Venom Frog

Check this out.

https://www.sceptreflight.com/Model%20Engine%20Tests/Frog%20Venom.html



And this one

https://www.sceptreflight.com/Model%20Engine%20Tests/Frog%20049%20%282%29.html

This Frog Venom is simply a badge engineering job on the DC Wasp, introduced in 1971. Other than 'Frog' on the crankcase and a bit of colour anodising-the latter by no means universal....they are the same engine. In modern terms its the difference between ASP and SC engines...

The silly thing is-there WAS a Frog Venom....back around 1960-it was the plain bearing version of the drum valve twin BB Frog Viper 1.5cc diesel....both rather rare and collectable these days.  DC did themselves no favours by reusing an existing Frog name on a completely different engine- a rather transparent marketing exercise which fooled no one-other than those prepared to pay a bit more for a DC Wasp with a bit of makeup applied!

That being said-there's nothing wrong with the Wasp or its Venom sibling....they are adequate sport motors-virtually identical in power to a Cox Babe Bee.....and without the frustrating quirks of the latter. The radial tank mount sensibly has the same mounting hole spacing as the Cox tanked reed valves...which is handy.

There was also a silencer available-but this did absorb quite a bit of power....for the same reason that Cox ones do-subpiston induction and mufflers is never a happy combination.

ChrisM
'ffkiwi'

Boats13 wrote:That's cool! I've only seen diesels by Frog...

Actually Frog made quite a lot of glow engines right from the late 40s-the 160 glow appeared in 1948, the 500 glow in 1950-the latter remaining in production for the next 14 years-the Frog 149 glow vibramatic in 1956, the Frog 049 in 1959 (the glow version of the Frog 80 diesel)-and as mentioned above the 1.5cc Venom glow version of the Viper diesel in 1961. Frog went out of production in 1963 due to the collapse of the Lines brothers toy empire-which included International Model Aircraft-by this time a subsidiary of Lines Bros. AA Hales were the main UK distributors for Frog-and purchased the rights-and presumably quite a bit of inventory-from the Lines Bros bankruptcy administrators-and then contracted with Davies Charlton in the Isle of Man to continue production....some Frog engine models....the 149, and the 500-did not survive the change of manufacture-but the 80, 100, 150,249 and 349 diesels continued in production till about 1974-a range as diverse as DC themselves produced....

ChrisM
'ffkiwi'

This looks really good