COX Super Sport Trainer

Hello to your forum group. I have to confess to being a visitor. My hope is some or all of you will take a minute to hear why I'm here. I began flying R/C gliders in 1973. My mentor taught me on one of his own designs, a sailplane called the SportPro, designed that same year. He went on to become a teacher and encourager of everyone he met in the hobby. He just recently passed away and I've embarked on a dream to build and fly a SportPro in Harley's honor. Which brings me to why I'm here. I just received the plans for this ship and, of all things, Harley used the canopy from a Cox F1 trainer as part of his canopy design. I've attached a photo of that part.

Much browsing eventually led me to your forum and your discussion of this small vintage plane. Something tells me odds are pretty slim to find and buy one. However I'm hoping that some owner of the little gems might be willing to help me realize this sentimental goal. I'd like the new SoortPro to be true to Harley's original as much as possible. If someone is willing to assist by providing a few photos of your canopy and some pertinent dimensions maybe I can reproduce it in fiberglas.

Anyway, I'm sorry this was so long and I appreciate anyone who waded through it.

If there is someone willing to help, you can contact me at. j e g b f l a t @ g m a I l

Thanks again!

Jerry G
Mount Vernon, WA

Hello Jerry, welcome to our forum. Stay here and you will read about  the fantastic experience of our members with the marvellous COX engines, planes and much more.

I have a NIB F1 Super Sport Trainer that is one of the prettiest COX planes IMHO. The F1 was my first and only COX plane I ever had some 47 years ago, the fragments of the fuselage still sitting in my garage. It did a lethal job in addicting me to the     hobby.  

They sometimes pop up on ebay from where I also bought my this,  2nd one near 2 years back (see at the beginning of  the thread of the posts),  and while not cheap, they are worth the 100-ish US bucks money for COX fans.

This one is priced astronomical, but you may find better deals:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Cox-Super-Sport-Trainer-Plane-/274865485465?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0

The canopy is about 10.5 cm long and 6cm wide at its base, and 4.5cm tall at its rear.
The planes of the canopy back and base join in an angle of about 115 degree i.e they are not perpendicular. You can see that 2 posts up on the genuine product photos.
Sorry for the rough numbers. I did not want to pop the canopy out from the fuselage, the 40+ year old plastic tabs may be brittle by now  and break easily.



If I wanted to make one, I would probably repurpose a household cleaning fluid  plastic bottle of matching dimensions and cut out the canopy from its shoulder. Transparent window cleaner fluid bottles or similar are plentiful in a Wallmart and you just have to find the contour and dimensions  best matching the canopy, sitting on the shelf.

Good luck.

I received mine around 74. The looks of it was overwhelming. It was to replace my devastated PT-19. Well I managed to obliterate it on it's first flight. Not because it became airborne. I hit a parking lot light abutment. Talk about a Charlie Brown moment. Well, it was apparent I had a thing for this plane and I received another almost a year later to the date. This has been with me since on my work bench. This newer model has the screen tack welded to the cylinder. I keep saying should I fly it. One day I suppose I will. What good does it do on the bench? I have the instructions, the handle, no box.

Ken,

My concern is whether the plastic has become too brittle or not. Once I bought an engine screwed to the pink firewall, and when I wanted to remove it, the firewall disintegrated to its atoms, almost pulverized. I am also tempted to fly mine but to flight-test the bellcrank pole if strong enough to withstand centrifugal forces would be a devastating exercise,  if it is not.

I completely agree. My hobby shop had all the replacement parts in the rafters in the basement. I should've purchased them. My outboard tip is drooped and this was a common problem with these. I would go to Penn Valley Hobby shop  on Thursday evenings. My club did this for years as we would get our needed supplies and have dinner around the corner. The amount of rare Cox parts they had was just overwhelming. I never gave it a thought to purchasing any of them. What is now deemed as rare was in plain view and in the glass cases for sale. The parts they had literally consumed a room of about 250 sq ft.  The Cox dragster parts were plentiful and all of the parts for planes were in the ceiling rafters. Boxes of fuselages and other parts. Larry Renger visited us one evening for dinner. I remember he was in awe seeing that stuff. He bought two new PT-19's and several parts for them. They were using them to teach kids to fly and parts were becoming difficult to source.

Do you know where that plethora of genuine COX parts wound up after the hobbyshop stopped selling them or closed? Did they simply sell out, or, ( I am shivering to even think of it   ) discarded them?

So nice to revisit this thread and read all the responses again.

I remember it stimulated me to look for one, but never found it. I think I wound up with this wingless Testors look-alike fuselage for which I added a balsa wing of unknown design.

your best bet for finding a canopy is to keep watching E bay. You'll find a parts lot or portion of a plane that has the canopy.  You could look up "Gascarman" as a seller on the bay, he has lots of Cox parts. I think he is a bit high on shiping this item, as the other items he has listed are more reasonable in shipping.