How many of you guys fly RC Planes too?

Hey guys, title says it all. I'm not a homebuilder yet... mostly just doing research, but I"m an avid RC Airplane and Heli pilot.

I've been flying planes for about 9 years now. I started flying glow planes, then switched to electric before they really started getting popular, now I'm switching back to glow for some planes.

Here's a picture of my latest project. A Sceadu Evo .50 (a .50 is half a cubic inch displacement)

--Paul

Yep
I started out when I was 9 flying control liners, and graduated to planes, gliders, helicopters, cars and boats.
The planes were always my favorite, and I was always looking for something bigger and faster, so I started building my own models.
I guess that's what brought me here, I just had to Build myself a really big one.

Me too. I got into flying RC in my late teens and kept with it for quite a few years. I did a bit of pylon racing and eventually I got into instructing new pilots. However most of the stuff I flew was for fun.

I used the RC models to test several ideas I had at the time and so, pretty much had stopped building kits and for the most part built my own. I think that's about the time I started to discover how inadequate RC models are at predicting full scale airplane behavior.

Being into full scale planes now, I just don't seem to have the time any more to get back to RC. A couple of years ago my wife gave me a beautiful large scale P-51 kit for Christmas. Having had a couple in the past, I know that the P-51 is one of the squirreliest airplanes out there so I decided to get a trainer first to get my thumbs back in shape.

I built the trainer, and a year later it is still sitting in my office, never flown. Oh well, maybe eventually I'll get back into it.

Hi Paul:

I am a long time RC builder/pilot. Started building rubber band models when I was 9. Then moved into control line models. Got interested in girls in junior high and the modeling was put on hold.

My future wife found out I was interested in RC airplanes when I was in dental school, so she bought me a Sig Kadet Jr. and a Fox .19 engine for it. Gawd I love that girl!

Built and flew RC for over 16 years until they started getting so big (quarter scale) that I decided the time was right for me to get my pilots license and build one I could get into. Seemed to be the normal next step.

I have found that my RC building/flying experience has really helped me both in learning to fly full size and building a homebuilt. Just another really big model when you get right down to it.

Regards,

Jeff Orear

Jeff, I'd totally agree that model building would help. I took Pietenpol Aircamper plans and built a 1/3rd scale model of it. It was accurate to the last nut and bolt. So essentially I did build a full scale Piet, it just fit in my work shop a little easier.

--Paul

im modeler too

Used to fly control-line quite a bit, and some free-flight planes from kits. Did a little RC, but I didn't get into it as much as I could have. Spent more time playing with smaller scratch-built free-flight gliders, testing ideas: anything from multiple flying surfaces, to flying wings, to lifting bodies. Lots of fun.

Count me in the ranks too. Not lately, but in my youth (my first youth, that is... still in my second youth).

Bruce

I was building models from a very early age and always hankered after some R/C stuff, but it was unaffordable. My thing was always accurate scale modelling. By the time I could afford it, I thought I might as well spend the money on the real thing. I still have an early 1980's Futaba 6 channel set sitting in a box somewhere, unused. The low cost and sophistication of today's stuff is mindboggling as I found out when I picked up an RC magazine somewhere, twenty years after I read the last one.

I still fly RC models, have been since I designed and built my own 2 channel glider at 12yrs old. At the local airstrip they have me on about still building RC aircraft (the CriCri isn't much bigger)

I have also designed my own 450 size heli frame sets.

Here's a couple of pics of my park flyer triplane

Shannon

Beautiful!

Originally Posted by orion

I think that's about the time I started to discover how inadequate RC models are at predicting full scale airplane behavior.

I've read about similar opinions, but is it really so inadequate even for such a big RC models, probably weight diference is the key factor

YouTube - Gee Bee R3 Moki 400 Engine check big radial engine http://www.exclusiv-aircraft.de/

YouTube - Gee Bee R3 Moki 400 Engine check big radial engine http://www.exclusiv-aircraft.de/
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Seb

Depends on what the scale really is. But in general, the model will reasonably reproduce things like reaction to stall, spin entry and recovery, and the overall look and feel of the airplane in flight - in other words, qualitative information. However, the specifics of some of those and anything that has factors that depend on Reynold's Number will be dramatically skewed. Things like airfoils don't scale well so anything performance related, flow based or even the simple stall progression might not be well represented in the scale plane. But I will say one thing for it - getting your design to fly, even in scale, is simply a great ego boost.

Me too

Check my website!

Having finally read Tailless Aircraft, Nickel is huge on using (very small, often cardboard) models for finding CG for stability, finding control deflection for trim, and finding pitch moment of flaps. The third is particularly interesting to me... he claims that on an unpowered cardboard model with the correct planform, when trimmed for flight by deflecting the elevons, deflecting partial-span flaps accurately reflects whether the flaps will cause a nose-up or nose-down moment.

This seems a bit odd to me at first glance, because a cardboard model is inherently using near-zero-moment airfoils, no washout, and has other obvious approximations to the actual design. On the other hand, I suppose that if the CG is placed in the correct position, and the elevons are deflected to trim (which, due to the approximations, will be a different elevon deflection than for the same angle of attack on the actual design), it might work.

(Also, I want this to work, since my AVL-designed 50%-span pitch-neutral flaps seem to work by this standard.)