Baby Biwinger
The original inspiration (Air Trails, April 1952) (above left) and the latest product of that inspiration. Pages 40 and 41 (above right) of Air Trailsshowing most of the main body of the article and pictures of Lud Kading and one of his Biwingers, a 3-view and the full size templates to build the K&B powered variant of the model. Baby Biwinger with page 55 (below left) showing the remainder
of the article and a trip down memory lane for many in this hobby. Look at the prices in those ads. Clean simple lines very evident in this close-up picture (below right). The engine was mounted inverted on both the early model and the second later one from 1991 to try and keep the windshield half way clear and free of goo from the exhaust.
rapidly becoming an almost invisible spec in the sky and the engine was still running and the model had no DT! This was not going to be good if the glide ended up as expected. When the engine finally did quit the si-
lence at the field was deafening. Then I heard a voice out near the parking area for the F/F and C/L flyers yelling. “Did you see that? Did you see that? It was a biplane!” I kept my eye riveted on the model and the only way I could tell the difference between the model’s speck in the sky and all the flying insect specks in the sky was its uniform smooth circular glide pattern. “I’m doomed” I thought to myself, but kept my eye on the model. Eventually, the speck began to get bigger
and bigger and after what seemed to be an eternity the speck landed in some brush north of Burbank Boulevard. It was a long walk, but I at least knew the plane had re- turned to earth and where the model had generally landed. I had feared it would land on the road, but it went a good deal further. About a half hour later I returned to my car with the model and decided discretion was the better part of valor and went home with my new prize. What a performance. It had even im-
40
pressed the other high performance F/F types at the field. Later outings that followed usu- ally meant holding on to the model until the remaining fuel was guesstimated to be only 10–20 seconds and not presenting the threat of a fly away of the magnitude of the first outing. When an opportunity to work for the
Beech Aircraft Company presented itself in 1977 a move to Kansas was in order and I couldn’t take everything with me in the 1975 Honda Civic I owned, so a good deal had to be left at my parents’ home. The Baby Biwinger was one of those items left hang- ing from the bedroom ceiling. A year or so later during a return trip to visit I inquired where the Biwinger had gotten to. I was in- formed that my youngest brother and his good friend had taken it out into the cul-de- sac that my parents lived on and attempted to fly the plane. They had managed to get the engine run-
ning (screaming) and turned it loose in an attempted ROG that ended in a 7⁄8 loop ter- minating with an impact into the concrete curbing. There was nothing left worth sal- vaging. Unfortunately this was also about the time that Cox decided to discontinue the
little screamer and so I was out an engine. All that was left were a couple of black and white photos of what once was. Then, in about 1990 word came that Cox
would resume manufacturing these engines. To appease the collectors in the audience, their color scheme was changed to prevent counterfeiting of the valuable collectors en- gines and the packaging was also changed. I immediately snapped up several of these newer engines and began plans to replace that Biwinger I’d had so much fun with, but this time things would be a little different. First and foremost would be a limitation
on the tank. The plan was to try several lengths of clear plastic tubing to find a length that would provide a 15–20 second engine run with no chance of any serious over run. The second item would be some sort of DT in case the little critter should hook a thermal. Any major extension of a flight here in Kansas often means the mod- el will blow down wind and out of sight and usually into a group of hedge apple trees. Not the way I wanted to lose the model. It is mostly built from 1⁄16-inch thick sheet
balsa and one 3-inch wide, 36-inch long, very light piece of sheet balsa will just about
JULY 2012
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