Of course in Britain they take these things much more seriously.
Note the low pitch.

I've done a little research on this Mega Walker . And I've found out the following.

The hero Copter Man is Ian Dowsett. And his device is a product of considerable development. It seems that around 1970 there was an annual  helicopter contest at the South Midland Area rally

One source says the rotors are 36" diameter and the other says
the top rotor is 44"

It contains (Look out!!) 24 strands of 1/4" x 1/24" rubber!!
 

ANOTHER BRIT
I found this pic in Dec 56 AeroModeller. The caption explains that it was originally  published in a 1940 issue. The drawing is by Ray Malstrom  The question posed was- What happens when the motor runs out? (The answer is to be found below)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I built this to the FAC Legal Eagle rules and flew it in the local Pinkham Field FAC fiesta. I  got it past Judge Stott. The silly whirlywizzard won! A three flight total of 198sec in wind.

Some lessons learnt
1)  These babies fly best with very high pitches. I started by thinking that the Wright Bros. proved that a props was a couple of wings whirling about, and that we certainly don't want these to stall, and the helicopter spends most of its time in more or less "level' flight. So it figures a Low pitch is the way to go.!WRONG! I built some with 45 degree angles at the tip and they fly fine.

2)  Getting them to take off from a table isn't as easy as it looks. I think it would be better to fix the prop to the bottom of the motor stick and have the free prop at the top.

3) Next time I have to completely cover the top of the box.

4) These babies have potential

LEGAL EAGLE  EVENT RULES
Drawing Requirements:
1 . Drawing must fit on one side of one sheet of legal size(8-1/2x14) paper.
2. No component parts drawing may be superimposed or overlap another and must clear one another and the edge of the paper by at leastl/8 inch.
3. Wing(s) and stabilizer must be drawn full span, tip to tip.
4. Fin(s) may be drawn where space allows and not necessarily attached to the side view.
5. Landing gear must be drawn in its place on the side view showing its full length.
6. No top or front view is required.
7. Drawing must be presented to C.D. on demand.

Design Requirements:
1. Smallest wood size to be 1/16 square.
2. Fuselage volume must contain a cube 1x1-1/2x3inches.
3. Fuselage must have a cabin or open cockpit with a raised windshield of at least
30 degrees. Cockpit must be actually open, with a headrest or canopy.
 4. Flight surfaces: Leading and trailing edges cannot parallel each other.
5. Tip outlines must have no straight lines except for stabilizer where a twin fin is used.
6. If twin fins, or two wings are used in the design, parts may be built in duplicate over the same drawing.
7. Japanese tissue covering. No ultra light covering to be used. Flight surfaces may be single or double covered.
8. Landing gear must use at least one 1-inch hardwood wheel. (Note: Judge Stott says the have to be  at  least 1/16" thick and he has no patience with the claim that balsa is a hardwood)
9. Use of motor sticks or tubes OK.
Flying:
1.Models must R.O.G. from ground, ice, table top, gym floor, or any solid place designated by C.D. on contest day.
2. Highest total of 3 flights wins. Delay timing at C.D.'s discretion.

"My class of sixth-graders in Los Angeles  are going to have a sanctioned contest at Sepulveda Basin on Wednesday morning of this week, and the kids will be flying catapult gliders, ornithopters--and helicopters, built to a design by Stan Buddenbohm which holds the current national open record for
helicopters.  Unless the weather goes completely haywire, I am expecting that the kids will all, jointly, set a new Junior record in Category III helicopter of 6 minutes (total for three flights).  The helicopters are automatic, no-adjustment fliers, which should be good for about three minutes per flight in dead air.  If a bunch of them get maxes on their first two flights, the kids are planning to do a masslaunch for the third flight--all those who get a max on the third flight will jointly set the record, and the kids will elect not to try for the 3-minute flight, and then the 4-minute flight, and so on.

"You can buy the plans to this totally easy helicopter from Stan Buddenbohm, who advertises in the latest issues of Free Flight, the NFFs magazine.
Charlie Schaaf

The latest copy of the NFFS magazine that I have, is Feb 1999.  I let my subscription lapse. I'd appreciate more information. dannysoar@worldnet.att.net

Gene Wallock writes that the Buddenbohm is basically a Ceiling Walker with 18" rotors and a tubular fuselage.

Charlie reports that after a number of adventures.....
* Stephen set a record culminating in a flyaway in a thermal-  5:31 for three flights. I believe all these flights were with a 2 minute max.

* Alon over came difficulties to put in a 1:08.1  and a 2 minute flight, before the wind came up.

* Alex went O.O.S. on his first flight, with 2:00.

* Michael went O.O.S. on his first flight with 2:00--his airplane is gone forever.

* Kelly and Joe had repair problems.

Charlie writes "The old record was a little over two minutes, so two kids broke the record, two lost their airplanes on their first flights, with scores just a little below the record, and two were shot down by repair problems."

And..

"The kids have learned to do science stuff on their own!"

