The Aurora L-19 Bird Dog, more than just an airplane

Cribbs74 wrote:The little brown dude confuses me. What could it have been for? Not plane related I am sure.

Edit: I see it says spoon size on the back, probably a cereal prize.

Think his "Helmet Antenna" is from Nabisco's Logo.

I'm glad this was solved. And I thought he would be a 'jumper' from the airplane if he lost control of it....

Bob...you be da man.

                                              S C O R E !!!

lol, i saw the li'l guy right away and thought for a second it was 'Quisp' from the 60's cereal, then i saw a squirrel and went off in another direction. The Bird Dog looks great Bob....hmm 2 Aurora planes now, could this be a start of something?

Bob, thanks for sharing your build, and thanks Mark for the ad. AFAIK, I didn't even see those Aurora's back in the mid 1960's department store toy catalogues and Air Force base hobby shop. Those were before my time, I was 6 in 1960. My first kit was a 1/72nd scale plastic DC-3. Those Auroras as somewhat a part of obscure history now, along with the A.C. Gilberts.

Looks like the Cessna was run before and more than once as the plastic fuselage behind the engine is discoloured and slightly melted from the exhaust heat.

Checked with the inflation calculator, $9.95 in 1960 is now $85 today. We've been spoiled by basically under-tariffed products from abroad, around say $30 in today's market if these were being built today, I imagine and with an electric motor most likely.

Back then, sale tax rates were either non-existent or very low at say, 2% - 3%, not like 8% and on up like today. A parent buying their child a Scientific F-86 profile for $0.89 each, a Cox .049 Babe Bee for $3.95, glues, dope and fuel proofer for decals (2.5 oz bottles) for under a couple bucks, the supplies sufficient to being shared with other models, at least the cost, it was not hard to see why kits were very popular.

Nice additions , that plane has even more to it than thought the way it is put together from the breakdown , i new i had seen that spoonman before but couldn't place it , my Dad worked at the A&P Grocery store yrs. ago and was always bringing me home the new stuff . A new fuel can too . I got one those pumps sometime back but was broken / dont work

rsv1cox wrote:Thanks guys.

Doc I couldn't believe that someone on ebay was actually asking $74.99 for Spoonman, so I checked.  There are two more listed for $120 each. World going nutz or what.  Asking and getting are two different things.

Doesn't matter, the little guy isn't going any place.  He is a permanent part of that airplane.  I already have the birthday card sealed along with the instructions etc. Last thing to do is clean up the model, not to much though.  Box came out pretty good.  

Thanks for that ad Mark, copied it and will print it out.  

I've long-wanted one of the cereal premium "Songbirds" that were packed in, I think, Nabisco Shredded Wheat back in the early 1960's  (Had several, but they all got away from me).

Those things are crazy high the few times they show up on Ebay, so I'm gonna be happy just looking at the photos from the auctions.

So to re-cap:

Army moves--- eventually our dear old mother threw away 5 kids Comic book collections from the 50s to 70s

Brothers and I had literally EVERY 1st edition of all the D.C. and Marvel comics ...of course they were all well worn but still worth a LOT more than the 10c, 15c, or 25c we paid in the Post Exchange (PX)

Mom actually indulged us from the Commissary by buying cereals just so we could have the toys inside... I know we had dozens of the Nabisco Spoon aliens and probably 4 or 5 songbirds...and until some one shows other cereal toys I have no idea how many of all the different series we used to have...Toy boxes full of them

one brother of mine and I had a entire Division worth of Army Men, Tanks, Jeeps, Trucks, and the requisite fire crackers to stage real wars.....MY dad had a pretty extensive collection of Pewtar hand painted British and American 1812 soldiers...

no one still alive knows where any of that stuff went except the comics (newspaper recycle stack)

fredvon4 wrote:So to re-cap:

Army moves--- eventually our dear old mother threw away 5 kids Comic book collections from the 50s to 70s

Brothers and I had literally EVERY 1st edition of all the D.C. and Marvel comics ...of course they were all well worn but still worth a LOT more than the 10c, 15c, or 25c we paid in the Post Exchange (PX)

Mom actually indulged us from the Commissary by buying cereals just so we could have the toys inside... I know we had dozens of the Nabisco Spoon aliens and probably 4 or 5 songbirds...and until some one shows other cereal toys I have no idea how many of all the different series we used to have...Toy boxes full of them

one brother of mine and I had a entire Division worth of Army Men, Tanks, Jeeps, Trucks, and the requisite fire crackers to stage real wars.....MY dad had a pretty extensive collection of Pewtar hand painted British and American 1812 soldiers...

no one still alive knows where any of that stuff went except the comics (newspaper recycle stack)

Great story.

Never heard of that brand

J.C. Higgins, I think that was a Sears brand of firearms name, under contract by various someone elses.

Mark Boesen wrote:lol, i saw the li'l guy right away and thought for a second it was 'Quisp' from the 60's cereal, then i saw a squirrel and went off in another direction. The Bird Dog looks great Bob....hmm 2 Aurora planes now, could this be a start of something?

So, I have seen this advert several times. What gets me is they found some random dumpy dude and had him stand next to dirt birm with the old bird dog plowed into the side of it.

Several things don’t work, like the guy flying the plane instead of pumping gas and the fact that his position makes no sense at all. Unless he lauched the plane 180 from where he is facing and and the fact the Aurora couldn’t have even made it off the ground in that amount of runout.

It just makes me laugh. I guess the target audience wouldn’t even know or care anyway.

My grandfather gave me a Aurora P-40 which was a model. The kit though was designed originally to be a control line plane which came with a bellcrank. It was a interesting model as it was all screwed together aside from the wing halves. I modified the fuse for a Babe Bee and not knowing then exactly how to balance a plane, I took it out to fly it. I had a small parking lot across the street which provided parking for a park. I fueled it up and my buddy Sam let it go and it went straight up and over head. When this happens, there's no looking back and it's the other side of the circle that became it's resting place. POW!!!!!! straight in it went. The crank broke, the nose on the case split as well and there were pieces scattered all over. I had a real jerk of a neighbor who unfortunately was born without a off switch for his mouth. He proceeds to quickly run over and tell me I better clean all of the mess up or I will be responsible for any flat tires.