Since we got the shout out right in the forum heading, I'll start. Anyone else here into radio control? I building and flying airplanes for almost 14 years. Over that time Ive built, flow, crashed or sold probably 20 of them, its a hobby that can be as addicting as saw collecting is to some of you guys. Right now Ive got about 5 flyable, a couple more half built and a few future projects in the pipeline. Here is a typical weekend outing: The big one on the left is my pride and joy. Its a 30% scale model of a Zivko Edge 540 aerobatic plane. If you have ever seen the Red Bull air races, you get the idea. Our models are even crazier though. The plane has a wingspan of 85 inches (7ft), weighs just under 17 lb with fuel and is powered by a 50cc 2 stroke gasoline motor that swings a 23 inch prop capable of generating 26 lb of thrust. Its not a fast aircraft though, top speed is probably around 75mph. Yes, that is not a misprint. This thing has a better power to weight ratio than an F-18 This allows us to do stunt flying we call "3D aerobatics" where we can do things the real aircraft is incapable of such as hover from the prop like a helicopter. And this is the real one from a few years back. I used a lighter metallic blue.
I figured a bunch of saw nuts might like to hear more about that engine. In the old days we would use converted chainsaw motors for hte big planes but for many years now we have had a variety of purpose build R/C gas engines. This one is called a Desert Aircraft DA-50R. Its built in Arizona with an all aluminum custom cast jug and CNC machined case, specially made auto advance electronic ignition that runs on battery. Its a standard 2 stroke design with reed valve case induction and an off the shelf walbro carb. The engine weighs something like 3lb bare - just under 4 with the ignition, battery and the custom aluminum muffler. It makes about 5hp at 7000 rpm. The fuel line fitting you see on the muffler is a smoke generator. We have an onboard pump that injects kerosene based fluid into the muffler to make smoke just like full scale airshows. The black firewall is a composite sandwich of carbon fiber and end grain balsa, as stiff as 3/8 aircraft plywood but a faction of the weight (2oz vs 10). Similarly that prop spinner is a thin carbon cone screwed to a hollowed out aluminum backplate. The plane has carbon fiber in other dritical locations as well like the main wing spar. All to make things light. Note, this is not overkill (tm). They make these things up to 4 cylinders and over 200cc. Even radials and 4 stroke models. The models guys build for those are staggeringly huge and you can imagine how expensive.
Sometimes we dont want to do stunts, but rather just go fast. This is my race plane. Its small (about 4ft) and uses a traditional alchohol burning model airplane engine. Again 2 stroke, 0.46ci displacement (7.5 cc) that turns a tiny 8 inch prop at 16,000 rpm for about 1.5 hp. It will do just under 120mph and blow your ears out. I just fly this guy for fun. In the organized races it would not be competitive. They use $$$ custom race engines and can hit 150. And this is the entry class, big end stuff will do 200+ and the turbine jet guys can do over 250.
Today most guys just buy models premade from China and slap on a motor. I still like to do things the old fashioned way and build. One of my other favorites is this Ultimate biplane. All balsa wood any ply with some foam and carbon fiber in critical spots. The power is a model 4 stroke engine. Its a hemi head 1.0 ci with pushrods and overhead valves, turning a 15in prop about 9000rpm. This one also has a more than 1-1 power to weight. The engine looks like this:
And my latest obsession this year is helicopters Just like the planes our models can do things the real thing cant. Like hover upside down. This guy is just a little electric model of about 3ft rotor diameter. Hoping to build a much bigger one next year.
Whats the furthest away a remote control plane can be? In other words, how far away do the remote control work?
For the hobby grade sets, a couple miles if you have a good line of sight. In other words, if you can see it you can control it. Farther actually, and there are folks doing FPV (camera on the plane with a downlink) that even fly out of sight - though that's been officially 'banned' by our national org due to all the controversy over 'drones'. Most of our gear now runs on 2.4 GHz spread spectrum, same as cordless phones but more power. In the old days we used to have dedicated frequencies on 72MHz band and those old controllers with the 3 foot antennas and have to wait our turn for a channel so we didn't shoot each other down. Now its all plug and play.
