Before the name Cox became synonymous with model airplane hobby shelves, another engine was doing the work. This is the story of the OK Cub, one of the earliest American . 049 glow-plug engines. It was built before Cox ever entered the market, produced in a factory in Herkimer, New York, and it could be yours for 4.

95 dollars. The year was 1949. For model aviation hobbyists at the time, this engine was the newest thing available. The era of glow plugs had just begun, and the OK Cub stood at the forefront of it.

Mention it outside collector circles today, and you will likely be met with a blank stare. Even within those circles, it is not the engine that gets remembered. Cox is the name people recall, the one passed down through generations. One of the two engines became part of American childhood memory, while the other faded from existence.

How does that happen when both engines started at the same line? How does an engine that arrived first get forgotten? And what actually allowed Cox to win? The answer is bigger than the engine itself.

To understand the OK Cub, you have to start with who made it. The Herkimer Tool and Model Company of Herkimer, New York. By 1963, the hobby press was calling Herkimer the oldest name in the American model engine sector. Think about what that phrase means.

It means they had been in the business longer than almost anyone else. They were not newcomers who noticed a trend and decided to jump in. They had been making engines since before most of their competitors existed. When Herkimer put its name on an engine, it carried real history behind it.

Smaller companies came and went while Herkimer kept working. That kind of endurance does not happen by accident. So the OK Cub was not a gamble. It was an extension of what they already knew how to do.

Before the glow plug, small model engines operated with spark ignition. That system was adapted from full-size fuel engines and miniaturized for the hobby. It required a battery, an ignition coil, and a set of breaker points. More parts, more weight, and more things that could go wrong.

It worked, but it was not simple. Then the glow plug changed everything. Instead of all that equipment, you had one small plug and the right fuel. For a weekend hobbyist who did not want to become an electrician, that mattered.

The glow plug uses a catalytic coil inside the plug head. The fuel, a mix of methanol, nitromethane, and castor oil, reacts with that coil to keep combustion going. No battery needed during flight. No ignition timing to adjust.

This opened an entirely new category of flying that hobbyists called the half-A class, engines with a displacement under 0. 51 cubic inches. Smaller planes, smaller fields, and a much lower cost to fly. The OK Cub 049 was designed specifically for that moment.

The half-A class attracted buyers who could not afford larger models or who did not have the space for them. Herkimer had been around long enough to build exactly what those buyers needed. By September 1949, the OK Cub 049 was already appearing in the hobby press. Air Trails magazine published an article by Joe Musciano that referenced the Cub control, a flight craft built around the OK Cub engine.

By June 1950, Model Airplane News listed the engine as a retail product. The price was 4. 95 dollars, roughly 70 dollars in today’s value. That price made it accessible to ordinary hobbyists, not just competition builders.

And the 049 was not the only one. A 074 version appeared in the same December 1949 advertisement, and by January 1950, a 099 was also available. Herkimer was not playing small. They were building an entire family of engines, with the 049 as the starting point and the others aimed at more experienced hobbyists.

By November 1950, a design called the WP was published in hobby magazines, designed by Lloyd Hunt. The WP was a serious racing plane that competed in events, and the design officially recommended the OK Cub 049 or 074 by name. This was not a paid advertisement. It was a recommendation from a model builder who had tested the engines, compared them, and flown them.

If a racing design relied on the OK Cub for competition, the engine was effective. The OK Cub gained real credibility within a year of its debut. You do not get a competition design recommendation within twelve months without earning it. But was it actually America’s first 049?

That is where the picture becomes complicated. In the same year, 1949, two other men were working on their own 049 glow engine. Bill Atwood and Bob Holland. Their engine was called the Wasp 049.

Atwood had worked in the model engine world for years before that, and he and Holland had a working 049 by the same year. The Academy of Model Aeronautics records list their engine in 1949 alongside the OK Cub. So who arrived first? The honest answer is that we cannot say for certain.

Both were real, working engines, not concepts or prototypes. The documentation places both in 1949, and there is no record establishing the time difference between them. So the OK Cub was one of the first American . 049 glow engines.

Not the crowned champion, but present in the discussion from day one. Both the Wasp and the OK Cub targeted the same class, the same market, and in the same year. The OK Cub was the prominent name in advertising and manufacturer recommendations, reaching hobby shop shelves by December 1949. Two companies, two engines, and the same year.

That is what the historical records show. If either company knew what the other was building in 1949, no one wrote it down. Neither of those two companies became the name everyone remembers. A third company did.

That answer begins with understanding what Cox actually built. Leroy Cox ran L. M. Cox Manufacturing.

Cox’s first 049 aircraft engine was called the Space Bug, appearing around 1952, about three years after the OK Cub was already on shelves. So Cox was not first. But Cox possessed something Herkimer did not, and it showed in the numbers. In August 1955, a test of the Cox Thermal Hopper 049 showed a weight of 1.

35 ounces and 0. 066 brake horsepower at about 17,200 RPM. Those were strong figures for 1955, but numbers alone do not explain why the Cox name became what people handed down. Cox built a spring starter.

