This is the Silverlit RC Speedy Plus airplane sold by Radio Shack during the Christmas season of 2013. A terrible name for such an interesting airplane design. Too expensive at full price, I purchased (more accurately Dad purchased two of these and gave me one) at half price when only three remained at my local store. This one is controlled and flown like all other Silverlit and Airhogs 2-channel planes that I have flown. Namely with too much floatyness (pitching up with throttle) and not enough control. There are the usual 6-7 steps for the throttle, 1 step for steering, and zero steering without throttle applied. At best this is terrible for outdoor flying and horrendous for indoor RC. None the less I did fly this unmodified 4-motor Bomber indoors on January 26th, 2014 along with Dad's airplane too, and both worked as designed. Off to a good start.....

Since I had a spare electronics board out of a Hobby Zone Duet airplane, that also is conveniently steered by thrust vectoring, that was likely working fine since a motor imbalance was discovered as the problem on the Duet, I installed it in this RC Speedy Plus model. Orientation of the circuit board (Brick) needed to match the Duet donor since there is that roll-controlled gyro to contend with. I epoxied into the fuselage a piece of 1/32" plywood and taped the Brick to it. Also the pushrod location to the new elevator needed to match the Duet because of flying with the Duet TX. Easy enough. The two...Continue Reading

This is a labor of love by my Dad. He assembled the first version of micro "Sandy" Witch around the fall of 2010. She was limited to a controlled decent using the geared P-51 8.5mm coreless motor and AR6400 Brick by Parkzone. Changes were made to her over the passing years, primarily a lighter all-foam body, with no real help.

So, feeling good about my Duet MV build, done with framing the Sky Buggy 100, and with encouragement by Dad I explored the micro witch. A brief bit of history on how Sandy came to be: Dad was inspired by an article in RC Modeler magazine in 1980 of Vroom Hilda the RC witch. He still has the article. He created a 40 sized glow engine one from that article/plans and has been flying her for the past 30 or so years at air shows and special events to great reception. As micro aircrafts matured (thank you Horizon Hobby and Kyosho!) Dad wanted to stand out again from the RTF crowd, and so crafted micro Sandy Witch.

Here is the gist of what I did differently with micro Sandy: Her original wing was a scaled version of the design from RC Modeler magazine, made from carbon fiber and parchment paper. The shape is more delta kite and less Rogallo. It also has the trailing edge of the fabric wing unsupported by any structure for a flapping effect. This wing shape is prone to less stability, is inherently draggy, and was heavy from the paper. I replaced it with a scaled up version of the shape that fly's my Kyosho Autokite plane so smoothly....Continue Reading

I finished assembly and sanding of this Stevens Aeromodel micro Sky Buggy 100 on January 16th, 2014. Although my fourth micro airplane build from Stevens, it is my Dad's purchase, and was another pleasure to assembly. More to report once a covering scheme is devised, the electronics installed, and flying.

Curt

I received the thoughtful gift of a Duet twin aircraft by Hobby Zone for my birthday fall of 2013. I have flown thrust-vector steered airplanes before from Airhogs and Silverlit and had a good idea how to steer it during our indoor flying season that is underway. With fully proportional steering, throttle, and elevator control this is a huge step upwards in control and precision flying from the other brands. The gyro on the roll-control, used to level the plane, wasn't hurting either! However, my Duet would not hold an aileron trim setting. It would start a flight flying straight with the TX trim centered for the aileron. Then, during the flights the plane would consistently drift more and more to the left until the TX trim was at full right and the plane would still continue to pull left some. I figured either this Duet had a drifting gyro on the electronics board (Brick), or the two flight motors were not tracking each other well as they warmed up.

So I called Horizon Hobby and they supported this purchase with a replacement Duet. And this second Duet is perfect! The aileron drift is nearly completely absent and the plane is a joy to fly left and to the right!

On the defective Duet I replaced the stock Brick (which is from the Scout Helicopter by Blade and is version 4 ) with one from a Mini-Vapor. Conveniently I had purchased 2 of the MV Bricks off E-bay one month before, so had them handy. Attached are images of the installation showing the rerouting of...Continue Reading

Flyzone micro RC Super Cub with flaps that were added in fall of 2012 when slow flight resulted in tip stalling and damage to the motor. Stable flight envelope greatly increased in range of speed this way, so much so that I also increased the elevator and rudder control throws beyond factory limits. It is so much fun now tossing around this little jewel.