1966 Wen Mac Commercial----trip down memory lane!

[George Albo]

Great commercial from WenMac from yesteryear!

[mike londke]

Funny- I have one of those throttle controllers NIB. I'm about to put it on Ebay.

[Shug Emery]

Made my day!
Shug

[Carl Cisneros]

I had a couple of the hovercrafts when I was a BIT younger.

One of mine had the throttle which could be set only manually.

had a great time with them.

[Jim Hoffman]

Very cool.

Truly representative of our shared DNA.

Jim Hoffman

[Dwayne]

Way cool, thanks!

[Jim Svitko]

Somewhere in my stash of modeling components I have a Wen Mac 049.  It has not been run in many years, maybe since the 60s.  From what I remember it was rather weak and barely managed to pull a Baby Flite streak or Jumpin' Bean off the ground.  The Cox Golden Bee was our choice back then.

[Fredvon4]

While the cartoon scenes were a tad cheesey but very typical of the time ...at least as I remember seeing these type commercials in Black n White

What really got my attention ...mostly because I had a few of these type toys...Very nice choreography and super video-ography.  Good camera focus and tracking of the model... but I have to wonder how many hours of shooting to get those few seconds of perfect flight or uncontrolled hovering...

Of course the first watch was without my cynical critical eye, and I simply enjoyed the video as I did as a kid...thanks for sharing

[FLOYD CARTER]

Wouldn't it be wonderful if those things actually started on the first flip?

[Tony Drago]

Floyd. You got that right.
 That's why Cox took over at Disneyland. Wen-Mac motors were unreliable. Those were the days.
 Bart Klapinski Use to be one of the flight demonstrators for Cox at the Disney aero dome.
 Back in the day.

[Paul Smith]

My next door neighbor was a mechanical genius.  The only kid on on block who could make WenMac run.  He started out with a hovercraft.  Not the one in the video.  His had hand controller with a cable-in-tube system that let him hover it with the throttle.  I saw it demonstrated on the NBC Today Show.  They got a one-flipper on the show.  And that was before the days of video tape.

After he broke the hovercraft he designed, built, and flew a CL model with the WenMac.   

He was very advanced.  Everybody else was flying Swordsmen and hollow logs.

[Brett Buck]

Wouldn't it be wonderful if those things actually started on the first flip?

   Out of the box, I never had a problem. The Wen-Mac and very-closely-related Testors plastic models were no problem at all to get going when they were new. What we never managed (me or any of the other neighborhood kids) was getting them going after they sat a few days. The testor's engine, particularly, was hopeless. The adjustment wasn't really a needle valve, it was a nylon rod with a groove cut in it, and fuel leaked through the groove. My diagnosis (after ~50 years of considering the problem) was that the castor oil gummed up the groove if it sat for more than about a week. The symptom was that it would run out prime after prime, but never keep going. The adjustment rod just pulled out of the engine, so I expect that had we removed it, cleaned it carefully, flushed the metering hole with dope thinner, etc, we might have been in business, but kids don't usually think of stuff like that.

    The Testors/Wen Mac "Zero" was the best flying of the plastic RTFs, at least the ones we had. It had enough power and more wing area than most of them except the Cox PT-19, and that had too much lifting airfoil to fly level in the wind, or at least not easily.

      Brett

[Dan Berry]

There are ways to make the WenMac run. I know 2 guys who can one-flip start'em every time. I use the electric starter for mine. We're talking FF planes.
Mine turns a black 5x3 a very steady 14,300. Everyone poor mouths it until they see it fly. Bill Schmidt set it up. Gave me all the info and said to trim the plane, oil the engine after and only fly it at a contest because it won't last. Mk3 and Mk4 are the ones to use. Mk1 and 2 have an interference and the top or bottom 
(I forget which) will literally hit and edge in the cylinder.

I noticed that wasn't really any footage that I would believe is the Peashooter actually flying.

