"Oh Yeah, They Call Me the Breeze"...er...'The Wind"..uh.."Cosmic Wind"...That Is...

Thanks for the mount comparison Mark.

Here's a one-year bump. A recent thread discussed Testors props.. and some having tabs/knobs at the root/hub for attaching the spinner. The prop in the discussion was a 3-blade.. but my "Cox" Cosmic Wind came with two 2-blade props having tabs to hold its spinner. My spinner looks different than Kim's though..

The props (a 5 x 2 and 5 x 4) have no Cox-markings. Could they be leftover Testors stock that Cox used on their version? Did the Testors model ever come with alternate props?




The 5 x 4 is pretty roached. It's the only one I ever ran on the Cosmic wind. I used that prop/spinner on the Rare Bear for the first CEF Speed Contest. I'd bought three APC 4.75 x 4's.. but didn't end-up using them for the flight-trials.



I wanted to use that spinner..   but it got cracked when the engine backfired and threw-the-prop on the tarmac. It was a temperamental engine to start. When I did manage to start it, I experienced prop-strikes coming out of the launch-stooge every time. The stooge is 1/2" plywood.. and the tail-gear length/angle compounded the issue.



The model was tail-high coming out of the gate.. and never taxied more than 3-4 ft. before the prop-strikes occurred. Nerve-wracking to say the least. My wife was with me.. but she was the videographer. I also didn't want her down near the running model without safety-glasses. I may put larger diameter wheels on the model. I have the same style in 1/2" larger diameter. It's a R.O.G. model.... like all the ones I've flown. I'll make it work. I love that part.. not sure why.. but real airplanes roll before they take flight. I'll mess with the APC props more too. I was literally down to the wire on the Speed Contest. I should have experimented with engine-compression.. but didn't know what I've learned recently. It was also my 1st experience with a Tee Dee ported cylinder. I ran a stock low-compression glow-head with a single gasket on Sig Champion 25. I was getting higher rpm out of that engine.. than any of my other reedies.. never tach'd it.. but didn't need to. It freakin' screamed on the bench.. once I got the fuel flowing from a hard-tank. I actually stood-back. Tough starting though.. There's a myriad of variables there. The integrity of my glow-driver.. suspect-freshness of the fuel.. (don't be a fuel-collector.. like me).. but it must have been ok.. to achieve a handful of screaming bench-runs. My issue is in the expectation of a reliable suction-feed.. running a coarse needle in that backplate. I thought that increasing the ID of the fuel-line was the answer. Too much air was breathing through that Killer-Bee backplate. A small fuel-line was more resistant to flow I thought. Swapping to a larger line was the only way to get the engine to run past an exhaust-prime. It worked though.. on bench-runs.. Now there's the ability of the tank to supply a steady amount of fuel during the flight. Can't really test that in the air.. until your first flight. I now have high-compression glow-heads.. so I could experiment there. I'd like to rule-out the fuel-freshness variable. Maybe it's not too late to ask Santa for a quart..  

It would be tempting to install the Rare Bear engine in my Cox Cosmic Wind.. and try to fly it. The Killer-Bee back-end (horseshoe backplate) will slip right in. That would have been an interesting marketing-approach for Cox. The Cosmic Wind.. A "Racing-Model" for experienced fliers. That's really what it was meant to be.