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My questions and concerns about the RC hobby

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  • My questions and concerns about the RC hobby

    Hello! I am actually new to this website and wanted to go further with my rc airplane hobby. So I have been mainly working on rc airplanes made out of foam board and never have worked with any other material. To be honest, only 1 out 6 of my foam board models would actually fly and I actually follow the videos that flite test has on youtube. Either I am terrible at this hobby or this material just doesn't work with airplanes. My question is, should I be working with materials such as balsa wood or foam core (the foam like you see in Lowes)? I tried looking for rc airplane books and countless videos but none of them really go in depth and actually answer my question. I was analyzing all the models that motion rc has to offer and they look really good and especially realistic. However, my only problem is that majority of them are made of solid foam if i'm not mistaken. I feel that for the price point they're asking for these airplanes, they should be made out of wood or another light material. I get that the electronics are expensive, but the airplane in my opinion should not be over 500 dollars and this is the reason why i'm hesitant to buy one these airplanes because one wrong move and that foam will explode in tiny pieces that is beyond repair. Balsa wood seems the best to me, but again I don't know what machines to get or where to even obtain the wood. Please feel to share your opinions and recommend some ways I should go about making these airplanes.

  • #2
    I think you need to put in more time in this hobby to get a better idea of “how things are”. When you say you haven’t had much success with foamboard planes, I’m quite surprised. I fly with a couple of guys who fly a lot of those foamboard planes from plans they get from Flitetest and they all fly very well. Just as Depron and foamboard has revolutionized the RC model airplane hobby for many, many beginners and intermediates, the “solid” foam (as you call them) has revolutionized scale airplanes and contrary to what you’ve observed, these have made these airplanes much more affordable. You can see the scale balsa planes at Motion RC and realize that those are in another price point much higher than the scale foam planes. Realize that scale foam planes are on the most part, “PNP” types, while the balsa models are “ARF’s”. The price point of these balsa ARF’s are already higher than the foam counterpart. Add in all the mechanics, electronics and power systems and you can easily triple or quadruple what a foam PNP costs.
    I’ve built many of those Depron and foamboard “profile” planes and they all fly fairly well. Then came the PNP foam scale planes. Sure, they cost a lot more than the “flat” planes but building a realistic scale foamboard plane is challenging and the end result is usually a plane that only it’s mother can love. I’ve also built a few balsa ARF’s and they end up being quite expensive but very satisfying to own and fly.
    You should dig a little deeper before coming to a final conclusion on some of your views.

    Comment


    • #3
      First I wanted to say thank you for your advice and I appreciate your facts that you presented. Secondly, I didn't mean to offend anybody with what I said I only want to find a way to make my airplanes fly better. I will now give foam another shot and try to incorporate depron foam (which I never used). I believe most of my mistakes when building these foam-board airplanes is starting from scratch and rushing through the build (because it is exciting to see its maiden).

      Comment


      • #4
        You did not offend and I didn't mean to sound like I was offended by your post. My response was very "matter of opinion" and was meant to be as truthful as possible.
        Do you make your planes from plans or are they your own design? If they are from plans, then I think it's important to follow the suggestions for CG, power system and control throws to ensure success. I've built from Flight Test plans and they are well thought out. The problem "could" be if you re-scale them. Making them smaller or bigger than the plans indicate may cause some additional aerodynamic issues. Even better are their pre-cut foamboard kits. If they are your own plans, perhaps you need to use existing guidelines for those critical specs.
        I've even built from scratch using extrapolated plans I saw on YouTube. Those planes flew but they certainly had their quirks. An example are the "fat" cartoon planes done by this guy:


        I've even made foam flying Pterodactyls:
        https://forum.flitetest.com/index.ph...odactyl.22036/

        The balsa Pterodactyl was even more intricate and the end cost was so much more than the foam one:
        Marston PteroWorks has unique electric radio controlled pterodactyl and airplane designs. Kits are available for the Marston electric twin engine rc pterodactyls, Micro Pterodactyl, Marston Guppy and Marston Shark. Free plans available for Depron 3D fish RC electric plane.


        Also made a foam flying woman and flying man. I've currently got a smaller version flying woman on the table but I just don't have the patience to get started on it. These things shouldn't fly at all but they do. This guy can even make an elephant fly:

        BTW, he was willing to sell those elephants for $1000.00 a copy.

        Sometimes, model airplane designs don't actually "fly" but rather, they are yanked through the air by their power system and those cases, you may get the feeling that they don't fly very well, which is not necessarily untrue. This can be a very expensive hobby. It all depends on what you want in your model. If you want realism and scale-ness in looks and operation of moving parts and the proper sound and realistic flying characteristics, then it's going to cost. You won't get all of those in a custom home build. The molds for these things can cost as much as $50,000.00 to $100,000.00 and they're only good for so many units (a few thousand?). The manufacturer has to recoup those costs.

