My RC Story
When I was in middle school I got into Radio Control Airplanes, I bought a few old ones from a member of the Flying Griffins (the local club in Griffin, GA where I grew up). For a year or two I maintained the mailing list for the club, and worked on my plane before I dropped it as a hobby for other things. Well, recently I remembered how much fun I had working on those planes with my Dad and decided that it would be a fun thing to get back into with my son Jake (thanks to my son's best friend getting an RC car for his 5th birthday. here's a picture of the boys, Jake is in the white shirt, Ethan's in the tanish colored shirt) . So recently I dug out my old planes and I'm starting to get them back into a flying condition. Once I get my links together for RCing I'll post them here, but for now....
We've got 10 (now 9) planes, only one of which is close to functional, they are:
Our Original 3 Planes
- Butterfly - by dynaflite, a 99" wingspan, slow flying trainer with a 0.20 engine. right now it needs a new radio (old one is pre-narrowband) and some work on the tail section (it got cracked on a trip to the airfield when I was younger and was one of those things I didn't finish). And thanks to the radio being so old, I need to replace the receiver and Servos and such. After some more inspection, I'm worried about the engine, it feels like age is taking it's toll, so I've got to open it up and see if it's rusting out inside.
- UPDATE - replaced the radio, took engine off, working on it, it was a bit rusted but not too bad, now I'm trying to get the carb unstuck it (it's an OS Max FP .20)
- UPDATE (10/7) - some pics of the planes Pic of the table (with the half re-assembled butterfly on it) and pic of the butterfly's wings and other planes
- UPDATE (10/13) - Pics of the butterfly mostly back together Pic 1 and Pic 2
- UPDATE (10/20) - I got the butterfly started!!! yeah!!!, Pinhead159 sold me an engine, which hooked up and started up like a champ. I've now just got to get it all tied together and out to a field!!
- UPDATE (11/19) - CRASH well, I got the butterfly in the air, but she didn't fair too well, between the wind and my poor piloting skills, managed to hit power lines and snap the fuse pic1, pic2, pic3, of the wreckage
- UPDATE (12/??) - I got the butterfly Repaired, but she's not in the air yet pic1, pic2, pic3, of the repair (note the one blue wing now)
- UPDATE (01/24/02) - Well, I've had it all put back together, but I've not had any luck getting it back in the air, I'm still waiting on a new needle for the Magnum engine and the OS 20 that I put on there is just giving me fits, doesn't want to keep running for more than 30 seconds. I'm probably gonna yank the radio out of this and stick it all in the Mig to try flying it as a trainer for a while.
- UPDATE (02/??/02) - I got the butterfly up a couple times, even had a decent landing, but the second flight ended in a nasty crash which totally hosed up the fuselage, I will eventually rebuild this fuse, but for now it's just gonna sit on a shelf while I work on other planes. Planning on converting to e-power when I rebuild
- Kadet Mark II - by Sig, It's one of the ones I bought and it was mostly built at the time (I'm guessing it's the Mark II cause it's got a 57.25" wingspan). I need to cover and finish the wing and repair the tail (it got built crooked and now it's cracked). It of course needs a radio as well, and the carb is busted on the thunder tigre 25 engine I've got for it (though I've epoxied the pieces together, hoping that might work)
- UPDATE 01/24/02 = I gave this plane to my buddy Steve Greene trying to help him get into the hobby, hope it works for him
- Sweet Stick - by Midwest, it has a partially put together fuselage and wing, I'm not sure if all the parts are even around. It needs almost everything to be ready to run.
- UPDATE 01/24/02 = I think I've got most everything I need for this plane right now, I've got a new radio and a Tower .40 engine for it, and Ozcover to cover it with.
- UPDATE 03/??/02 = I worked on the set-up for the aileron servos for a while and then this project has stalled out for a while, been working on other things
our NEW
67 planes
- Fantasy = I got the LAST kit that major hobbies had of this plane (they've done another limited run since I first bought this kit now). As this is my dream plane, I'm gonna be finishing all the others first so I crash them while learning to fly again, instead of this beauty (which I plan to trick out as a taildragger with retracts).
- Mig-27 Foamie = a target drone plane that was GIVEN to me by nun45 (who's a heckuva nice guy) I've got an MDS 58 engine that will end up on the fantasy that I'm gonna use on this for now, I ended up getting another radio so I have a flight pack for this plane but it's so BIG that I can't transport it easily so it's hanging out at my parents house till I happen to remember all the stuff I need to make it fly.
- Lil Poke Park Flyer = my only electric, it's still a kit now, but I'm working on it, I wanted something to have to fly when the glow gods are frowning on me. This has now been stalled out as a project for a while, hoping to get back to it soon as I really do love this little plane.
- update - 08/08/02 - I've gotten this a little further along into the bones... keep screwing around with other stuff instead of finishing it... now that the minimax is DOA I need to get this flyable so I can have something to fly at home
- Sig Skybolt = picked this up all built and almost RTF at the Perry Swap meet with a Barbie for a pilot, this is hanging in the garage for now till I get enough stick time to feel comfortable flying her. Got to get a 60 size engine to put on her.
- Tufflight Predator - a combat flying wing thing, nigh indestructable, got this kit, haven't done anything with it yet, should be a 2 evening build but I've just not gotten around to it, gonna put the old engine from the butterfly on this one since I'm gonna make the butterfly e-power
- Wattage MiniMax - tiny little foam park flyer arf thing, picked this up on a good deal, and it has totally gotten me hooked on park flyers. I can fly this thing in the back yard when the weather is nice, and if I crash it I can usually repair it in 20 minutes and be back in the air. I have crashed it a few times but also had some good flights, and as the pieces start getting too busted up to repair I'm working on some scratch replacement parts (got a fuselage all ready to go for it when the time comes).
- Update 08/07/02 - crashed one time too many I decided to let the minimax be DOA... and the scratch replacement doesn't want to fly too well... got some design work I need to do to get it airborne
- Kadet Seniorita - I got this from Pugsley (from the boards and #rc_chat) back in April '02 and finally got to fly it on August 7th '02 and MAN is it fun... I'm totally ready to finish up the sweet stick now cause I want to fly more. here is the story of the flights
LINKS
RC Magazines
- RCMagazine.net - this is another site of mine I'm the head webmonkey and writer for it, check it out as I think it's becoming a pretty good place for RC reading
- Model Airplane News
- RCM Magazine
- RC Report
- S&E Modeler
- E-Zone Magazine
- RC MicroFlight
- Backyard Flyer
RC Forums
All of these forums are great, and I frequent them all, the two that I moderate for are RCFlying.net and TheHobbyForum, this isn't saying anything against the others, but those two are my favorites, check them all out as I'm sure you'll find valuable information on each one.
Misc
- Easy RC from Tower Hobbies - Tower hobbies is one of the bigger RC mail-order companies and they've set-up easyRC.com as a way to help introduce people to the basics of the various RC hobbies.
- Tower Hobbies - What is probably the biggest RC mail-order shop in around, pretty good selection and prices, great resource, but don't forget your local Hobby shop when looking for parts and advice.
- AMA - the Academy of Model Aeronautics, most local clubs require a membership, give you liability coverage in case you fly your plane into somebody and such.
- RC Yellow Pages - directory of RC sites and companies on-line, maintained by Air Age Publishing (Model Airplane News, etc)
That's all for now, I'll get some more links and some pics and such up at some point.
a pic of me and the munchkin (no he doesn't normally have his hair slicked back like that).
a pic of my dad, the munchkin, and the butterfly
