Anyone into RC planes?

RisingFury

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I pulled my RC trainer from under the bed after it's been sitting there for three years, finished it, started the engine and went flying.

Here are videos of my first and second flights:


I nearly crashed into a house and then landed in a tree because of engine problems:




The second video (better quality), where I nearly crashed my plane into my camera man at second landing:




Anyone else into this hobby? Got any pictures or videos to share?
 

RisingFury

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Tuesday I went flying again. It was a very nice day, no strong winds like before, gentle clouds (and sunny later)...

So first Ian launches the plane and I notice right away that engine's acting weird. The problem was a leaky fuel line. It leaked in air bubbles. So we fixed that, which took over an hour, and I took to the skies again, but 3 minutes into the flight, disaster struck. The roll servo jammed at maximum deflection and it sent the plane into a spiral dive. Crash was imminent, all I could do was try and no crash into a building or straight down into the ground.

So I crashed it under a tree... thankfully I reduced throttle... didn't go in full speed. Still, I broke the propeller. The fuselage is not damaged, except for the tail. But that's an easy fix.

I had to pull the plane out of the mud... the nose was buried in it. That actually saved my plane and took a lot of the stress. So I'll be fixing it next week... and when I have time again, I'll go flying!
 

MeDiCS

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That's nice, I've always wanted to fly an RC. Lol, maybe someday I will...
Nice videos though :)
 

RisingFury

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Thank you!

They're not actually that expensive to get into, actually, and you have have a lot of fun building them yourself.
If you like working with wood, just get a good blueprint and make it yourself. If not, you can just buy a pre made kit.

The most expensive part of the first plane is actually the transmitter / receiver pack and if you pick out a good transmitter - a 4 channel or even a 6 channel, you won't have to buy a new one later.


Flying is a lot of fun, but crashing is part of the hobby. Everyone crashes.
 

SPASE_1976

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i have a demo of rc sim , quite realistic
once upon a time i wanted to to have a rc plane
nice to see you , beautiful landscape you have there
 

RisingFury

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Thanks!


Well, in my opinion the handling of aircraft in the sim is very good in windless conditions. Introduce the wind into the sim and you get so far out from reality...

The most important thing the sim teaches you is to react fast, to get used to the inverted controls when the plane is flying towards you and to start judging the distance by the size.


The first two days I went flying, the wind was horrible... and in the second wind, you can see me landing in the crosswind... it's nasty. The plane dances around like hell and it's handful to keep it under control.
 

PhantomCruiser

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I used to fly the Pioneer RPV for the Navy. We deployed on the USS New Jersey in 1989, then went to the Gulf War (I) on the USS Missouri. While I was in VC-6, I enjoyed (sort of) telling family and friend that their government had paid me to learn to fly model airplanes.
I was in VC-6 for 5 freakin' years, I got so tired of all the crap that when I left I sold all my RC gear (I basically gave away a really nice Futaba 8 channel PCM transmitter).
I've since wished that I'd kept some of it, but a new wife and kid has a way of helping someone shed an otherwise expensive hobby. I am tempted to get a few of those Airhog helicoptors to fly around inside the house...
 

RisingFury

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Nice!

Flying heli's is tough enough by nature... flying them indoors is insane :p

If you're gonna get back into the hobby seriously, go for a 2.4 GHz radio. It's quite a few drawbacks, but some nice advantages.

Drawbacks:
- You require a line of sight between transmitter and receiver. The signal doesn't bend around objects due to shorter wavelength.
- These things are digital... if they crash, they take a few seconds to boot up. That's usually too long if you're flying something.

Advantages:
- Short antenna (transmitter and receiver).
- No interference from servos / batteries.
- No interference from other radios. The receiver figures out which signal it has to listen to.
- Higher update rate per second for more precision.
- Due to scrambling and unscrambling the signal on purpose, you eliminate background noise - no twitching.