That sounds like a simple thing, but it was not. Before that, you flipped the propeller by hand to start a glow engine, which always carried the possibility of kickback, when the propeller spins the wrong way. Kickback could cut your hand or break the propeller blade. Most people had the scars to prove it.

The Cox spring starter was wound and built into the engine. You pull it, the propeller spins, and the engine starts. With the Cox spring starter, that problem was gone. No hand flipping, no kickback, and the same result every time you pulled the handle.

For someone new to the hobby, that removed a real barrier. A beginner who gets the engine started easily becomes attached to the hobby. One who breaks a propeller does not come back. But the real change was different.

Cox did not just sell an engine. Cox sold a complete system. Everything was designed to work together. The engine, the fuel tank, the starter, and the airframe, all in one package.

You bought the kit, assembled it, and flew. When you bought a Cox, someone had done the thinking for you. Herkimer sold you only the engine. Everything else was left up to you.

That difference, simple on paper, was enormous in practice. Herkimer did not surrender when Cox appeared. By May 1959, seven years after the Space Bug, the 049A and 049B models were still being advertised. The complete 049B kit sold for about 4.

95 dollars, while the power package alone was 3. 95 dollars. The price had dropped below its original 4. 95.

In a market that Cox was reshaping, that kind of price cut was Herkimer fighting for survival. The 049A still promoted its performance claims. Die-cast crankcase, hardened steel crankshaft, clear nylon fuel tank, replaceable glow plug, and full 360-degree ports. They did not give up.

They were competing. By July 1961, Herkimer was advertising its full engine line, from 0. 024 up to 0. 35 cubic inches.

Herkimer continued publishing full-page advertisements while Cox was redefining what this hobby meant for a new generation. Cox had the Cadet Trainer for training and the OK Cub Kart. A company called Comet was packaging OK Cub engines into ready-to-fly products. The Tri-Pacer kit came with an integrated wire-cord starter, and the guided missile control-line kit came with a recoil starter.

Ready-to-fly packaging was Comet’s answer to what Cox was doing. Herkimer was adapting. They were still advertising in 1961, twelve years after the OK Cub first appeared in the hobby press. Twelve years is a long time to hold your place when the market has changed.

So if Herkimer was still competing in 1961, what actually settled it? Three things. Starting. The Cox spring starter made starting the engine easy and identical every single time.

Pull the handle, and the engine runs. You did not need to be an expert to start it. For a beginner hobbyist or a child, that changed everything. The Cub required more care and experience to run reliably.

That kind of detail decides whether someone stays in the hobby or walks away. The system. Cox sold everything together. The engine, the tank, the starter, the airframe, all in one box.

Think about the difference between figuring things out on your own versus getting a set that simply works. When you control the entire experience from the moment the box is opened, you control how people feel about flying for the rest of their lives. That first impression stuck. The child who flew a Cox in 1955 was still talking about it in 1975.

For many American families, buying a Cox product was a rite of passage. The kid who got one in 1958 was showing it to his own child in 1972. The memory. Cox products became embedded in American childhoods.

The P-40 Warhawk, the Baby Bee engine, planes and motors kids received for birthdays and holidays. It was not just control-line flying or small engines. They were Cox engines. When people say, I had a Cox engine, they are describing an experience, not just an engine model.

Cox sold the feeling of flight at a price families could accept. Herkimer made a good engine. Cox made it easy for anyone to become a pilot. That is the difference.

The hobby community still returns to talk about the OK Cub 049, in places like the Cox engine forums and radio control flying groups. These are the people who put OK Cub engines in planes and tried to fly them. Their opinions are remarkably consistent. The needle valve was finicky.

Fuel draw was weak at times. Getting the engine to run well at the field required a patience many did not have. One retrospective 1982 report described someone running a Cub engine on a test stand. The engine performed well on the stand, but on a real flying day, it was stubborn.

Stubbornness is not the same as broken. Adjusting the needle valve on a Cub required experience. When you set it right, it ran. Larry Davidson, through the historical records of the AMA, remembered that his first model was powered by an OK Cub 049.

He actually flew it. William Bickel switched to Cox after trying the spring starter and found it more consistent. That is a fair comparison from someone who used both. The OK Cub rewarded those who were patient with it, while the Cox did not require that patience.

If you knew how to adjust it, it would run. But if you were new to the hobby, Cox made your life much easier. Both things can be true at the same time. The OK Cub 049 was there from the beginning.

One of the earliest American . 049 glow engines, built in Herkimer, New York. Available in 1949. Still competing twelve years later.

A company that existed before the class even had a name and continued until the generation raised on Cox had no reason to look for it anymore. It was outsold by the others, not because it was junk, but because Cox understood something important. You do not win by having the best engine. You win by making your engine the easiest thing in the room for anyone to pick up and use.

Herkimer arrived there first. That is the real story of the OK Cub, not that it lost, but that it existed at all, and most people never knew.