RC planes/jets/heli

Pretty often lately. At work if it is windy, we fly a night vapor inside. If not windy we fly anyone of 5 aircraft outside in parking lot around 5pm, usually 2 at a time. Sometimes we fly inside and outside, and I get no work done. On saturday and sunday morning, I have my oldest wake me up to fly "white airplane", "two engine airplane", "red airplane", "jet" or "big glider". He is referring to PZ super cub, p-38, gws formosa, AMX electric ducted fan jet, and some old rc glider. After flying one, he has a midday nap, wakes up at 3pm and starts his request again. We can walk about a mile to a local school. We rarely take a car to go flying. So some weeks I'm flying more than 14 times.

I keep aircraft at work and home, and usually don't move planes between the two locations. As some are better for the paved work runway(parking lot), and some are better for the school grass.

 

I have been reading this thread and it took me back to 1940 when I was flying free flights. No RC for us little kids but there was some then, believe it or not. I built a 6 ft. Comet Curtiss Robin that was designed for RC but I could never get enough money for a radio. But I did build a 6 foot Carl Goldberg Zipper free flight that was a kick to fly. It was covered with orange silk and clear doped. Had a white trim stripe on the fuselage and it was powered by a .60 Brown Senior. There was nothing prettier than to see that thing climb away with the sunlight showing through the silk and that old gas engine sounding off. I got some good flights with 15 second motor runs. Those were the days.

 

If I lived outside the ADIZ zone of Washington DC, I would probably have a small plane by now and do other threads, but RC is all I can do. Pretty soon, that might be taken away too. Feel fortunate that most of the rest of you are free to choose between real and RC.

What radio would that have been Bob? I have seen a single push button type. Rudder only typically. Push once for full left. Push twice for full right. Push 3 times for centered.

 

I don't recall the type or brand but they were rudder only and the model had to have more dihedral than normal. The vacuum type tube radios were huge compared to todays equipment and since I didn't have enough money to buy one, I watched others. Few and far between then. I designed and built a three foot Fly Baby, rudder and elevator, that flew quite well with a Fox .15 in it. I had serious family issues at the time so I gave it to a friend who installed the radios and flew it. Now I fiddle with plastic stuff.

 

I found the picture of the Fly Baby model and the prototype, both of which I worked on,built and flew. Circa 1965.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

I guess it goes without saying that you were good friends with the late Pete Bowers? I would have liked to have met the man.....

 

Yes, I was good friends with Pete. We worked on a lot of magazine and book projects together, he with the words and photos and I with drawings. I flew with him and for him on many fly- ins when he had two airplanes to present. He was dedicated to his aviation works and if he thought you were capable, he would simply ask you to fly one of his airplanes. Did many air shows with him. His passing was a loss to the aviation community.I did some illustrations for his book, " Wings of Stearman" in 1996, very nice book.

 

Very cool to hear stories from Mr. Parks in this thread!
Trying to imagine starting up the gas motor in a model plane and launching her with no control whatsoever after take off. Guess the rudder was slightly "set" so she didn't just fly off into the distance?

My P-51 is just about ready for her maiden, maybe this weekend or early next when my father arrives for a 1 week visit. Will get us juiced up for Oshkosh on Wednesday for sure!

Check out these little beauties that just arrived. They'll fit nicely in the V2 P-38 and provide some extra cushion for bumpy landings. No damping but tolerances are so tight the air leaking through the very small gaps does provide a bit. Cut a couple coils off the internal spring and stretched it a bit since they were meant for a heavier plane than the foam Lightning.
It must take 25 machining operations to make each one, $20 for all 3 almost feels like stealing.
http://www.hobbypartz.com/exi-jet-metal-landgearset.html
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

My memory may be a bit fuzzy but I remember 2 deg. down thrust and 2.5 -3 deg right to contract the " torque" or P-factor, I guess. Declage , angular difference between wing and horizontal stabilizer had to be set very carefully to produce climb at power and a perfect glide at power off. Slight rudder trim may have been used also. Pete Bowers and I did the same things as kids, in fact his little homebuilt was named after one of his free flite designs, Fly Baby. Even now, 73 years later, I still feel the thrill of seeing that big model climb away in a circle to the right and gracefully soar in a thermal for ten or 15 minutes. Then, in 1953, I had the same pleasure of seeing a little 1/2 A "Fubar" fly away in a thermal over a wheat field with just a 7.5 second engine run. I never saw it again and I lost a nice little Cox .049 engine. It is sad that kids now days don't experience this kind of fun and education. Beautiful stuff for your models. That goes along with the marvelous remote control equipment and beautiful models available now. Not to demean anything but I had to build every stick and cover everything myself but then, those were the days when we had to do that.