Heli's are kinda expensive compared to planes and it's tougher to learn how to fly well... a crash won't break some wood... it'll take out the rotor, some gearing and part of the support structure... if you're lucky. So if you're starting on heli's get one of those small and stable ones to learn on it... and you won't be mad after crashing it :p
 

PhantomCruiser

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Nah, those Airhogs things are tiny, made of foam (and nylon mechanical parts) and run about $30 or so.
Now the bigger guys are too cost prohibitive for me, one of my "flight instructors" all those years ago had one. He used wooden dowels duct taped in big X to his landing skids, and had the thing tethered so he could only get about 3-4 feet (or a meter or so (go Metric!!!)) off the ground. I tried hovering with it, but it was like mixing paint.
I had some stick-time with an SH-60B, much nicer, still like mixing paint to hover, just not as hard as the RC. Plus being IN the thing made it much more of an incentive to get it right. The HAC (Helo-Aircraft-Commander) was a good instructor, his nice-and-calm way of teaching made a nerve racking experience easier to deal with. As soon as I could hover to his satisfaction, we departed into forward flight towards Norfolk, VA.
Disclaimer: This was years ago, back in "the good old days" a helo crew would land in some farmers field and the O's were likely to let an E take the stick and fly on towards the destination, then land again later to put all the crew back in their "proper" positions before arrival at their destination.
 
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starbird

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I started with fixed wing about 20 years ago and helis about 7. Haven't been able to fly much in the last few years since going back to school.

I found helis to be much easier to handle than everyone was saying. You just need to be careful about the setup and balance everything. Practicing on a good sim helps too. My experience is with glo, but even the smaller electric helis weren't too bad (trex and the like).
 

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Since this is the backyard rocketry forum, I demand that you discuss launching rockets from your RC planes immediately :p

Seriously, this would be cool!
 

Pilot7893

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I had an idea for a model rocket/RC plane combo. You have a full shuttle stack that launches like a rocket, then once the SRBs and tank jettison, you glide the Orbiter down to the ground :3
 

RisingFury

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Since this is the backyard rocketry forum, I demand that you discuss launching rockets from your RC planes immediately :p

Seriously, this would be cool!


Not that it hasn't crossed my mind... The problem is ignition and release... I only have a 4 channel radio which means I'd have to make a timer for everything.

If I ever attempt it, I will be taking video :p
 

RisingFury

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Another (terrible) crash today!

After we spent a while debugging what's wrong with the engine, we finally got her started up and into the air. But somewhere on the field the settings for aileron reversing got switched off and my aileron servo was reversed. Pulling right meant rolling left. Pulling left meant rolling right.


I steered her away from buildings and tried to land, but unfortunately screwed up right at the end. The plane came in straight into a tree with the left wing. Tore the engine right out, tore the tail off, broke some wood and broke the high speed needle on the carburetor and the throttle control lever... so I'll have to replace that and glue the plane back together.


I'll tell ya... everyone crashes... but not everyone is able to fly for 30 seconds and not crash straight down with reversed ailerons.
 

wolfast

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I've been an R/C pilot for 23 Years(and im 31) I also Design and Build them for a living. I've been working on a True R/C STS for years. I have a good Shuttle glider Idea..... I just want the whole Tank-SRB-Orbiter combo. There are some out there, but I want a True SRB sep-stage and Controlled glide to the ground. Maybe one day.
 

Tommy

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I remember seeing some guys on an english television show (Top Gear) who made a "shuttle" using a car (a Robin Reliant) with wings stuck on it. The "orbiter" was supposed to be piloted by RC, unfortunately it didn't seperate properly. Made a pretty nice fireball, though.

This should be the vid (my computer is too slow for flash movies)
http://www.topgear.com/us/videos/more/2001-a-space-idiocy
 

ripley1

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I just got this tiny RC helicopter and been flying around the house.One day i want to get something bigger,so hopefully this is a good start ;)
 

Brycesv1

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mounted bottle rockets with extended fuses on those once. went perfectly, the flame vaporised the tape and it launched beautifully. the problem was compensating for the weight loss (bad planning on my part). all 3 on the left launched then the 3 on the right
 

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@RisingFury;

Are you planning to test the DG on the same field as in your videos here?
If so, may I strongly suggest going to / using a (way) bigger and open area? Maybe there are RC clubs in the neighborhood too.


I also started my flying hobby with RC planes (still do RC often), and started on my own, without going to any club. Teaching yourself to fly involves a lot of crashes, as you may have noticed ;). Experienced the same here, but can be fun and educational too. Things like reversed ailerons all sounds familiar, probably didn't do any quick pre-flight checks at all those days... Sounds crazy to me now!

But one difference is that I used a much bigger field. Starting with the fast trainer like yours, that close to all those houses, imagine what damage it can do.... If it was a lighter foam plane it would be less worse, but still..
To me it sounds a little bit like the guy in the other topic wanting to launch a 5 foot metal HP rocket from a public park... ;)


I hope you won't feel offended, it's just some advice! I really like your new DG project (hope it actually flies! :)) and don't want to see it ruined by crashing into houses on it's maiden!


regards,
mcduck
 
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