Charlie Hendrickson (?) called my attention to the Caley Ceiling Walker of 1809. It is on the web. Click this clicker and check out the 3rd pic and the preceding text.

Chet Bukowski writes
.... That ceiling walker is a must, I remember being in Detroit in 1952 ( Plymouth meet) and Jim Walker gave out Ceiling Walkers to everyone. That was the subject for his informal contest that year. I made an exta long motor stick that gave great performance with Dunlop rubber, the best we had at the time. Jim didn't like the idea though, so my times were not allowed.

Tom Schmitt of the DC Maxicuters writes

...I can remember flying one down the long corridor in the old 'N' bldg of the Navy Dept on Constitution Avenue, now long gone and replaced by the Vietnam memorial on one end. Luckily no
one stuck their head out a doorway as it whizzed by. Those little flyers would go straight as an arrow in a horizontal trajectory.

Have attached a fuzzy photo of Randy Kleinert (One one of our area's indoor 'Gurus')  and  his home-brew CW taken at our indoor session in Essex Community College this past Sunday.
(I'm afraid it's even fuzzier now d/s)
 

Jim Moseley wrote this nice memory in the FFML and the SAM talk Newsletter.

Thanks for CW build instructions, brings back a memory...  in early '50s, in the UK, our club met in a school hall and a buddy and I (teenagers) had CW's to take to a meeting; with several hours to spare we went to watch an aviation movie which couldn't have been too enthralling as we got bored...This, remember, is back when movies were projected from the rear of the cinema, the beam battling through swirling clouds of cigarette smoke. Between us, at knee level we put lotsa hand turns on a CW and let it go...it whopped its way up through the projection beam casting this huge gyrating
shadow on the silver screen - to the consternation and confusion of the patrons and the annoyance of the management who promptly threw us out after many accusing fingers were pointed at us. Never did know what happened to the CW, probably stomped to death in an aisle by an angry usherette....
Maybe now I'll build another just for the fun of it.

Coincidentally, heard this Fall that Paul Davies, here in Canada, built one of the larger stick 'copters - possibly Tangney's design ex old Ian Allan 'Model Aviation' book - and turned that loose in the street one calm evening, confounding the neighours as it climbed way up over the rooftops into the gathering dusk.

Ceiling Walker
AIR TRAILS PlCTORIAL; May 1950

TWICE a year a circus comes to New York. One is for the kiddies. You can see that at Madison Square Garden, with elephants, three rings, trapeze artists, clowns, and all. The other, if you happen to be in the fight business, is the annual toy show, held in a couple of the larger hotels which turn over numerous floors to exhibitors and buyers from all over America. Of the two shows, the zaniest things last year took place on the seventh floor of the New Yorker Hotel, for the toy show had Jim Walker, the fabulous president of American Junior Aircraft Co.

To be sure, other model plane manufacturers have been represented for years at the toy show, but they are kit producers who display with decorum and book orders with dignity. Walker, who specializes in ready-to-fly stuff, was a one-man indoor air show, performing impartially for friends, casual visitors, buyers, reporters, and press photographers of the metropolitan dailies who somehow had heard of his man-from-Mars helmet and the sonic glider that answered its masters voice, But the gimmick that stole the show was a mere balsa strip, a bent-wood prop at either end, and a  rubber-band motor between to make it perk. This was the Ceiling Walker, a frustrated helicopter.

Its antics in trying to escape skyward through the ceiling are what make the kids whoop with joy. Spinning like a whirling dervish, the Ceiling Walker pops up to the ceiling in an instant, then stays there like a fly on an upside down stroll. It may "walk" all over the ceiling before it winds down. Outdoors, it is a barrel of fun, especially if you get the anti-torque prop slightly out of position. Then, the CW tears around like a blindfolded duck. For its slight power it shames an r.o.g. when flown as a
kind of push-pull what-is-it. What makes it work?

Well, first of all, the accompanying picture is better than a thousand words of description. The prop at the lower end is the one that does the work, being connected by the usual bearing and shaft to the rubber loop.The prop at the top is what a Communist would describe as reactionary; attached firmly to the stick with a rubber band, it simply turns the opposite way. You wind the model, hold it out in front with the fixed prop pointing at the ceiling, and let it rip. As the factory assembles the thing, it wants to go straight up. But slide the dead prop along the stick and the Ceiling Walker is as much fun as a puss with catnip.

To the A-J Aircraft firm models like the Ceiling Walker are an old story. It really began in l926 when young Jim, then building models in his basement, first  organized "A-J". While this may suggest that the energetic Walker is no spring chicken, top flight modelers doff their hats to the man from Mars (pardon- Portland) when it comes to flying technique. The high degree of  co-ordination required when he flies simultaneously three Fireball models by his Remote control so far confounds all. To these contest modeler Walker means the saber dance with Fireball, radio-control stunting and, of course, he is the papa of U-control. But through the years Walker has meant something entirely different to hundreds at thousands of kids who had their first modeling experience with his ready-to-flys. His name they nay not have known, but with his products they were quite
familiar.

