Please, need some help to identify a Baby Bee ?

hikikomori89 wrote:Hi,

I know, the price is much too expensive, but it's a basis, and people have the "make an offer option".

But, as a beginner, my first question is : which model is it really ?

I thank you all !

http://www.ebay.fr/itm/131719273553?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

It is not a Babe Bee engine. What you have there is a 'Spook' engine. click on the link below and scroll just past half way down and it is there. Just below the engine in the blister pack. Hope this helps.
http://www.mh-aerotools.de/airfoils/cox_frameset.htm

hikikomori89 wrote:Is that really a "black widow" ?

Thank you !

http://www.ebay.fr/itm/131712936549?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

To me, yes it appears to be a late model Black Widow, Estes era I believe. Plastic backplate gives it away. However, I am not 100% sure if they used the red spinner then though, but I am not 100% sure. Mine came with just an un-anodized spinner and tank.

Thank you for those precious informations !

Fyi, in '65 the 'Spook' engine the needle was replaced with a one piece brass needle, the plastic version although cheaper has issues with air leaks.

That Spook engine seems quite rare ?

If i get 50 € I will be happy, I know that it is not THAT rare ;-)

NEW222 wrote:

hikikomori89 wrote:Is that really a "black widow" ?

Thank you !

http://www.ebay.fr/itm/131712936549?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

To me, yes it appears to be a late model Black Widow, Estes era I believe. Plastic backplate gives it away. However, I am not 100% sure if they used the red spinner then though, but I am not 100% sure. Mine came with just an un-anodized spinner and tank.

At that time Estes was slappin' anything in the packages

It's possible, could be what I call a change over BW, It could also be a pre-estes BW. They changed over to the plastic back plate a little after 82 or 83 when Leisure Dynamics flew the coop. (Bandit)

The Black Widow looks just like mine, and mine is not an estes version (I think). As far as I know (and that's not very far, I admit ), Estes versions had the slit exhaust, non-SPI, Babe Bee style cylinder. Yours is not one of those.

See if the cylinder has a number 1 stamped on it, you should find it under one of the exhaust ports. If there is a number 1, you should have a "real" Black Widow.

Got a plastic back Black Widow mounted to a Sterling Beginner's Fokker D-VII, given to me by a friend who was moving away back in 1984 or 1985. It has the gray plastic spring "ratchet" starter (one that decreases RPM by 300) like the one in Mark Boesen's photo, except it has the red anodized prop spinner. I think that was pre-Estes. Only other Estes products I bought were 2 Sure Starts for $6.99 in the early 2000's. Those, the compression wasn't the greatest.

I wished that Cox had made a larger .074 Sure Start with exhaust restrictor muffler. Being lighter weight, it might have had better sales. Then again, it might not. Those plastic backs helped to cheapen up production costs, but personally I prefer the metal backs to the plastic ones. I gather by then Leisure Dynamics was slowly on the decline. IMO, the loss of flying fields and people's lack of tolerance for noisy engines, change in attitudes from "healthy noise" to emphasis on self centred awareness, drop in costs for larger foreign engines and big RC spelled the death knell toward small engine aircraft, until the electrics appeared.

Used to go to US national parks where there was considerable absence of people for flying, but with these type activities banned from national parks leaves fewer places to go flying. FAA registration of legitimate modelling activities contrary to US Congressional law makes me wonder if some just want to stomp out what remains of modelling activity in US. With a kid being expelled for building a digital clock thought to be a detonating timer for an IED (improvised explosive device, i.e., home made bomb), seems a movement afoot to dumb down the population.

Sorry for the off-topic rant. I plan to still build and fly until they tell us we can't, just lately seems common sense has all but left the US.

I'll say that's a 90's Black Widow. Early to mid 90's.

Admin wrote:I'll say that's a 90's Black Widow. Early to mid 90's.

Hello, Jacob, I think you may be right. I have an empty Black Widow Box with the familiar later red and black. Instructions in it state copyrighted in 1992. I'm trying now to think of what I did with the motor the Beginner's Fokker came with. Stuff that happened 20+ years ago are getting harder to remember. Might be one of the older (but newer, LOL) Babe Bee's that I have.




I've got another Black Widow, black metal tank and anodized gold crankcase, with the thicker crankcase nose and thicker cylinder. That's an earlier one. There was one I used with my Ace exhaust throttle sleeve, I think that may be the engine, late 1970's. May be I'm wrong, but that I remember. Mounted it on my Airtronics Q-Tee, operated by KRD quick blip sequential throttle on my Ace R/C Pulse Commander with Adams actuator driving the rudder, elevator fixed by a pushrod link with end looped and bolted to fuselage. (Adjustable pushrod clevis allowed elevator trim adjustments.) Flew Q-Tee rudder only with auxiliary throttle (Hi-Med-Lo back to Hi).
I was having 1960's technology fun back in the late 1970's.

hikikomori89 wrote:Hi, I know, the price is much too expensive, but it's a basis, and people have the "make an offer option". But, as a beginner, my first question is : which model is it really? I thank you all !

http://www.ebay.fr/itm/131719273553?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

That is a really nice early version Cox 290 engine, hikikomori89, replacement engine for a Cox ready-to-fly airplane. Mark, I didn't know that the earlier version "Spook" (Fantôme) had an aluminium back. One I got in the very early 1970's had a plastic red back. It was off a Cox turtle deck P-51 with rubber banded wing with integrated plastic landing gear and solid plastic wheels. Another was off a donor L-4 or L-5 Liaison plane (brand new and I wrecked it on first flight back in 1971 or 1972).

Best regards from France.