From the Editor – November 2026

Welcome one and all to November 2026! I hope you had a happy Halloween! Somewhat to my surprise, and greatly to my personal gratification, I’ve somehow managed to make it all the way past the grand oldish age of 79 – the mountains, caves and motorcycles didn’t get me, and neither has our mutual friend Agent Orange (AO), at least so far. I'm now almost a month into Year 80 - who would have thought it?!?

Anyway, I’m still on deck and in a position to bring you yet another edition of this ever-expanding website! How many more I’ll be able to bring you is an open question - the instability in international affairs continues, leaving me with no alternative other than to try to make each day count while living life to the fullest extent possible under the circumstances – what else can any of us do?!? Happily, I still seem to be holding my own on the health front – something to be thankful for. Only another three months to go before I’ll qualify for being declared cancer-free – YAY!!!

Although it’s only early November, the Christmas season has already begun in the stores. At the same time, the holiday season social round seems to expand and begin earlier and earlier each year, while the gift list gets ever longer. What happened to the days when the festive season began around December 22^nd and ran until January 1^st? As my mate Maris Dislers observed, by the time December 25^th arrives, one is completely exhausted, partied-out and flat broke! 

The continued willingness of too many Americans in general and the GOP in particular to tolerate the toxic presence in the White House of Agent Orange (AO), T. Rump or whatever you want to call him, remains inexplicable to the rest of us. The GOP has evidently forgotten that their collective role is to serve the people of the USA, not a single deranged individual and his billionaire cronies and fellow dictators. The repeated attacks and harassment against Democrat candidates as well as the recent arrest of an AO-supporting postal employee for destroying mail-in ballots sent to potential Democrat supporters shows how far the erosion of democracy in America has proceeded under his rule.

His recent open invitation to Iran to attack and level two of his own cities represents a flagrant betrayal of his Presidential Oath, amounting in my book to treason, plain and simple. Why is his party prepared to support such outrageous comments from their chosen Presidential candidate? Don't they see how his behavior reflects on them?? After over 1½ years, we’re still waiting for him to begin behaving like a President. The inept efforts of this repeat draft-dodger to run the Iran war have merely drained both the US economy and the USA’s military resources to the point where its ability to defend the American homeland against any real adversary who might emerge is severely compromised. On the home front, even his own Vice-President has referred to the stumbling US economy which has been created by this repeat bankrupt as the Titanic…………

On top of his demonstrated military and economic incompetence, the outcome of the Greenland fracas clearly displays AO’s total ineptitude as an international diplomat. After all of his sabre-rattling and threats against Greenland and America’s long-time ally Denmark, the deal to which he finally agreed is an embarrassing climb-down – the deal merely confirms a number of points which were already embodied or implied in existing agreements. The only real gain was the clarification of the interests of both the USA and NATO in a future independent Greenland, a matter which was already on the table and was readily achievable without the naked threats of military force. All that those threats accomplished was the alienation of one of the United States’ staunchest allies and the erosion of U.S. diplomatic credibility across the rest of the world. In short, Washington has paid a steep and lasting price for terms that it could have gained merely by asking nicely! Well done, AO…………….

His shameless sucking up to Netanyahu and Putin has reached truly embarrassing levels, to the point that he now has America openly dancing to the tune of Israeli genocide against the Palestinians and Putin’s increasingly aggressive stance towards Europe. And he wonders why America’s former allies are now pursuing alternative relationships …….. to retain your allies, you have to retain their trust!! Both Putin and Netanyahu are playing him like a violin, and he’s stupid enough not to be able to see it. He still actually thinks that he’s in change, as do his remaining supporters!

His openly-expressed hatred for America’s long-time friend, ally and trading partner Canada hasn’t enhanced his international image - arrests of Canadian citizens in the US are up 60% despite a further 25% decrease in visitation on the part of we Canucks, who prefer to visit countries in which we feel welcome. His sole response to the CFB Wainwright fire disaster in Alberta has been to carry on insulting Canada’s leaders and the “nasty” Canadian people (like me) who elect them, while continuing to refer to Canada as the 51^st State despite the overwhelming rejection of that notion by the people of Canada. And he wonders why?? He shames his country every time he opens his mouth ………… and Canada has definitely learned the lesson which he claims to have been teaching us.   

His efforts to sanction the ICC for having the temerity to issue a warrant for the arrest of Netanyahu on charges of war crimes is a shocking confirmation of his support for Netanyahu’s genocidal actions. America’s shame in refusing to join with much of the rest of the world in opposing such actions was never better demonstrated than by his allowing Netanyahu to come openly to the US without fear of arrest to address the UN. Dozens of delegates showed far more moral integrity than AO by walking out on the speech. His welcoming far-right politician Flávio Bolsonaro to the US after Bolsanaro lost the Brazilian election despite AO’s endorsement and intervention (or perhaps because of it?!?) and fled the country is further evidence of his mindset.  