Walker's approach differs radically from that of the remainder of the  industry, for there are some who consider anything that does not have to be put together as a toy. You can argue this point till doomsday without reaching an answer but, anyway, the Walker Idea has fathered an entertaining series of models. Many present day senior and open class competitors recall the Martin bomber all-balsa profile glider which cost no more than a fat lollipop and gave twice the satisfaction. Printed details were done in color and were startling in their realism; the wings were dihcdraled  and cambered and you just pushed them through a slot. Another number was the single-engine
Fairchild amphibian type  - another profile, complete to aluminum nacelle and free-wheeling, three-bladed metal propeller.

Like many other modelers of the pre-Lindbergh era, Walker was thoroughly in love with aviation. That meant reading books about it and going out to the airport to stare at the biplanes and their glamorous pilots. Besides making models, of course. Inevitably, Walker got around to making a man-carrying glider. Alter a particularly rough landing he decided it would be a nice feature to add a motor. So he made several ships equipped with motorcycle engines. Then someone bet him $5 he couldn't make a model plane fly for 200 feet. After Jim collected the foolish five, he went into the model business. Boys came in after school to man the production line. By the time Lindy reached Paris twenty-three years ago, Jim had a 40-man payroll. Just as "A-J" expanded Into a Corporation, the Japs flooded the market with cheaper, cardboard and soldered wire ready-to-fly models and the bottom dropped out of the business. So Walker loaded his car with samples, stuck a golf bag on top, and sallied forth to do battle with the buyers.

Whenever he entered a strange office he'd conceal his business and beat the buyer to the punch by tossing a glider in the general direction of the august personage. The glider would then circle around the mans head and come back to roost in Jim's hand. Before the tycoon could recover his wits,
another glider was on the way. Then finally -   another, until a steady stream buzzing around his lead made him feel like a pylon at the National Air Race. Then came the clincher. "Any boy over seven years of age can do the same thing. This little glider will do 19 different tricks and it retails for a nickel."

Stories like this have made Walker a legend. Even his mistakes turn out well. Once he launched a plan to impress a buyer but the model sailed out an open window. Before  the buyer figured out what was going on, it reappeared through another window. Jim got a big order.

Incorporated in 1929 with a couple of money bags for angels, A-J finally  came into the hands of Jim and brother Lawrence in 1936 when the original backers were bought out. Moved to its present quarters, A.J blossomed into a three-shift manufacturing business that sometimes operated for weeks
without a breathing spell. Then the Fireball was created by Walker - and U-control was on its way. With the stubborn resistance of the free-flight contest world to the radical "models on a string", Walker again rode endlessly to contests, inviting anyone and everyone to fly a Fireball with
him by dual controls. Just when The Fireball began to go over, came the war: no materials.
Walker and his engineers beat out their brains for some way to contribute to the war effort and remain in business. But anyone with Walker's brains and luck never remains for long behind the eight ball. This time fate in  the person of an Army major, walked into a Texas five-and-dime store,
picked up an Intercepter glider and said,"This is what we need".

Before long the orders cascaded in. What did the army want the gliders for? To shoot at, of course. With a special catapult the Interceptors were shot 300 feet into the air at which altitude they appeared to ground gunners as a 300 mile an hour fighter at l,500 feet. Although more than 125,000 of  these training aids were produced, the actual output at Walker's factory was small in comparison to peace time production, and all sales were made at considerable loss.

Walker, a mild mannered chap who gets eccentric where models are concerned, is really a turmoil of ideas and things to do. The end products of his idea machine are divided about evenly between models and 'new ways to fly them. Besides the flying models, there is the U-control patent, the U-Reely reel-handle, a fuel flow device for U control models that automatically  adjusts the mixture to eliminate rich starts and leaned out flights, a variable pitch propeller and, soon to be on the market, his radio control system. Walker demonstrates these things anywhere, anytime, at the drop of
a hat.

A certain New York jobber will never forget the time That Walker showed him how a Fireball would loop this in front of he central post office, probably  the biggest one in the world. The result was one of the wildest traffic jams in city history. People even climbed on top of cars to see the show. It took the riot squad to restore order. Later, in Chicago, Walker was affronted when the windy city sent a lone motorcycle cop to investigate the disturbance. Walker taught the cop how to fly the model and all went well until the control wires wrapped around the law.

Walkers research is a serious business that brooks no obstacles. When he was developing his sonic glider, Jim decided to find out what noises were most effective in controlling the plane. Loading himself down with drums, whistles, and all available noise-making devices, including a .22 caliber
pistol, he started down the street. He would bent the drum and pause. Then blow the whistle. Pause. Finally, in an open lot he fired the gun into the air. Just then the police arrived in a cloud of dust, summoned by neighbors who thought Walker had finally cracked. But when Jim explained his problems to the policemen and how the 22 really didn't make enough noise, an obliging officer hauled out his "45" and began to blast.

With the exception of the Fireball, still a reasonably prefabricated kit in this lay of ultra prefabrication, A-J is not in the kit business, but is primarily concerned with simple ready-to-fly models.