This video was a nostalgia trigger for me — back in my youth, I built model airplanes, and of course they were driven by the ubiquitous Cox .049 engine.
The video makes them sound more reliable than they actually were. The coil was easily fouled, and trying to get the dang things started by repeatedly turning them over would make that worse. Yes, there was an art to tweaking that needle valve, but when you had a finicky engine optimizing the fuel mix was a process that could kill it, and then you’d spend ages trying to get that fouled up engine restarted. I envied those people who had the nifty motorized starters — I was just using the spring on the engine to get it going.
I still remember the “brap” noise when you tried to start them, and that rewarding but obnoxious mosquito-whine when it finally caught.
You can’t get them anymore. They’ve all been replaced by easy, quiet, smooth-running electric motors. Good.
Oops, apparently you can still buy them. But why would you?
My brother had a cheap control-line airplane that had one of those. I think he got it running twice, and then crashed the plane badly enough that we could never get it running again. It was frankly kind of surprising that something like that would run at all.
OMG yes. 1971, nine years old, I got one of these as a hand-me-down (literally, from the loft). I bought fuel and battery and spent hours trying to start it with the in-built spring, and then learnt that the glow-plug often burns out. I bought a new ‘plug, swapped it in, but my luck was out: I flicked it over and it fired first time, whipped round and near took my finger off. The joy, amazement and indescribable pain are etched vividly onto my memory. Now in retirement, I sometimes forget which day of the week it is, but recollecting my first engineering ‘mend’ brings tears still, though now of happiness and pride. Thanks for the reminder.