Cool stuff Jeremy! I have a neighbor across the river that flies rc planes. I think he's getting to be a better pilot because I haven't seen him over here in a while.
Ha ha cool. Yeah when I was learning I ended up climbing trees a few times And every once in a while a mishap occurs, pilot error or equipment failure (though in the large expensive ones we use dual redundant batteries, switches, control links etc to reduce the risk). Knock on wood its been a couple years for me since the last mishap. And then sometimes you just have plain (pun) bad luck and have a mid air collision. Ive had three. The other guy ended up worse. Both planes where retired.
Ive had worse... This one was about 7 or 8 years ago. a wire broke and I lost all control at full throttle. It looped and dug its own post hole, the engine got buried about 6 inches down.
That's got to make you want to cry. So many things I would love to try, sadly not enough time and no money. This farming hobby is expensive.
It does, but it comes with the territory. I once saw a guy crash a contest scale aircraft, 2 years of work building from blueprints, on the first flight. Eeeeeeeeeeeek With the hobbies I learned to pick and choose. This and the house is all I have time for... And I don't really do much building planes even since the kids. Used to do other stuff, dad and I talked about doing some car restos once, got my motorcycle license, used to shoot target a lot and was once considering collecting vintage rifles- garands and such (yes lefties shoot too. He he) But all of that is on hold due to time money or WAF
I've always been into flying things, started hang gliding when I was 17, owned a few ultralight aircraft and just recently sold this one, and dabbled in RC planes and copters off and on since I was a teenager, mostly all were electric and smaller scale. I've scratch designed and built a few RC planes. Most of my RC planes were electric gliders, but my first scratch build RC was modeled after this my favorite ultralight design.
I love flying RC but have never progressed beyond the cheapo versions. I can only handle one $100 crash a year, so I just take it slow. My favorite are slope gliders, especially the combat foamies. Really fun. Lately though, I just buy one of those cheap foam cessnas or the like and fly it around the pasture. I'd love to progress to what you are doing there J. Someday.
Never really got into planes, and been awhile since I've run anything. Here is a pic of a boat I used to run, trying to sell in now. That thing would do 50mph crazy. I've also got a wooden scale model of a classic Maine lobster boat I built for my father for father's day one year, that's electric.
Flew R/C back in my teens and early 20's....still have all my equipment, and a couple planes. Built and flew many Ugly Stiks. I was big into sailplanes, and flew a Graupner Cirrus (still have it)and another that I can't remember the name of.....that one used a .049 engine on a pylon to get it up aways. Same with the Cirrus, but that used an .09 engine on a pylon, and a Futaba Attack 2 channel radio. Also have a Super Sportster with an Enya .60. Unfortunately, the radio batteries in the Sportster are shot, and not sure if it's worth replacing them both, or just get another radio set.....it's a Futaba 5FN (old). I also read that the frequencies I used back then aren't allowed anymore....is this right? The radios are from the 70's & 80's.
Grew up doing RC cars/trucks don't have any digitals of my old Midnight Pumpkin. This is an HPI stadium truck I built many years ago
I flew a few pure sailplane RCs, and hoisted them up with different winch mechanisms, but things got a whole lot easier when electric motors and fold-able props hit the scene. It just made so much sense, all those sailplane designs required weight in the nose to balance them anyway, so instead of putting dead weight in the nose you'd just put a motor and battery, and you could do away with the winch. Have the motor also gave you extra confidence slope soaring or flying it at a mountain site, if the lifting air diminished you started sinking, you could climb back up again and land or catch it at the starting point. I 'm a little ticked with how advanced the electronics are in RCs now, those super powerful tiny AC motor, light weight lithium batteries, micro servos, auto gyros, computer controlled crap, and everything is so inexpensive. Some of those tiny little helicopters are just amazing what they can do. If I had had all that stuff when I was a kid and really into that stuff, I would have been in utopia, but now that I'm older I just don't seem to have time for toys anymore, or more correctly, if I'm gona work on something that flies, I'd rather put the time and money into something that I can actually climb into and fly in myself. Yeah they use all new frequencies for RC stuff now, I don't think the old frequencies aren't allowed, they just aren't as safe as the new ones. Le3ss chance of cross frequency interference with the new frequencies.
