. 5'-6"/5'-7"? Living in Massachusetts; he also enjoyed Winter-sports; skiing and snowmobiling. There's a good-chance that you met Don.. somewhere along the way.

Hi again edi,

Pity that I left Sembach a few decades before your time there!

My skill code was as a Matador missile guidance system technician (called us mechanics back then), but the AF phased the Matador missiles out at Sembach to upgrade to the Mace A, so a few of us were transferred to Hahn AB to complete our 3 year overseas tours, where they still had active Matador squadrons. Finished my three year tour at Hahn and then went back to Denver CO in Aug of 1959, for instructor duty on the Mace B inertial guidance system. After teaching Mace B guidance classes I was drafted into the Douglas Skybolt ALBM program. We were in the process of setting up courses for the Skybolt when my least favorite president cancelled the Skybolt program, so I was out of a job for six months before getting assigned to Holloman AFB NM. At Holloman they found that I had Skybolt guidance system experience and immediately put me to work on a Skybolt sled test program there!

AFSC had selected the Skybolt inertial platform for rocket sled testing of inertial system components for the AF. One of my first jobs was working in a class 1 clean room removing the telescope from the Skybolt inertial platform, so we could install inertial components for sled testing. Final five years of my 13 years at Holloman was spent on Aircraft testing of inertial systems and components, though we did flight test two Maverick missile types captive on the C-130-A Hercules.

Bill

Roddie, my father never had any interest in flying/RC. I started playing with little boats at maybe 9 and started using epoxy to "improve" electric toy boat shapes. We had epoxy glues for repairing fishing rods. Late 60's early 70's. At around 16 I joined a model flying club and met interesting people. Started learning a thing or two about Aerodynamics from Otto Jakob who was studying aerospace in Stuttgart, he was also on the German team attending 89 comp in the US. They had great model building facilities at Stuttgart Uni (Akaflieg). People like Prof Eppler helped or allowed the main frame to do calculations for our pylon racers. The Uni took good interest in this and even wind tunnel tests were done with sections of wings out of our moulds. Air foils like E221 etc were born. MH Martin Hepperle did further research and found improvements. Funnily even through this high tech time we every now and then built something small with a Tee Dee in it. Just dug out an old one of mine. Pretty sure Otto had a Mirage delta type with Tee Dee pusher config that flew really well. At around 14 I started working part time on a farm and never had money problems to finance my toys which was a bonus.
edi

Bill, yes that was quite a bit earlier. You had interesting jobs and a bit more critical than my job at the German army. I was part of a drone unit. Early drones.... Canadair / Dornier CL89 at Idar Oberstein Klotzberg, Artillery. My uncle was the Liason officer between US and German forces of the third Chor, stationed at the US embassy in Koblenz. We mostly drove past Hahn on the way to visit them. Now Hahn is our usual airport when flying Ryanair from Kerry Ireland. Some of the old buildings are still there. My son is now Pilot with Aerlingus on A320 etc.
From there on I had boring jobs, developed engineering ceramics, processes and production plants for a German outfit. Now work with composites in our own company with my oldest son.
edi

edi wrote:Roddie, my father never had any interest in flying/RC. I started playing with little boats at maybe 9 and started using epoxy to "improve" electric toy boat shapes. We had epoxy glues for repairing fishing rods. Late 60's early 70's. At around 16 I joined a model flying club and met interesting people. Started learning a thing or two about Aerodynamics from Otto Jakob who was studying aerospace in Stuttgart, he was also on the German team attending 89 comp in the US. They had great model building facilities at Stuttgart Uni (Akaflieg). People like Prof Eppler helped or allowed the main frame to do calculations for our pylon racers. The Uni took good interest in this and even wind tunnel tests were done with sections of wings out of our moulds. Air foils like E221 etc were born. MH Martin Hepperle did further research and found improvements.  Funnily even through this high tech time we every now and then built something small with a Tee Dee in it. Just dug out an old one of mine. Pretty sure Otto had a Mirage delta type with Tee Dee pusher config that flew really well. At around 14 I started working part time on a farm and never had money problems to finance my toys which was a bonus.
edi
 

Thanks for taking the time to reply Edi. Sometimes I wonder.. at my age, what will be keeping me busy down the road, from a "hobby" standpoint. I've been preparing for several years, to have a well-stocked work-shop geared primarily toward scratch-building model-planes/boats using balsa-wood and other types of wood. This forum is a great resource for tips on a myriad of different modelling subjects. I enjoy collecting data and building a database.

I love this forum mostly because it supports an American Hobby Icon from my youth.. and connects me with like-minded people worldwide.. and their stories!

Best to you Edi. Be well, safe, happy and healthy.

You could not have said it better to me Roddie.  An American Hobby Icon. In every COX  engine I already have and will have gained I see the same quality, finesse and inspiring sophistication of an American  toy and  a rich childhood that only transpired to me from beyond the Iron Curtain, mesmerizing me 46 or so years ago when I accidentally got my first red postage backplate reedie, and that only left me yearning then for more..Times have changed since then but that very same symbolism is still carried by each COX engine I encounter and add to my fleet...I wish that could have happened 46 years ago but what I missed then I will make up for in the rest of my active years..

balogh wrote:You could not have said it better to me Roddie.  An American Hobby Icon. In every COX  engine I already have and will have gained I see the same quality, finesse and inspiring sophistication of an American  toy and  a rich childhood that only transpired to me from beyond the Iron Curtain, mesmerizing me 46 or so years ago when I accidentally got my first red postage backplate reedie, and that only left me yearning then for more..Times have changed since then but that very same symbolism is still carried by each COX engine I encounter and add to my fleet...I wish that could have happened 46 years ago but what I missed then I will make up for in the rest of my active years..

Funny that the respect you have for the Cox brand from a different country is related to my admiration of the Moki brand from your country. The older motors were quite well made in the 2.5cc size for the FAI speed models. Now they are equally as impressive, although not in my desired size.

Yes Aspeed indeed MOKI has been the pride of Hungarian model engine production. I had 1.5ccm diesels and they  were really dependable high quality engines. I had once the honor of Moki designer the late and great Gyula Krizsma tapping my only COX 049, blown head for a normal plug application (the year was 75 with COX engines and parts unobtainium behind the good ole' Curtain)..to me Moki engines are sumo fighters as opposed to COX engines being beautiful ballerinas