        Comment


        • #5
          Well I do my plans from scratch however my cuts like bevel cuts are absolutely horrible and causes holes in the joint between the ailerons and elevator. Now that I see it foam is much cheaper and the realistic airplanes are sponsored by clubs and such. Also those builds are really interesting with the animals. Now also reading your reply I realized my mistake is printing out the plans wrong. I usually print in squares and tape them together instead of doing a large scale print, would you recommend large scale? With pre cut kits I bought the viggen from flite test and I built it but again it didn’t fly because I think I didn’t properly sauder the edf and maybe affected the voltage or cg was way off. Any other tips would be really helpful.

          Comment


          • #6
            Making your own design can be a challenge as you don't really know what the proper size of the model should be. I've built several Flite Test Viggens and all have flown really well except for the twin Viggen that I tried. Pasting 2 together screwed up the scale of it and it didn't fly at all. I don't know what part of the power system you had to solder but on the most part the only part that needs soldering are the bullet connectors. Anything else might be out of the ordinary. You need a certain size of fan, kv of motor, number of blades in the fan, battery cell count and size to make it work. Insofar as CG, the Viggen's CG is well published and is even marked on the wing pieces. If you don't get that right, then it's a matter of technique and interpretation when balancing. Flitetest even gives recommendations for all the various parts, power systems, etc. If you put in a system that isn't powerful enough, the plane won't fly. Too powerful and you either auger it into the ground or you tear off control surfaces.
            There's nothing wrong with sticking sheets together so long as you end up with the joins in the right places and you don't change the intended scale size of it. A good example of changing the scale of a plane and suffering the consequences is HobbyKing's own Skipper. They scaled it up and made a Big Skipper. Those who bought the big one has posted that it doesn't fly anywhere near as well as the original smaller one.
            If you've seen the post by one of Motion's own people, he said that balsa prices have sky rocketed and has become scarce. Prices for such ARF kits will go up even more. Balsa has always been far more expensive a building material that foam. You say you don't thing a foam plane shouldn't be more than $500.00. Well, that depends on what you expect to get on those planes. These days, customers want more and more in their scale models. They want better retracts (they have to rotate when they retract), bigger wheels for grass ops, sequenced doors, more details, proper pilot figures. They want more plastic bits, better quality of foam, better paint. EDFs must be more powerful. They want realism - an F-14 MUST have real swing wings. You can't have all this without more cost.

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            • #7
              Understandable. Right now I’m actually working on the ft guinea pig and I’m trying to make my ailerons work together and can’t bend the metal for the landing gear. It flew initially but I eventually lost control and long story short I needed a new nose for the plane.

              Comment


              • #8
                Those 2 fellas at my flying that I mentioned previously have a Guinea Pig each. They fly them together and they work quite well. Looks really nice in the air in tandem. They have a lot of fun with them. However, they've left the landing gear off and use them as "skidders" (belly landers and belly take offs). If you can't bend the wires for the landing gear, I might suggest that you are using the wrong type of wire and perhaps you need to get a wire bender. It's a very simple device that is secured to a bench and has pins sticking out of it. The wire goes between the pins and you bend them to suit your needs.

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                • #9
                  Where do you print your plans, and if you wanted to make it full size, what would be an ideal size for ft guinea pig plans?

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by aeroengineer View Post
                    Where do you print your plans, and if you wanted to make it full size, what would be an ideal size for ft guinea pig plans?
                    Every Flite Test plane has specs. You can easily find out what the model's wingspan is. The final printed plan should reflect this measurement. My old plans were sized up and printed at Staples. ~$10. each.
                    Or you can keep sizing it on your own printer till you get that wingspan when you tape it all together. (The Guinea Pig's wingspan is 58".)

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Just out of curiosity, when you say only 1 of 6 planes flew, what did the other 5 do? If you built them close enough to spec they should be ok, and maybe it just a COG adjustment needed.

                      After building 6 planes, even with the failures, you should at least be getting quite good at building. Let’s get you flying!

