I believe it was Harold Price somewhere around 1964.  I remember that being one of my "Dream" planes to build someday as a kid.

Ken

The plumbing in the pix is his pneumatic retract system.

 Has anyone seen it before?

Crusader by Harold Price.  American Modeler,  Jan/Feb 64.  Magazine article/plans explains/shows a retracting gear.

Keith

I received these uncredited photos of a model that I imagine is from the 60's. In addition to an unconventional design, this model has an aerodynamic/mechanical device. Has anyone seen it before?

I would guess that the device uses increasing airspeed to trigger the retraction of the landing gear, then decreasing airspeed to lower it.

The plane used a TD .010 as an air pump to work the landing gear.  The power taken from a Fox 35 Stunt for this purpose has always bothered me.  Maybe it only robbed power during retraction, then went into a free-wheeling mode.

Dennis Toth asked me how I got my GMA ABC Fox35s to run well.  I asked George Aldrich how to break in one of his engines and he said the following:  start it and get it running at a fast 4 cycle then hold the plane vertical and then lean the needle until the engine is screaming at the fastest 2 stroke it will do without sagging. Run it for one minute that way minimum and then richen it back to a fast 4 cycle horizontally and go fly.  That seats the piston and the tapered bore chrome cylinder to each other at the top of the squish band.  Worked perfect each time on my 4 GMA engines.