One of the Coolest, Most Short-Lived Planes I Ever Built...Jetco PA-12 "Super Cruiser"

In the 1960's, my Uncle Wayne built this Jetco Super Cruiser, posed here with my cousins Bobby and Carol, and powered it with a well-worn, and muffled Cox engine, along with an occasional super-tired Wen Mac as well. It was our "Dead-Calm Day Airplane" due to it's extremely "casual" performance, flying with what could only optimistically be referred to as "Line Tension". While I never personally witnessed them, Wayne told stories of it making several forays into the flight circle, with only Bobby's fast "back-peddling" saving the day.





It was also a personal favorite of mine because, to me, it seemed so much like a real airplane. The slow turning engine required a pretty decent take-off run, and it's super slow flight allowed for careful "full-power" touch-and-goes, running it on it's main gear across the infield dirt of our local ball diamond.

In the 1980's I was able to get the same kit from America's Hobby Center, and decided to build it as a slow-flying R/C. I chose a throttled Dragon Fly .049, and built it "Old School" with Ambroid, Aerogloss, and silkspan. Models of this era always seemed to me to be built over-the-top-complex: resplendent with plenty of bracing angles, lamination of parts, and with the legendary "die-crushed" parts sheets. I persevered though, and finished the plane, installing a "Micro" Airtronics flight pack.

The flights were an R/C version of it's predecessor, with SUPER slow passes being it's specialty. We only got a couple of trips to the field however, before my little Cruiser planted it's self in the pavement. In those days, I still used a "Wall Tick" block charger, plugging it in the night before a flying session, and just hoping for the best.

Near as I can figure, the battery gave up the ghost, and gave me full down elevator on it's way out, with no chance of backing off the throttle to lessen the carnage.. These planes are rigid little rascals, and other than the wing, just about everything in that complex, stick and tissue fuselage was shattered, along with my morale!

Still, I've got some photos of it doing it's thing:











Hope this isn't too boring, just some more lint-gathering from an aging kid !