Cox powered "ducted fan"

Back in the 1970"s, Midwest made an RK049 dusted fan kit for the Tee Dee .049 engine. Dick Sarpolus made an R/C F-16 using the fan unit, debuted as a construction article in one of the modeling magazines.

Kress Jets was about the only one to offer what might be called a "modern" ducted fan. You'll find examples of 1/2A ducted fans dating way back to freeflight days of Veron. https://outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=11807

This reminds me I should get on with my project.

https://www.coxengineforum.com/t13282-td-09-ducted-fan

gkamysz wrote:Kress Jets was about the only one to offer what might be called a "modern" ducted fan. You'll find examples of 1/2A ducted fans dating way back to freeflight days of Veron. https://outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=11807

Was it possible that Midwest was repackaging the Kress unit under their label?

The Midwest Axiflo were designed by Robert (Bob) Kress. At some point the line was sold to Kress.

Apart from Veron and their extensive line of DF kits in the early 50s,along with a range of impellers up to 2.5cc , Berkley in the US produced impellers for 049 and 020 engines...presumably they also did suitable kits.  'Aeromodeller' has published plans for an 049 DF EE Lightning...and other MAP titles have from time to time published various RC designs...not all of them scale-some are merely 'look alike' OD....the 'Javahawk' comes to mind. AFAIK the Veron designs are still available as plans-and perhaps printwood templates....from Colin Smith the son of the original designer-Phil Smith. Most of the Veron DF kits would perform nicely on TD 049 power-or a Norvel.

ChrisM
'ffkiwi'

PS I was lucky to be able to purchase the very last two original Veron impellors from Phil Smith back in 1999-these are the fibre multiblade type, not the later moulded one-piece nylon ones, along with plans for the F-86 Sabre and Lavochkin kits

gkamysz wrote:The Midwest Axiflo were designed by Robert (Bob) Kress. At some point the line was sold to Kress.

Thanks for clarifying, @gkamysz .

@ffkiwi ChrisM, it is good that kits available to you had non-metallic impellers. In US, sheet metal impellers were included with Berkeley engine powered ducted fan jet kits of the 1950's. I think it may have been AMA that was instrumental afterwards in banning metal propellers in their US model flight safety code (Before my time as an adult, may have had a history of serious injury).

The Bob Kress ducted fan kits for glow motors was a novelty at the time as an adult, but I wasn't interested in pursuing such, preferring the simplicity and quick building of Cox tanked engine powered propeller planes.