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                      • #12
                        Well the first ever plane I built was the FT Pietenpol and that was a pre cut kit. Believe or not on that first build that was my only plane that flew until my dad decided to take the remote and attempt to fly it and it ended up being destroyed in the end. Then I went on to buy another kit and it was the FT mini corsair also pre cut kit which didn't fly for some reason . Then I went towards scratch building and my first scratch build was the FT spitfire (not the mini). Now with the FT spitfire it would initially go up because I paired it with a powerful motor, but it was very nose heavy and crashed everytime on its nose. The next plane I built was not from flite test rather it was plans for a JU 87 (which is one of my favorites) from a particular website. I think my mistake on that one was maybe not printing the plans properly so the scaling was perhaps off. Then I went back to flite test and decided to try building an edf jet which was the FT viggen. The viggen sounded like a beast with a 65 mm fan (don't remember how many kv on motor) and with that one it flew pointing upwards and it would glide, but the problem there was it would refuse to go up. My initial guess is that it's not enough power or I didn't solder the bullet connectors properly as mentioned by xviper (also battery was a bit sketchy on the viggen). Finally, the last project I worked was the FT Guinea Pig and test out dual motors. That one flew on initial takeoff, but I was surprised at that moment that it actual took off that I forgot how to actually control the airplane and then of course a crash occured there and the plane was never to be flown again. Also with the Guinea pig I couldn't figure out how to do the mixing of motors and how to make the ailerons work in sync with my Spektrum DX 6E. So basically this is my rc airplane hobby all summed up in this reply and all the airplanes I built so far and when I look back at it, it looks like I threw in a lot of money and most of the airplanes didn't work out for me. However, I am still extremely passionate about this hobby and want to improve my skills so that I can make these masterpieces fly. Any advice or tips on building would be greatly appreciated.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by aeroengineer View Post
                          Well the first ever plane I built was the FT Pietenpol and that was a pre cut kit. Believe or not on that first build that was my only plane that flew until my dad decided to take the remote and attempt to fly it and it ended up being destroyed in the end. Then I went on to buy another kit and it was the FT mini corsair also pre cut kit which didn't fly for some reason . Then I went towards scratch building and my first scratch build was the FT spitfire (not the mini). Now with the FT spitfire it would initially go up because I paired it with a powerful motor, but it was very nose heavy and crashed everytime on its nose. The next plane I built was not from flite test rather it was plans for a JU 87 (which is one of my favorites) from a particular website. I think my mistake on that one was maybe not printing the plans properly so the scaling was perhaps off. Then I went back to flite test and decided to try building an edf jet which was the FT viggen. The viggen sounded like a beast with a 65 mm fan (don't remember how many kv on motor) and with that one it flew pointing upwards and it would glide, but the problem there was it would refuse to go up. My initial guess is that it's not enough power or I didn't solder the bullet connectors properly as mentioned by xviper (also battery was a bit sketchy on the viggen). Finally, the last project I worked was the FT Guinea Pig and test out dual motors. That one flew on initial takeoff, but I was surprised at that moment that it actual took off that I forgot how to actually control the airplane and then of course a crash occured there and the plane was never to be flown again. Also with the Guinea pig I couldn't figure out how to do the mixing of motors and how to make the ailerons work in sync with my Spektrum DX 6E. So basically this is my rc airplane hobby all summed up in this reply and all the airplanes I built so far and when I look back at it, it looks like I threw in a lot of money and most of the airplanes didn't work out for me. However, I am still extremely passionate about this hobby and want to improve my skills so that I can make these masterpieces fly. Any advice or tips on building would be greatly appreciated.
                          My advice is to get yourself an actual trainer plane and fly, and then fly some more. Seriously. There are plenty of decent priced trainers out there like the Apprentice if you want to go big, or the UMX Timber if you want to go small...but get one already built to take the guesswork out of it and just learn to fly...everything else will then fall into place..

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Appreciate the advice hilldebrandt, I was actually just considering myself to get a trainer and actually practice flying. Also let me know the best place to buy the trainer for example like horizon hobby, motionrc, and etc.

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                            • #15
                              Im actually deciding between the carbon cub s or the aeroscout as my first pre built airplane for training. Any thoughts ?

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                              • #16
                                I really like the Valiant as a starter/trainer plane, fun to fly, well built, robust, tons of power and forgiving. Less than $200 w as3x/safe receiver
                                rc flyin addict

                                Comment


                                • #17
                                  Valiant does look very well built, but the only thing is that it doesn't include the gps features and geo fencing features that's offered inside the carbon cub s. However, I will most definitely include this trainer into consideration as it does have include some safety features for less money than the carbon cub.

                                  Comment


                                  • #18
                                    Which Transmitter and Receivers do you currently have?

                                    Comment


                                    • #19
                                      I have the DX6E transmitter with an AR620 receiver.

                                      Comment


                                      • #20
                                        Oh yea great, plenty of options then. I’d find something basic and cheap. Aeroscouts are pretty indestructible from what I understand, so perfect for learning and teaching your friends/family.
                                        The UMX Timber actually seems pretty cool, big wheels and functional flaps mean you can take off and land on most terrain.

                                        I wouldn’t worry about GPS and fancy electronics. Ideally you wouldn’t even have SAFE... though I guess it may help in the first flight or two, but focus on careful consistent controls. Remember to balance your ailerons with your rudder for flat consistent turns. (I.e. Move sticks in opposite directions to level wings)

                                        Keep us posted, fun to see your progress!

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