Finally, his proposal to re-introduce public executions in American represented a truly disgusting attempt to drag his country back 200 years into a state of medieval barbarity. Execution as a spectator sport?? I suppose he thought that this would top UFC as a draw …………. he probably had plans for the gallows on the White House lawn already drawn up. Would the ghouls who would line up to watch such events be citizens of whom the nation can be proud? This plan stripped his moral degeneracy naked ……………  

Moving on and removing the clothes-pin from my nose, I’d like to remind my readers once again about the current membership promotion being pursued by the Model Engine Collectors Association (MECA). The attached promotional flyer provides details of this initiative. Put simply, anyone who joins MECA during 2026 will qualify for participation in a draw at the end of the year for ownership of a fine example of the iconic Brown Junior engine which represents a major milestone in the history of commercial model engine production. I’m a member myself – why not come and join me (and many others)?? The offer still has two months to run! I’ve added links to MECA to both the Publications and Sources pages on this website.

In what has become all too repetitive a report, I have to share the sad news forwarded to me by David Hill that the noted model engine constructor Derek Giles passed away on October 12^th, 2026 at the age of 90 after a lengthy illness. In addition to being one of the most talented model engineers among us, Derek was also a dedicated aeromodeller who put his engines to good use. He was a really nice guy who will be sorely missed. His close friend Andy Brough (President of SAM35) has shared the attached image of his own collection of engines constructed by Derek and will be contributing a full obituary to SAM Speaks UK.

September was another good month for updates to existing articles. In last month’s editorial, I mentioned the work of my friend Marcus Tidmarsh in using the AI Gemini app to create greatly enhanced colorized renditions of some of the older low-resolution images presented here. The results are really impressive - check out the early sections of the E.D. Story  and FROG – Early Models articles as well as the Supertigre Classics, Majesco, A. E. Jones and Cloud pages to see some great examples of Marcus’s efforts! Further examples of Marcus’s talents are now scattered about throughout this website in various articles, and more will follow. Thanks, mate! 

My valued friend and colleague Gordon Beeby of Australia has been busy yet again. This time Gordon has undertaken an exhaustive search of the advertising record for the famous Drone diesel from America. His findings have done much to clarify the sequence and dating of the engines and related accessories produced by Drone Engineering. I’ve undertaken fairly extensive re-writes of both the Drone diesel and Drone glow-plug conversion articles on this website, significantly enhancing their completeness and level of authority. My very sincere thanks to Gordon!

I also heard from reader Bob Christ, who drew my attention to an interesting eBay listing of an ARGO-Elfin 2.49 cc diesel with an interesting story to tell. I’ve added this detail to my article on the ARGO-Elfin diesels, with my grateful thanks to Bob.

My good mate Peter Valicek was able to supply an interesting detail in relation to the Zeiss Pioneer 1 "U-Boat" diesel which is the subject of an article to be found on this website. This was a plan of a control line model which was designed specifically for the Pioneer 1, confirming its use as a control-line powerplant. I've added Peter's scan of this plan to the Zeiss Pioneer 1 article, with my very sincere thanks to Peter!  

The provision by my valued readership of additional information; comments on published articles necessitating corrections; or visual enhancement of the articles constitutes my very favourite form of feedback to the articles which appear here, since it constitutes the “peer review” of these articles, enhancing their completeness, quality of presentation and level of authority. It also makes me feel as if I’m part of an international community. Thanks, guys!

Now, on to the new articles! This month we spend time in three countries – Japan, England and America. Firstly, we’ll visit Japan to take a look at the fine diesel engines produced in Tokyo by the Kondo brothers under the K.O. trade-name. The K.O. engines are encountered relatively infrequently outside of Japan because they were never marketed internationally with any great fervor. The well-made K.O. diesels are the best-known model engines produced by the company, which is far better known today for its R/C products marketed under the KO-PROPO trade-name, particularly in relation to model R/C car racing.  In this article, we’ll take a really close-up look at the K.O. diesels of the 1950’s and 1960’s, including bench tests of several representative examples.

Next, we travel to England to review a relatively recent range of model engines – the highly individualistic four-stroke model powerplants marketed under the RCV label between 1997 and 2019. The design originality of these units was what attracted my attention to them as a subject – consider how you would go about designing a four-stroke engine having only one more moving part than a comparable two-stroke! To learn how they did it, check out the article on the RCV engines!  

Finally, the MEN transfer article continues my series of studies of model four-stroke engines which appeared during the period 1930 – 1970 during which the two-stroke powerplant held almost undisputed sway. I’ve already looked at the Grayson and Hallam four-stroke units from the early 1930’s – time now to jump ahead to 1940 to examine an American entry into this field – the Feeney four-stroke design from Chicago, Illinois. These engines were significant insofar as they kept the four-stroke flag flying during the period of two-stroke domination, thus paving the way for the Japanese-initiated appearance of later-generation glow-plug four-strokes from 1974 onwards.

That’s about it for this month, fellow enthusiasts. All being well and assuming that my neighborhood remains free from the sound of tramping Belleville jackboots, roaring Abrams tank engines and M7 gunfire, and that the mushroom clouds of WW3 and the fires of climate change don’t engulf us all courtesy of AO, I sincerely hope to be still on deck and still sufficiently enthusiastic in December to present a few more reviews for your holiday reading pleasure. In the meantime, I really appreciate all the expressions of support and appreciation that I’ve continued to receive from so many of you! Stay safe ‘n sane, and keep yourself reliably informed about what’s going on!! Use your vote responsibly!  

Adrian Duncan 

British Columbia, Canada (the NATION, not a state!)

Greenland forever!

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