This engine was rescued from being thrown out as rubbish following the death of a longterm aeromodeller. Many of his old engines were consigned to the recycling bin. I picked this engine out as worthy of being saved. It had seen little use.

Blue Bird engines are obscure. Not known by most engine model engine enthusiasts, they were made to a high standard by Bluebird Model Manufacturing of Taichung City, Taiwan in the late 1980's and early 1990's. The architecture was based on the successful O.S. .25 FSR glow engine; but features a number of subtle differences, including AAC piston/liner technology (Aluminium piston running in an Aluminium liner, which is hard Chrome plated). AAC is typically reserved for highend racing engines as this setup is expensive to manufacture. However, AAC offers overall performance advantage when compared to other technologies.

A 'badge engineered' version of the Blue Bird engine was concurrently sold in the U.S. under the brand name "BRAT".

As collected by me the engine featured in my video was very grubby. Apart from that the biggest problem was that it was missing its muffler. To solve this issue, I sourced a new in packet spare muffler for the final model Thunder Tiger .25 engine for little cost. The fit is 'plug and play', and it suits the Blue Bird .28 engine perfectly.

The propeller shown is a broad blade composite Taipan 10 x 6. My initial thought was this would be too much load for the engine. To my delight, this powerful little engine spins this at an easy 11,000 RPM at wide open throttle. Quite a good performance on powertoweight. Compression seal is outstanding hot or cold. Throttling is excellent. A good quality 9 x 6 composite prop would be perfect for it.

Bluebird still manufactures high end servos and electronic radio control accessories at the time of publication of this video. Sadly, they abandoned engine model engine manufacturing in the late 1990's.

Propeller: Taipan 10x6 orange grp 'deep cuff' broad blade airscrew.

Glow Plug: Taiwanese HSP No. 4 'standard' (medium heat range).

Fuel Composition:

18% Klotz KL200
4% First Pressing degummed Castor Oil
10% Nitro Methane
68% Methyl Alcohol (Methanol)