This is my newest addition. I built this sailplane during the winter months and started flying it in April 2013. It flies great. I used a KD 36-10XL motor from Hobby King, a YEP 60 amp ESC with 6 amp BEC, Graupner 12x6 prop, Hitec 65MG servos in the wing and Hitec 85's for rudder and elevator. The radio is a Hitec Aurora 9.

The build went well but Top Model made a couple of glaring design errors. The elevator is driven by a large bell crank that is supported by two balsa bushings that are pre-installed for you. The balsa wears out very quickly (in my case 7 flights) and then the elevator flops around with several inches of movement! It's easy enough to fix if you know of the problem before assembly. I did not and was not going to rip out the rudder to fix it. I used some thin G10 material on the outside of the fuse to support the carbon rod which goes through the bell crank.

Another issue are the flaps. The wing is only held down with two screws which means it does move slightly. If it does move during flight the flaps are so close to the fuselage they will jam. When I hinged my flaps I went as far out as possible which created about a 1/8" gap between the fuse.

The model CG's easily with a Turnigy 3000 3S pack. The reason I used the KD motor is it's heavier than a Turnigy equivalent. I hate using lead weight to balance. You will want to make sure you have a setting for 90 degree flaps. This sailplane is a real floater and I have used the flaps...Continue Reading

A few years ago going to the Thomas Edison field in NJ was all about watching what Bob Marz and Mr C were going to do. These two guys were so much fun you did not even have to fly your own model, they were going to provide all the entertainment. I wanted to share a video I took back then that I recently found on my computer.

Some comedy at the local flying field (1 min 37 sec)

I recently moved from NJ to SC. I had lived in NJ for 49 years. A day before the move I decided to stop by to say goodbye to an old friend, Horace Hagen. I met Horace back in 1976, the year I bought my first RC helicopter.

Horace was the guru of guru's back then. He had a couple of Kavan Jet Rangers when I met him. Horace spent countless hours with me trying to get my Dubro Tristar off the ground. It had a Heathkit Pack 17 radio in it that was not doing well. Horace figured out all the issues and more importantly taught me what to do and look for. We finally got the Tristar to fly and I was hooked on the hobby since then. I had lost touch with Horace over the years and just wanted to touch base before my move.

Horace worked for Bell Labs in Holmdel, NJ. I enclosed a couple of photos from back then.

Two in one week is very hard. Another friend, Bob Marz passed this past weekend. Bob was full of energy, he was the field comedian, he had more energy than most small kids. He added so much life to the flying field. He just recently retired and was enjoying the RC world more than ever. Bob we are going to miss you more than anyone....Continue Reading

This is a tough one, a good friend at the flying field past away last week. He had a difficult life fighting diabetes where both of legs were amputated in the last two years and was on dialysis because of kidney failure. He was a great guy, well loved by everyone at the Edison field. His favorite plane was the Contender, anytime he had that plane he was one happy camper.

Mr C was his nickname, very few knew his real name was Charlie Cunningham, everyone knew him as Mr C. Here are some photos of Mr C and his friends....Continue Reading

I found a nice 6 banana output channel strip at Tower Hobbies to cleanup my charging mess in my car. I always had alligator clips daisy chained in a mess that would easily disconnect while charging my lithium batteries. This strip is made by Integy and costs about $22. It’s a bargain for what you get. It’s fused protected and 4 of the 6 outlets are switched and have individual power LED’s. There is also a master power LED for the entire strip. It also includes 3 sets of banana plugs to retrofit some of your chargers.

I decided to remove the feet off the back and use Velcro to mount it to my marine battery. The cable going to battery is about 4’ which is great if you prefer to keep your chargers out of the car while charging.

We are getting more scale heli's lately at our local flying field. Here are a few photos of all of them....Continue Reading

I added some LED's from Hobby King to my old Flash EPP foamy. These lights from HK are amazingly bright. They run off 12 volts which is perfect when using a 3s lipo. You can cut them up and splice in colors and lengths as you please.

Flash with LED's for night flying (1 min 37 sec)

We have a good group at the Edison flying field in NJ. Today was some turnout, the weather was very hot and humid but there were no winds. The guys came out and we had a blast. A total of 22 pilots. I even got a very good crash photo.

My first couple of flights were very disappointing, the plane had a very odd feel. My good friend Chris pointed out that I was not flying with the canopy which he said was probably causing some rough airflow. I had not bothered to install it because the battery was in the cockpit and I left it off for easy access and good venting. Well he was right, I took the time to make a mount using ring magnets and the next flight was a charm.

Complete build thread:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showt...ighlight=pitts

This goes way back. I dug up some old photos from my first heli days. I was 15 years old. I built a Heathkit Pack 17 radio and the heli was from Dubro. Yes Dubro actually made helicopters back then. They had the 40 size Tristar and the larger 60 size Shark. I will never forget what sold me on that heli, it was seeing Nick Ziroli on the front cover of Flying models hovering a Shark with pontoons on it. At that time my only RC experience was a couple of boats I built from Dumas.

The Tristar had it's maiden flight at the Bell Labs field in Holmdel, NJ. Back then helicopters were not very well known or reliable! Luckily I found Horace Hagen who was an early pioneer in helicopters in the USA. He spent many hours with me going over all my mistakes. The Tristar was powered by an OS 40.