 

Not demeaning at all!
These modern ARF (Almost Ready to Fly) "kits" are almost too easy to get in the air. Of course a little or a lot of tweaking is needed to get the most out of them, which I enjoy doing, but a couple evenings is all it takes vs. tens of hours laying out wing spars, pinning balsa wood, careful alignment, covering, painting, etc etc etc.
The latest gadgets are amazing. From small, powerful LiPo batteries to programmable radios that communicate both ways to display all sorts of vital signs, to brushless motors to real gas turbines.... heady stuff!
Those little cox 0.049 were buzzers! Had a few line control planes and almost lost a few fingers starting them up...

The Mustang will be my first tail-dragger and first semi-powerful single engine, so anticipating the need for some right rudder on takeoff and up elevator on touchdown to hopefully keep her from nosing over.

Back in the 90's I was into RC motorcycles. Modified this Kyosho pretty heavily with custom oil filled front shocks (machined on my grandfather's Unimat lathe) and in addition to the articulated, leaning rider gave her true motorcycle-stlye steering vs the stock system which kind of twisted the front forks. She'd pop a wheely on a full charge and glide from full left to right lean like a true moto-GP racer.
A couple of these on a track at one time is RIOT.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Those Cox .049 (Baby Bee???) were great little engines... had several.

I was convinced that the fuel soaking into the cuts on your fingers from 'propping' helped the cuts heal.

 

You might be correct about the healing properties of the glow plug fuel. I remember, however, that one did not want a finger in the prop when cranking a .60 Brown or Olson. Man! What great engines they were. Then came the McCoys. I keep dredging up things from when I was a kid and one that I visit often is the tethered gliders flying on the beach of Siesta Key. I had to keep them on a line and flew them like kites or they would have ended up in the jungle east of where we lived. I rigged up a second line along with the tow line that was a rudder control and I could achieve a little bit of maneuvering while they were up. All of that came to an end when a crop duster buzzed the beach one Sunday morning behind a parade of of Stinsons and Wacos. He saw me waving and did a chandelle to come around again. I ran up the beach and made friends with the greatest guy ever when they all landed. Later on I flagged rows for them and he gave me some unforgettable rides in his Travel Air. I have written about this and it is unbelievable to me now how this big generous guy did so much for a 13 year old. He was an ATC pilot and lost over the Caribbean during the war while deadheading back from South America. He always said that he would never die if he was at the controls of an airplane so he kept his word.

 

After looking over the real P-51D Mustang "Petie 2nd" this week at Oshkosh, today maidened my RC Petie.

oh boy, it was FUN!
Gorgeous day with mild 0-10mph breezes at Bong Recreational Area's RC field. Took my dad along and made four flights with Petie 2nd and two with the PZ T-28, then went to the Russell Military Museum right down the highway.

First 3 Mustang flights were with an APC 14x10 2 bladed prop, switched back to the stock 4-blader for the final flight. Didn't notice much difference to be honest, except for the sound and look.
Was burning about 280-300mAH per minute with moderate throttle usage, so theoretically could get about 9 minutes out of my 3.3A pack and still have 25% left. 7-8 minutes is usually more than enough for this pilot though...
Glad I can easily get 4-5 minutes with the 2200mAH packs I already had.

She does veer pretty strongly left on take-off even with full right rudder; will give the rudder link a few turns to trim more to the right. Turning circle on the ground is HUGE, that tail-wheel sure doesn't turn very far.

Noticed that the left main gear was dropping a little bit in the air. All went up and down perfectly though so not going to worry about this for now.

She just needed a few clicks of left aileron trimming to track straight and true. Gentle stalls, beautiful barrel rolls, fun inverted flight, big loops, split-Ss, immelmans.... I'm in love with this plane.

Flaps worked well. Mixed in in 5% down elevator, and she really slowed down but kept the same attitude.
Greased 2 landings, other 2 bounced a few times but never nosed over or hit hard enough to break anything.

Can't wait to take her up again!!!
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Amazing how detailed foamies have gotten love P-51!

I bought the Parkzone Albatros yesterday, I'll be maidening her today

 

Sure is. Super detailing (may ice the cake with some basic weathering/exhaust/gun smoke) to flaps to wingtip LEDs to slow, strong retracts the FMS P-51 is one hell of a lot of plane for $165 or so.
I didn't think anything could look as cool as a P-38, but the Mustang sure cuts an amazing figure in the air.
Good luck on the Albatros maiden!
At some point there will be a WWI bipe in my hanger....

