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About Airplanes & Rockets

Kirt Blattenberger, Webmaster - Airplanes and Rockets

Kirt Blattenberger

BSEE - KB3UON

My Engineering Web: RF Cafe

Carpe Diem! (Seize the Day!)

Even during the busiest times of my life I have endeavored to maintain some form of model building activity. This site has been created to help me chronicle my journey through a lifelong involvement in model aviation, which all began in Mayo, MD ...

Airplanes And Rockets Copyright 1996 - 2026

All trademarks, copyrights, patents, and other rights of ownership to images and text used on the Airplanes and Rockets website are hereby acknowledged.

My Main Modeling Websites

Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) - Airplanes and RocketsAcademy of Model Aeronautics

Tower Hobbies logo - Airplanes and Rockets

Tower Hobbies

Horizon Hobby logo - Airplanes and Rockets

Horizon Hobby

Sig Manufacturing - Airplanes and Rockets

Sig Mfg

Brodak Manufacturing - Airplanes and Rockets

Brodak Mfg

Cox Sky Copter Free Flight Helicopter

Cox Sky Copter Helicopter - Airplanes and RocketsIn the late 1960s when I received a Cox Sky Copter for Christmas, there was very little in the way of commercially available flying model helicopters. Victor Stanzel sold its tethered ElectroMic "Copter" that was powered by a pair of "D" cell batteries. As far as I know, Cox made the only nitro fuel powered free flight helicopter named "Sky Copter." It was powered by a Cox .020 engine mounted to the top, center of the main rotor shaft, and caused the rotors to turn due to the counter torque cause by the propeller on the .020. It worked very well. After getting the engine started, you would give the rotors a spin in the clockwise direction (looking down from the top), and the gently push the model straight up. My guess is that most of the lift was provided by the engine's propeller pushing air down, and that the spinning rotors served primarily to stabilize the model during powered flight. Once the engine quit, the spinning rotors essentially went into a counter-rotation mode to gently bring the Sky Copter back to terra firma. See the Evening Capital newspaper edition from the Christmas I received the Cox Sky Copter.

This model is in like-new condition and does not appear to have ever been flown. It still has the fuel bottle (empty), starting battery box (empty), and engine wrench. It appears to be flyable.

Cox Sky Copter

Cox Sky Copter Box

Cox Sky Copter Box (overview)

Posted July 27, 2016