My buddy who built his new house across the road this past year is into these planes and it looks like alot of fun. Anybody on the board into this? The airstrip is getting better all the time but me and his grandpa will be haying pretty soon and i am gonna lose my 'cushy' landing spots for when i CRA$H my first plane So right now i am gonna get a flight simulator for the pute as he told me thats the best way to start.
The prison a couple towns away has a section dedicated for folks who have these planes. From a distance it's cool to see these little dots in the sky going all over. It's a good space because there is open farmland around them so the sightlines are good. Never did it myself. Looks like fun.
I immediately thought of them using rc planes to smuggle things into the prison! Then again, I just started watching Orange is the New Black.
My neighbor does RC planes and helicopters. He's WAY into it. I don't want to know how much $ he's spent on it over the years. His club rents out school gyms on Sundays so they can fly year round.
Today, you can fly all sorts of remote aircraft. Up to you, your budget and how difficult you want the skill level to be. Quad rotor RCs are incredibly stable and easy to fly compared to a single rotor heli with all standard controls. The new double rotor helis are cool too. I've got a small one. Learning to fly airplanes first on the computer will not only help a whole lot... it won't hurt at all with the first couple dozen crashes...
I smashed the S#!T out of mine, Got it off the ground high enough to come back down nose first full speed! $$$ I quit after that….. I'll stick to boats
I went the other way and got my private first. Never crashed a real plane (snow banks don't count do they)? and never flew a RC without crashing it! Gary
Guy at work into them. He has videos of his club at the local airport and a guy in the club has a mini jet like an F something or the other and there is a camera in it and you can see lots perspective and the ground perspective in the video.
Built my first RC sailplane when I was 15. launched it off a cliff, lost control and crashed it! Built another RC plane I scratch built from my own design when I was about 19. Glided it off a small grassy hill 100 times before adding a small .049 engine to it. Flew it with the engine quite a bit until one of the servos stuck and it went into a turn that I couldn't recover from and crashed. Flew ultralights and hang gliders for many years and got back into RC planes when I turned 26. Designed and built several of my own electric sailplane designs plus a kit built sailplane. Got back into electric RC planes when I was around 37 and even built and few micro helicopters. Electric RCs are a lot easier to get into now a days then gas (nitro) powered RCs. My all time favorite was the electric powered Carbon Falcon, which is a sort of hang glider wing with a rear mounted engine. Launched it by hand and caught it in my hand. It folded up into a tube about 2 ft long. Could fly it just about anywhere outside (in good weather), and it was remarkably indestructible.
I'd like the visibility of the one in the pic too. Most of the RC planes are impossible (for me) to see well enough to fly it very far off.
That was one thing I liked about small planes (Parkflyers) like this, and micro helicopters, was you generally fly them close too you and at low level. Other larger planes and sailplanes are usually flown up much higher in the sky, and that often can become a literal pain in the neck! Not too mention larger planes also require much larger fields to fly from, and cost a lot more to buy and repair.
I bought one of those little twin rotor helis for $35, that you charge with the computer. It's nuts how stable it is and manuverable. I can actually lift off, fly around the room and land softly on the coffee table easily now. But learning...I stuffed it into the floor and "things" so many times it ought to be in pieces. Still works like new. For that kind of $... not bad.
RC electric helicopters is one area where they have made incredible advances in both terms of shrinking the technology, and shrinking the price. When I was flying my electric mini helicopter they still were over $500 to get set up and that didn't include the radio equipment or batteries, or charger, and that was for a fixed pitch rotor, and the mini was still about 18" long. And you still had to put a lot of it together and set it up. Now you can get a fully supported, ready to go, 3D capable, micro heli (about half the size) with brushless motors, built in gyro stabilizers, it's own radio and battery and charger in it's own carrying case for about $300. And yes, you can buy those other inexpensive, disposable, twin rotor helicopter for a lot less. . When I was a kid I would have traded my little sister for one of those RC helicopters that can you can buy so cheap now a days. Of course, had I done that I never would have been able to trade her for that Hot Wheels set when I was 12.
I have a few nitro planes. Started building kits when I was around 18 and learned to fly at the field around the prison that Oslo mentioned. After a couple years and a few destroyed planes Later I started pylon racing. That was a lot of fun. 4 guys flying around pylons at the same time hitting speeds over 100 mph. It does get costly though with mid air crashes and just pilot errors. After 2 more years I stopped flying Rc as I had to many hobbies . Then a year ago I built another plane and started flying again. Trying to get my 10 year old son into it . The sim is a very good place to start, and if your neighbor is into it I'm sure he can be a big help as well. Go for it ! Good luck.
I think Ive shared pictures before... I dabble Just please please please dont call them drones. please.
Because of all the controversy surrounding quadrotors right now. A few people doing silly things with them (ie. flying them up thousands of feet and having a near miss with an airliner) has a lot of folks scared of them causing accidents, being used to spy on people, etc. Its a big deal with the FAA right now pausing to regulate commercial use of them, and folks are concerned that might end up regulating old fashioned hobby r/c as well.
I was into the control line rigs- couldn't afford RC back in the day. was a competing member of the AMA don't know if that is still around or if anybody even bothers with control line stuff anymore had a big stunt plane I used to fly with a .60 conquistador magneto ignition ( yup spark plug) had a biplane also about 26" top wingspan. ran that with a Red Head .35 no mufflers on any of this stuff back then late 50's and the 60's.