 

I'm back!

didn't realise just how windy it is, gusts of 10kts!

Found a new place to fly and managed to have a quick 2 minute flight before I decided it was too gusty for a maiden and quickly landed.

Very nice looking in the air and it flew MUCH faster than I had expected! Can't comment much more than this due to the short wind flight.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

That's a really nice pic - yours? Looks like HDR?

From my limited experience with Parkzone planes, they're more expensive and don't have all the bells and whistles, but they do fly great and don't require requisite reworking/modding right out of the box like many of the FMS/JPower/Dynam etc ones.
Don't speak too highly of that Albatros please, don't know if I'll be able to resist one....

 

My picture, has not been editing straight of the camera Just used a polarising filter, I try to get the picture perfect on the camera so I don't waste time on the computer thanks!

Not to worry I'll probably put one more flight and then I'll give my seaplane some time in the sky since I found a flat lake.

 

Really good shot. My little panasonic has a "high dynamic range" mode that snaps 4 or 5 pics at various exposures in very rapid succession, then immediately morphs them together. Pretty nice results - the pic of my p-51 on it's cradle under the umbrella was done this way (which is why the plane in the air looks like a biplane, it was really a low wing pattern plane).

This guy just posted a review of the Albatros. He's by no means a Horizon Hobby/Parkzone cheerleader, but really unloads on the materials and ease of build... at least he generally likes how it looks and flies :/
http://z8rc.blogspot.com/

From a few of his comments apparently he used to fly real F-16s. Now it seems he just plays with financial markets numerous RC toys.

 

I did come across that review, non of his comments are my concern. I charge the batt and fly the plane although I will say the landing gear assembly is overly complicated for what it is.


I put a few flights on her today, had a steady north east breeze blowing which made take offs short with little input.

Half throttle cruise was very scale and relaxing which is exactly what I wanted out of this airplane.

Landings I was lucking finding a park by the beach which had fresh nicely trimmed grass, just remember to give plenty up elevator to keep that tail firmly planted so you don't nose over!

I forgot once and nosed over at slow speed, no issues though

My friend had the Catalina out again which also flew superbly and I had some aerobatic fun with the T-28, decided to remove the wheels now.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

That's a great looking PBY. Very scale. Do you happen to know what brand it is or where your friend got it?

 

It's made by Dynam, here's a link to a forum why many great posts

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1455058

We still haven't found a decent lake to fly from so its mostly flown from grass, plenty of power flies scale and takes wind ok.

I've seen his radio gear glitch out and watched it go nose first into the ground from about 50ft without any serious damage, nothing tape didn't fix!

 

Last month a guy at Bong RC field was having a ball tearing around with one of these little beasties so I had to get one.
No landing gear, no rudders, no flaps, just speed.
Totally stock on a 3S battery they're good for basically unlimited vertical and something like a 90mph top speed. With ~$40 worth of bigger motor, prop, speed controller and 4S battery they're pushing 150mph.
This is my first plane with elevons, even at 'low' aileron rates of 60% she rolls with authority. At 100% she spins at what seems like 1000rpm.
Spent about an hour the night before her maiden beefing up the nose with 2 strips of CF and a coat of epoxy, good thing because on her second flight I speared her into the ground at high speed. The gods were smiling upon me because she spiked in a bunch of 6' tall reeds so the only "damage" was a dirty nose. Absolutely nothing broken or even crumpled at all so I tossed her right back in the air. Along with impressive thrust it handles nicely at slower speeds (though I may install rudders at some point), gliding in smoothly then easy to flare for a soft belly landing. Sweet!

There were more fliers at the field on Sunday than ever before. I enjoy it when families stop by while exploring Bong Recreational Park to check out the planes. Always show the kids how they work, explaining the control surfaces, gear, and motor.
Put another 5 very enjoyable flights on the Mustang. Managed to grease a couple landings, only nosed over once in the grass which broke a prop blade, no big deal when spares are about a buck each.
happy flying!

here's a Radjet with bigger motor and ESC, but still a 3S battery:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC-QexcuMNQ[/ame]
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

The Radjet seems err rad!

I have a similer layout ARF I bought as a slope soarer sometime in 2005, would make a great LIPO/brushless conversion I hate seeing it around the place after all these years having never flown.

Excuse the photo quality but at least I have something airborne now, and thanks to the picture I notice something...





Do you see it? Yup the elevator "hinge" (foam/tape) has been severed! I thought it was flying weird but I figure it was the wind.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Thanks for posting that video. I can't believe the outrageous progress in the model field from when I flew gas powered free flights in the late 30's. Wonderful! Thanks again.