I never really learned how to fly that helicopter. It would constantly fall apart. But what an adventure those days were and it bit me good, I have enjoyed the hobby all these years.

This did not last long. From the time I started building the plane I knew it had a good chance of coming home in a garbage bag on it's first outing and that's exactly what happened.

The retracts are garbage. The power is poor. The included 4 cell 2200 is not a good match, the plane barley last 4 minutes and I rarely flew full throttle. My meter said it was drawing 47 amps. It would not take off from the grass, the front retract kept giving in. I had one run for about 40 feet on the grass but it would not get off. I finally used pavement. Flying wise it's an amazing floater. The TV was very predictable and flies better than the Squall from Hobby People, but the F-35 was very underpowered in comparison.

Although scale looking the paint scheme is hard to see. If it had lasted I would have painted the bottom with some white stripes. I won't be buying an airframe to rebuild it, I really hated the retracts and overall poor quality of the plane. The paint rubs off way too easily transporting it. The hinges were also poor, I replaced the elevator with CA hinges.

I forgot to glue in the tail wheel when I joined my rudder with CA hinges. I saw a fancy looking tail wheel on someone's plane and decided to make something similar. I used a DuBro EZ connector and soldered a piece of brass tubing with music wire on the pin that would normally go through the servo horn. The hole that would hold the pushrod is fastened to the tail wheel spring. I used a long 2mm screw in the rudder to hold down ball link. I soaked a lot of CA in the hole.

I smoked a Castle Thunder Bird 36A controller this past summer with this Hacker motor. It was being cranky, a Phoenix controller would not turn the motor. When I tried the Tbird it worked fine in a small NES Omen glider for about a dozen flights. Then smoke started coming out the fuse and luckily the BEC was good for landing before it smoked everything.

The motor was using a 10x6, 20amps, 220 watts....Continue Reading

I decided to put my tiny 450 class heli in a body. I did not fly it much because of it's small size, they are much harder to see than what I was used to (Raptor 30). It was an interesting challenge to get the body to fit in this non-Trex clone. This Xheli model has the servos coming off the sides which made it difficult to clear the fuse. I had to cut out the window openings and relocate the pin magnets in order to get the mechanics in there.

A fellow flier that I have known for about 7 years passed away recently. He was active on RCGroups as grouchy1. Gary showed me how much fun you can have with foamies. Before long I finally came over to his side of thinking and never looked back. He learned how to have fun in this hobby without spending a ton of money. He even bought a cheapo HK heli and proved again that they do fly and are loads of fun. He had an usual life but at the flying field he had many friends and we are all going to miss him. I enclosed some videos and photos. He was also a huge Homer Simpson fan.

BatPlane (2 min 4 sec)

...Continue Reading

This was a great deal last year from Hobby People. They were selling it for $20. It comes with an EPP wing, wooden elevons, carbon spars, colored packing tape (red) and strapping tape and hardware. I used an Align 3150kv motor, 5x5 APC prop and a ThunderBird 36 ESC.

The power is 374watts at 35amps. I have a FMA 2100 pack in there.

I decided to use colored Duck Tape (red) for the bottom for strength (Home Depot sells it) and colored packing tape from www.fastpack.net.

I did follow the tips on the build threads and found the wing to be very tail heavy. I cut back the end 1 1/2" and if I had to do it again I would go at least 2". I needed 21grams of nose weight. I also used 1/16" ply top and bottom to help support the motor.

The wing flies great. It's fast and glides well.

I dusted off my old heli, the JR Voyager. I ordered some Spektrum receivers to upgrade the rest of my birds this week. When I pulled the canopy off the heli I was surprised to see all three arms on the swash were cracked. Next time when I cut the arms down I will leave more plastic around the center area.

A friend cut some foam and made a pusher prop jet. I asked to him to cut some foam after I saw how well his flew. I had a different idea in mind though. I had ducted fan and speed controller from a busted Firebird that has been collecting dust now for over a year.

The fan seems a tad big for the frame. I used thin plywood on the top and bottom to strengthen the mount. I used a 3mm carbon rod as the spar. The weight without battery is 255g. I am going to try an old PQ 1800 20c pack. I think 2100 FMA pack will be too large for this plane.

I wanted to fly it this past weekend but the wind in NJ was not cooperating.

I finally got to building and flying the Speedy from Hobby Lobby that I bought last year on their Black Friday sale. Since I own it's cousin the FreeBird I thought this plane would be the same poor quality. It actually is not. The wings were fairly close in balance.

Hobby Lobby is sliding down on my scale of trust these days. They recommend an Atlas 23/12/26 which is a disaster. It barely flies the plane. Luckily I had a friend do the maiden hand toss for me or it would have been back in kit form on it's first flight. You really have to work the elevator to get it to climb. I am going to replace the motor this week with an AXI 2212/20 which flies my FreeBird nicely.

The other issue is weight. The recommended setup from Hobby Lobby will require over 84 grams of nose weight with a 2100 pack. And they recommend a 1800 pack!

Once upstairs the plane flies ok. Landing is easy, no spoilers are needed.

*Update*
Switched to an AXI 2212/20. Much better power. It pulls 25amps with 286watts with a FMA 2100 pack 3 cell, 9x7 folding prop.