[dennis lipsett]

I ran a lot of Wen Macs as a kid and probably got everyone's engine going that I knew. it wasn't magic it was glow plug and battery. They wouldn't start if the battery was even a little off full voltage and the plug had to be hot and clean. They liked to be a little wet and they actually did put out decent power on Cox sport fuel. You never used those rubber band props did you. They were the problem of so little thrust. I did have a Wen Mac on a flite streak and it did keep up with a Baby Bee but it was swinging atop Flite 5/3 prop which was rigid and gave more thrust then a wobbling rubber band. The best of the lot were versions 1/2/3 after the Rotomatic starter was added the drag was just too much to overcome. unless you removed it which we did in short order. I wonder if many remember that the first engines had anodizing. Mine looked really good when it was new.
I still have the booklet from the first Wen Mac that I owned and it is from the one of the earliest run of Wen Mac motors. it was a classy booklet the kind that made kids want to get out and fly. Have a look

[Skip Chernoff]

I was able to get my PeaShooter to fly,but it was more like a rock on a string.

[Paul Smith]

The days of bad results with OK Cub, WenMac, Testers, etc were before modern glow drivers.  Maybe the plugs just needed more boost than a worn out dry cell. 

I remember the days of the big round 1.5 v battery with two screw lugs on the top.  When were out flying and glow power get low, we'd series-connect two bad batteries to get what we needed.

[john e. holliday]

Great little video, but I guess this all happened while I was playing with Rat Race, Combat and Carrier.   But, I did help with a couple of Testor planes .

[Dave Harmon]

I ran a lot of Wen Macs as a kid and probably got everyone's engine going that I knew. it wasn't magic it was glow plug and battery. They wouldn't start if the battery was even a little off full voltage and the plug had to be hot and clean. They liked to be a little wet and they actually did put out decent power on Cox sport fuel. You never used those rubber band props did you. They were the problem of so little thrust. I did have a Wen Mac on a flite streak and it did keep up with a Baby Bee but it was swinging atop Flite 5/3 prop which was rigid and gave more thrust then a wobbling rubber band. The best of the lot were versions 1/2/3 after the Rotomatic starter was added the drag was just too much to overcome. unless you removed it which we did in short order. I wonder if many remember that the first engines had anodizing. Mine looked really good when it was new.
I still have the booklet from the first Wen Mac that I owned and it is from the one of the earliest run of Wen Mac motors. it was a classy booklet the kind that made kids want to get out and fly. Have a look

Dennis....wow....this is the first time I have seen that booklet since....well....back then I guess.
That anodized Wen-Mac was my first engine....must have been 51' or 52'.....what a beautiful thing it was...at least to my eyes!
But....there was not a soul in Tulsa at that time that could make it run.
It would only run out the prime.

My Dad and I took it back to Harvard Hobbies and even ol' Buck Tiers could not start it....so Buck being the good guy that he was and owner of the shop did the right thing and took back the Wen-Mac and replaced it with a K&B .049.
Of course the K&B was very easy to handle and ran very well.
I flew it for several years on logs and a couple of scratch built turkeys.

About 60 years later I spoke with Bill Schmidt about some Atwood .049's that I wanted to fly and he explained what was likely the problem with the WM.
My own opinion regarding the early WM was that the shaft may have been miss-timed.
I am only guessing but even though that WM never ran....I never gave up.

Luckily at the time in Tulsa there were (and still are) legions of modelers that were mentoring us kids.
Just a few are....Charles Gilliland, Buck Tiers, Harold 'Bud' Marr, the Kerr brothers, De Hill, George Milliken and a little later George Aldrich.
And I cannot forget the entire Tulsa Glue Dobbers.
 

[Steve Helmick]

FWIW, my first truly controlled CL flights (i.e., not phugoid) were with a Wen-Mac salvaged from one of their earliest RTF red plastic things (Aero Mite?). It barely lifted off the ground, so I knew I needed to be very gentle on the controls. The following week, the plane was repowered by an OK Cub .049B...only slightly zippier. Then, returned to the original Babe Bee, which was quite the powerhouse.  Steve