Part of my new production group Red Flight Productions. Enjoy! Fullscreen high-definition recommended.

Sail - Red Flight Productions (3 min 23 sec)

More info can be found on the youtube page.

I dug out an old motor from the toolbox when cleaning it, and I didn't even know I had it. So I built a plane to stick it on.

Attachment 5210858

Here's the stats from a CG calculator, showing what I did with it:

Attachment 5210911

The construction is fairly simple... a main wing shape and then a kFm2 step on top. LE is duct-tape backed with gorilla glue, which makes it a hard plastic leading edge. Some winglets foam-tac'd on with some scrap EPP. After building it, I realized I didn't have enough area to make suitable surfaces, so I stuck 'em in the back. The airflow over the wing will be pretty turbulent but I think it'll work.

Attachment 5210861

Motor mount is a piece of EPP saturated in gorilla glue. The stuff foams and hardens into a hard plastic, so it's great for making soft areas hard like motor mounts. It's best used in conjunction with foam-tac, as GG doesn't adhere great to EPP - it's good to support compression and torsion but not tension.

Attachment 5210873

Linkages are 2mm CF tube and heat-shrink with a wire Z-bend. I use Gorilla Glue for that too - I've found that thin CA is a bit too brittle and will snap under a hard crash, leaving the wire sliding free (even with sanding). I haven't had that problem since I switched to GG.

Attachment 5210869

These 9g Solar Servos are really nice. They're smoother and quieter than the HXT900s (which have recently turned downhill in quality), but seem to put out less torque and draw less current,...Continue Reading

I had a idea the other day. I just started ... building it. Building a plane with nothing but spare foam and parts I had lying around. I started with pictures and posting them on a thread.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...94&postcount=1

I also made a ballsy prediction as to the AUW when I started building. I never touched a scale when I made that estimate:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...49&postcount=4

I never had any plans. It was all just spur-of-the-moment. I got tired of posting pictures, but still wanted to record the history of this build. So I started making videos.

The ScrapBuild - A RET Trainer in a weekend. (4 min 43 sec)

...Continue Reading

I spent quite a bit of time working on attachments in the main build log thread, and not gonna bother to redo it. Linkage:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1673866

I've been disappointed that my summer schedule has been quite full... full enough that I really don't have much fly time, or being in one place long enough to completely follow through with a scratchbuild. I'm flying to hawaii for a robotics convention (I'd rather it be in CONUS - I'm gonna be too busy to enjoy the island and staying there is expensive). Then a week on an island in virginia, among other things.

So, why not bring a plane with me? I'm pretty much a warmliner/hotliner pilot, so a 700mm-ish warmliner shouldn't be hard to do. I couldn't sleep after I thought of that idea. Here's what I've come up with so far:

This thing has to be durable. Not as durable as a combat wing, but definitely should be able to resist tears and nicks and moderate bumps. My go-to higher-quality foam design is an EPS-cored fiberglass v-tail. It's just a bit too brittle and finicky for a rough-handled traveler.

I was just browsing rcfoam, looking for inspiration, when I found it. In the form of Carbon Fiber Tissue. This stuff is somewhere between wove carbon fiber and 1/2oz fiberglass cloth. I could coat it with this neat RCfoam stuff called 'Extreme Coat'. It seems to be a liquid rubber coating that leaves a flexible end result. I thought about laying in carbon fiber tissue between a few layers of that stuff on top of some reinforced EPP cores. End result would bounce in a crash, yet be resistant to tearing and bumps better than plain 'ol EPP. I like it.

http://www.rcgroups.com/...Continue Reading

I was bored. So I decided to build an airplane. Being too lazy to go out and buy some standard build stuff like foam and covering film, I went green. This is it so far:

Recycled Scratchbuilt Parkflyer (11 min 14 sec)

Here are links to the parts I use. Clicking these before ordering gives me a 5% commission on the item... so if you could support more builds, that'd be great! . All those comments are honest... I'm not just trying to sell that stuff to earn money for myself.

Corona Synthesized Receiver 4Ch 72Mhz (v2) - Good, not great. If you have an old 72mHz Tx that you'd lend to a friend that's new to flying, this would be the Rx to get for him. No fiddling around with crystals and it's pretty tough.
18-11 2000kv Micro Brushless Outrunner (10g) - Although the motor did break, it was a good motor before I broke it. It wasn't the factory's fault.
Hobby King 3.7g / .4kg / .10sec Micro Servo - Each one of these are QC checked. Good budget servos.
Turnigy nano-tech 460mah 2S 25~40C Lipo Pack - Best battery packs under Thunder Power, Hyperion G3, and NeuEnergy.
TURNIGY Plush 6A /.8bec/6g Speed Controller - Best small-amp ESC I've ever used.
TURNIGY BESC Programming Card - Don't get a TGY ESC without it.
Turnigy 2S 3S Balance Charger. Direct 110/240v Input - Not featured in the video, but a super-super great charger for small lipo packs like the one above.