Model aircraft, that is. Totally cloudless, 26 deg C, light breeze, far too nice a day to waste working. Even the trade rep who was supposed to come here cancelled with a suspiciously weak excuse. So it's off to a friends house on a hill with a fantastic view for a barbecue and a few flights with a little electric R/C airplane. I kept it up for more than 10 minutes, a personal best

In fact, while the instructions that came with the kit were entirely correct about it being easy to fly and very stable, they omiited the rather crucial point that when the damn thing's two hundred feet up it's remarkably difficult to persuade it to land. I had to enlist a hedge in the end.

The half-kilo steaks were pretty good, as well.

Mind you, the flight I've been promised in one of these promises to be even better.

pca

Yeah. It was a really nice day for once. Weather for the last couple of weeks has been really varied to say the least.
I'm sure I could land it easily even from two hundred feet up. Probably not in a single piece however...

- Trevor

Those little electric park-flyers are great, aren't they?

speaking of which... what kit would you guys recommend to get started? I wanna have one for the windless days on the playa next year at the Buggy Blast!

Those park flyers don't work well if there's even the slightest breeze. They weigh next to nothing (that's how you can run them off of a lightweight electric engine), and if you try to fly them in a breeze, they'll fly backwards and be almost impossible to control.

I get the impression that the places you run the wind buggy are generally somewhat windy all the time, otherwise you wouldn't be dragging the buggies out there at all in the first place.

I'll let Tod come in here and give his opinion on which kits are the best to start with.

I have a Power-Z 200 and it is great fun. It's a bit like a glider with an electric motor (powered by a Ni-MH battery), easy to fly*, cheap to buy, fairly robust but cheap to crash.
*An added bonus is it assumes level (unpowered) flight when it goes out of range or the battery goes flat which gives you a reasonable chance of recovering it intact if the worst happens.

If you get in the [censored] with this thing you're supposed to let go of the controls and it will level out and glide to the ground safely. Good in theory but in practice I always end up trying to 'fly it out' and end up hammering it into the ground. Oh, and flying it in moderate winds is especially 'interesting' - it's best flown in a gentle breeze at most.

I get the impression that the places you run the wind buggy are generally somewhat windy all the time

That's the reason i want one... for when there's no wind whatsoever, which happened for most of two days while we were there this year on the playa. a couple of guys had their planes out and i had gadget envy =]

Rob V brought out his RC Helicopter last year and amazed everyone. That thing is saweeet.

speaking of which... what kit would you guys recommend to get started?

Don't know whether budget is an issue for you, but have you considered one of these? Available in kit form, I am told, if you know the right people.

(...and who needs that Charles Atlas program on the playa if you have one of these?)

Those park flyers don't work well if there's even the slightest breeze. They weigh next to nothing (that's how you can run them off of a lightweight electric engine), and if you try to fly them in a breeze, they'll fly backwards and be almost impossible to control.

Don't be too dismissive of the performance of an electric model! I saw some incredible demos a few months ago, including prop-hanging hovering for nearly ten minutes, level flight at speeds of well over 150MPH, and the most remarkable aerobatics I've ever seen, all from an electric plane. Very quiet, good battery life at least the equal of most glow-fuel models in run time, and not as expensive as one might imagine.

Anyway, the one I was using today is a Graupner Tipsy, which is powered by a small speed-280 motor running a 5 inch folding prop. It weighs about 250g, and has LOTS of lift. It seems to cope with a 5-6MPH breeze quite nicely, going up like a rocket on half throttle. Like I said, though, landing it under those conditions is tricky. I did manage to hover it at one point, when the breeze picked up and matched the forward airspeed. It's only rudder, elevator, and throttle control, but it loops and stall-turns very nicely. I didn't manage to barrel-roll it, but I did scare my friend by bringing it in in a steep dive from about 250 feet up and only pulling up about ten feet of the ground. For such a small thing (made out of styrofoam, even), it's got a pretty impressive turn of speed and makes a cool sound when it goes past at about 60MPH

I've also got an FMA Razor, which is an almost indestructible EPP foam flying wing. The longest flight I've so far managed with that was about 4 minutes, and it later turned out I had the aileron control reversed by accident. I thought it was being unnecessarily twitchy in the air! It is much more responsive than the Tipsy, and takes more skill than I yet have to fly it well. Considering the number of times it's attempted to drill for oil, sometimes from considerable altitude, I could firmly recommend it on the basis of crash-survivability if it wasn't for the fact that FMA stopped making it last year Mind you, they sold off the remaining stock dead cheap (where have I heard THAT before?), and I bought two more as spares.

The one a lot of people recommend for first-time crashers, um, I mean pilots, is the Firebird XL. It's a complete package, and flies very well. I went to a fantastic model air show last year, which had a large trade section attached, and after every demo of precision flying it was noticeable that lots of people bought one of the things. The traders must have sold at least a couple of hundred that day. I wonder how many people mastered them and moved on to bigger and better planes?

The next one I want to get is this, mostly because of the looks! It flies well, too, and is big enough for the avionics package I'm designing.

pca

"I kept it up for more than 10 minutes, a personal best."

<giggle>

Tony, unfortunately, saw a demo of my Tiger Moth in 15 knot winds. Not the best time to show it off, but still, was flyable (barely). Even moderate breezes aren't too bad depending on the model.

For beginners, you can't beat the GWS foam series. They have the Tiger Moth (a great biplane model) and a line of warbirds. All are fairly durable, cheap as dirt, and easy as all hell to build and fly. I highly recommend them.

I also have an electric helicopter that I can fly indoors or outdoors (Hornet) but it's tough to fly and quite a bit more expensive than the fixed-wing craft. But, if you're like me and need to scratch the rotary itch...

Park flyers are great fun and much easier to pick up and fly than glow models. Because they're so cheap, you can afford to crash once in a while as well (I'm on my third Moth). Go out with a few battery packs and you can fly all day almost non-stop.

My family has three Moths, one has an 800/9.2 pack and it gets over 30 min of flight time per charge. I have a video that we made on Father's Day last year if anyone is interested...just email me.

Patrick, when you get that flight you will love it! I've had the opportunity to fly twice in these.



Doing acrobatics in a biplane is amazing!

some years ago, I had a friend whose son built a model glider and strapped a small 'baby-bee' two stroke engine to it. It was excellent as the engine had about a minute of fuel which was just enough to to get it a decent height and let it glide down.
The usual method was to use a big rubber band which wasn't great 'cause if the plane wasn't perfectly trimmed, it would dive to one side due to the sudden acceleration.

Four rotor, gyro-helicopters are pretty cool. Anybody ever had a chance to play with one of these?