Jim Walker Army Interceptor

[Dan McEntee]

    I have a small collection of original and Frank Macey produced Jim Walker Interceptor catapult gliders, and I just finished building some of the Dave Thornburg version because they are a bit larger. While I was going through my stuff to build the new ones, I came across some Army Interceptor versions, the ones that were used for target practice during WW-2. These came out in 1039 in a red and blue scheme, and were all blue I believe when they were used for target practice, and left over units were sold retail after the war. If you are an old movie buff, you can see one in action in the movie " Best Years of Our Lives", where a young boy launches one inside a large drug store and causes a ruckess! I have some original fuselages and wing blanks that I would like to use and build up a few of those just for giggles and grins, so I'm looking for samples of either that I could get good color copies of, or if anyone knows of art work existing on the internet some where. I have searched through the AJ Classics web site and they have some color photos but it would be better to have a flat lay out of the wings and tail feathers. If anyone knows of such a thing, please let me know.
   I also managed to acquire a genuine Jim Walker Ceiling Walker and I want to do some reproductions of those  as close as i can to the originals, metal parts and all. If anyone has ever seen any plans or drawing for those let me know, please. Very little to find out on the net on those.
   Yeah, I should be building a new stunter, but these fun projects are irresistible.
    Thanks in advance and stay healthy!
     Dan McEntee

[Norm Faith Jr.]

    I have a small collection of original and Frank Macey produced Jim Walker Interceptor catapult gliders, and I just finished building some of the Dave Thornburg version because they are a bit larger. While I was going through my stuff to build the new ones, I came across some Army Interceptor versions, the ones that were used for target practice during WW-2. These came out in 1039 in a red and blue scheme, and were all blue I believe when they were used for target practice, and left over units were sold retail after the war. If you are an old movie buff, you can see one in action in the movie " Best Years of Our Lives", where a young boy launches one inside a large drug store and causes a ruckess! I have some original fuselages and wing blanks that I would like to use and build up a few of those just for giggles and grins, so I'm looking for samples of either that I could get good color copies of, or if anyone knows of art work existing on the internet some where. I have searched through the AJ Classics web site and they have some color photos but it would be better to have a flat lay out of the wings and tail feathers. If anyone knows of such a thing, please let me know.
   I also managed to acquire a genuine Jim Walker Ceiling Walker and I want to do some reproductions of those  as close as i can to the originals, metal parts and all. If anyone has ever seen any plans or drawing for those let me know, please. Very little to find out on the net on those.
   Yeah, I should be building a new stunter, but these fun projects are irresistible.
    Thanks in advance and stay healthy!

Hi Dan, you mentioned one of my "most favorite" flying machines ever. The "Ceiling Walker." I can't tell you how many I had while growing up. I loved to soup mine up with extra rubber and fly them outdoors.
 While stationed at Hurlburt Field Florida around 1973, (USAF) I was telling the guys in the shop about Ceiling Walkers. None of them had ever heard of, or had seen one and I could tell they were skeptical of my explanation of how it worked. So!...Being a fabricator by trade and having access to our shop, (Aircraft Structural Repair Shop) I decided that I would make one, to show them how it worked. Somehow, I lost sight of trying to prove a point and made a decision to "really" prove a point, to build and successfully fly the largest Ceiling Walker ever. Once I got started with building my machine, I got the attention of a few of the skeptics, who wound up lending a hand. I fashioned the fuselage out of a 48" length of 1/2" 6061 T6 .049 wall aluminum tubing. The machine shop, on the other side of the hangar,  made my "thrust button" turned from billet aluminum. The propeller shaft / motor hook, was made from 1/8" piano hinge wire, was inserted onto the trust button, heated and bent into specs. by our welding shop. I cut and shaped the rotor blades from 1/8" phenolic sheet about 18" in rotor span with around a 3" chord at the blade's widest point, I just guessed at the pitch, which was quite a bit. The "drive rotor blade hub area, was reinforced with a folded sheet of T3 .040 aluminum, a similar reinforcement was done on the stationary rotor blade that slid into a slot on the other end of the tube and also served as an anchor for the motor. A 1/8" cable "ball swage" was used as a bearing between the drive rotor blade hub and thrust button. The motor consisted of a single loop of 3/16" bungee chord. I rigged up one of our "large" hand drills to wind the thing up. I can't remember how many turns I put on the motor, I do remember that the bungee was knotted nearly its full length and had to be coaxed (silicone spray) back into the tube. (Had a hard time getting someone to hold the fuselage while I stretched and wound the motor.) With damn near everyone in the Fabrication Branch in tow...I went out into the middle of the hangar (C-130 Hangar, big enough for four 130s) which at the time had no aircraft present and let the thing go. To every one's amazement and especially mine, the thing went straight up into the overhead girders, ran out of steam and fell back to the floor. Cheers and Applause! We flew it a few more times until the drive rotor blade failed, I guess from the stress of winding and the initial torque on launch. Yep! made a lot of skeptics believers that day, when I flew the biggest Ceiling Walker ever. (I guess this is one of the reasons I used to enjoy reading Gary Weaver's stuff  )
Norm

[dale gleason]

I can't find my 50s exploding/imploding TV ad for Ceiling Walkers. "Nice dress, Mrs. Cleaver!"  Any help?

dg

[Dan McEntee]

  Hi Norm;
    Thanks for the story! When I was a kid, I always passed up the Ceiling Walkers for regular gliders and rubber powered airplanes, just because at the time I couldn't see the fun in them I guess. Many years later I had some other similar toy helicopters and began to try and find some original Walker versions, and they are as rare as hen's teeth! I finally snagged the one I have and I guess I will have to draw it up myself. I flew this one a few times in the maintenance office where I worked at that time, with the original rubber band even! After a few flights the rubber eventually gave out so I quit flying it. I'll have to make up some simple jigs and such for setting the propeller pitches and such and work out the prop bearing. I was hoping that these would be like a lot of things I discover, and that some one else has already done the hard work and all I have to  do is copy it! If I can't find original Army Interceptor wings and tails, I'll have to eyeball those also.

    Dale; I have seen CDs and video tapes of old toy commercials, but with all th TV I watched as a kid and all these video recordings, I don't think I ever saw anything with Jim Walker products in it. Do you really have such a video? I remember seeing a commercial for a kite with an engine on it (maybe Gilbert?) and of course the Whamo Frisbee, but that is about all I remember seeing of any kind of toy that could fly?
 
  Thanks a lot,
  Dan McEntee

[dale gleason]

The ad that I cannot locate shows a mid-fifties family in front of a TV and they are stunned when the picture tube explodes (vs implode) and a Ceiling Walker blasts out of the tube into the living room....

Jim Walker would be a surprise guest at high school pep rallies and enter the gym/auditorium and release a dozen or so Ceiling Walkers into the room....there may be an old B&W film of one of those somewhere.

I can't find them, but, I always enjoyed flying those things....Norm is obviously the King of Ceiling Walkers! Good memories...

Dan- This link shows the picture I remembered:

americanjuniorclassics.com/ajstore/ceiling_walker.html