Cox EZ Bee II - Pleased!

Even more pleasing: The fuel, unopened but dating from the early 1990s, is still good! Out of curiosity I tried a tank of it through a Pee Wee I'm refurbing and it seems OK.

Unfortunately the servos that come with the included hitec radio are a little too big for the servo pockets in the fuselage and don't play nice with the telemetry on my JR XG8 radio. They're fine with the old 27mHz radio that they came with but I can elicit a jitter mode on my JR radio by wiggling the sticks very quickly. The pockets are molded to fit Cox/Sanwa 80111 servos. I will try and source something smaller and fill in the gaps I think.

The other issue is adhesive on the stickers is quite dry so, if I use them, I'm going to have to spray their backs with something like 3M 77 (safe on foamies) before sticking them to the plane.

Getting there!
Simon

This evening I spent some time putting the model together. The wing joining tape was still OK but I had to spend time spraying the back of the decorative stickers with 3M77 because their adhesive had dried up. As someone who usually builds his own models and takes some pride in their fit and finish I was slightly annoyed that the tail is quite far from vertical when installed. Not sure if I can correct that on a polystyrene part.

I must admit I was expecting a smaller model until I received the box in the post. For a 1/2a size model this has a large 55” span which I hope will combine my gliding interest with my love for Cox Engines. Definitely the right model for me at least in terms of its flight profile of climb and glide. Just need to find some servos now.

What a pleasure. Good work

The EZ-Bee is what I used to teach myself to fly RC almost 30 years ago. I love those planes. I can't remember why I got my first one used from a hobby shop, but I flew the heck out of that one. Then when the wing broke from a few crashes, I bought a new one and flew the heck out of that one. I ended up given them away when moving, but I bought a NIB off eBay a couple of years ago and built it. They were stable enough that you COULD teach yourself to fly with them.

I remember one day I was at the open field we used for RC flying (that is, when the airplanes/homebuilts/skydivers weren't using the field) and flying my trusty EZ-Bee. I was talking to one of the other flyers as I started up the engine and gave the plane a toss. Then I turned around to look at him to answer a question and he said, "Watch the plane!" I said, "Oh, it'll be okay", and deliberately kept my back to the plane and talked to him for about another 20-25 seconds before I turned back to look at the plane. It was climbing out nice and straight as I knew it would be. That polyhedral wing makes it one of the most stable planes you'll find.

The Easy Mark

Hi, I’m new to this group. I was just given 2 unused E-Z bee trainers with the radio controls  in their boxes. Are they worth doing anything with? They have a 1988 date. I was planning to do this with my grandson. Are they too old to get the batteries, fuel and such?

Harv wrote:Hi, I’m new to this group. I was just given 2 unused E-Z bee trainers with the radio controls  in their boxes. Are they worth doing anything with? They have a 1988 date. I was planning to do this with my grandson. Are they too old to get the batteries, fuel and such?

Greetings Harv!! Welcome to the CEF!
Congrats on finding a couple of E-Z Bees! A lot has changed since 1988. but the "old" stuff is still usable as long as the site you fly at will allow it.  Some Clubs have gone Digital only, and even (shame on them) electric only.
My EZ Bees take regular AA batteries in the transmitter, and 4-AAA batteries in the receiver. Off the shelf Wal-mart/DuraCell Alkiline batteries.  Fuel is available from SIG or Fitz Fuels as 1/2AFuel   www.sigmfg.com or http://fitzfuels.com/index.php
If you follow the Cox manual instructions, they'll fly great.  Do you have any flight experience? If not check with a local club if possible for flight training assistance.

You also need one or two D cell batteries for glow head. Cox glow heads works with 1.5 Volts. Simply tape ends of glow clip ends on + and - poles of a D battery. If you want to use two batteries then wire them parallel, not series. You also can buy battery boxes made for this purpose here:

https://coxengines.ca/field-gear/cox-starter-battery-box-no-clip.html

OEM battery box:

https://coxengines.ca/field-gear/cox-starter-battery-box-oem-with-lid.html

Or, if you have Amazon Prime, what I like to use is:  D-Cell Holders

or: Other holders

I prefer the first, and I make up two battery boxes out of the four provided.  I use small cable ties and connect the black holders back to back in parallel and wire them to a glow head clip with slightly extended wires.  It's small enough for me to have in my shirt pocket for easy starting of the plane while I stand, holding the plane.

For the E-Z Bees, I know you'd prefer to use the radio equipment provided, but modern radio equipment is so much lighter, pretty cheap and reliable, that I'd use modern stuff.  Lighter will mean better performance, although my planes from back in the 90's flew great with the provided radios equipment.

If you're going to fly them, a feature that I'd strongly recommend is to take some filament strapping tape, and run it on the bottom of the wing from one wingtip to the other.  This helps with the foam wings bowing up when you hit a strong thermal or wind gust.

The Primo Mark