Fourth of July 2009, A friend of our showed up at the flying field with a Top Flight Score with what we thought was a Super Tigre 60 in it. NOT SO, It was an OS 58 that sounded ljust like the Tigre. I never knew they made such an engine. It has a milder timing than the Tigre but lot of goooood gruuuunt. It belongs to Ted Gritzmacher of Battleground Wash. Does anyone know the history of this engine like how many we5re made and what years. It is lighter tan te tigre and uses less fuel.  My observations are it should be made again.

Scott.. how did you hemi the head? Just curious.. as I have been reading that Bob Z has been doing this on several engines with great success.. pictures?

More along the lines of the FP 40 and it's clones .. reading on engine mods where just changing the combustion chamber has worked well instead of the traditional timing modifications.. (raising the intake port and lowering the liner).

I see the OS 58 was followed by the OS F60H in 1967.. RC Pattern was still in it's infancy. The Enya 45 & 60 III, Merco's 49s & 61s, ST 51s and 56s were the established engines for the time period.. OS was making great inroads but hadn't quite established itself in the market yet. They did have the 50 R/C and the R60 R/C in 1963. OS was playing the market very closely and their big sellers came with the 35S, 40H, 40P and 40RR.. and the 1968 H60GP with it's Gold Head.. jewelery for model airplanes.. engines with painted heads and later ones with anodized heads have always "caught" modelers much like a flashy fishing lure.. some lived up to their reputations and others didn't. The Gold Head 60 was a real gem which competed with the ST 60 which eventually got the Blue Head (I wonder why?).. 1968 was the year that began OS' domination on the world model engine market. World Engines owned by John Maloney (1922-1987) became/was the sole importer of ST and OS engines, this alliance was key to market domination.  Indy RC took over World Engines and with it's demise Maloney got the OS Distributorship back, shortly before his death, Great Planes (Hobbico Inc) made him an offer he couldn't refuse.. and he sold it to the Tower Hobbies/Great Planes people.

The engine I always wondered about is the 1960 .49.. which the OS site lists as a 1961 issue .. another one year wonder.. I thought about converting mine to CL but instead opted to go with engines already established as stunt friendly.. both the 49 and 58 are rare for sure.. it is always cool to see an old engine getting service again..




Jim