I wanted to quickly update everyone that I have been and will continue to be on a hiatus until further notice. Recently I suffered a very hard time in my life by the passing of my brother at only 38 years of age.

My earliest memories of him were him wrenching on his impala or chevy 100. With that same passion I take to my models.

This past year has been an amazing time in my life in the rc hobby to the point I wanted to open my own hobby store with a childhood friend. With the circumstances I am not in a position of time to invest in my business and therefore putting it on hold.

As I put the pieces together with my family and myself I will look to continue this. Thank you all for the support and I look forward to flying again soon.

Oh thank you baby jesus for the arrival of the E-Flite P-51D! I was ready and already accepting that I would not see the model until the second part of October which is more than likely the end of my flying season. Then on Saturday morning Horizon Hobby updated the stock to in stock.

Now that I have the model I love her but have already began to understand the flaws of this version of an 1100 mm class P-51D. Flaws considered this version by E-Flite is a must have.

From the beginning I knew that the battle of which foam 1100mm P-51D to own would either be the Durafly or E-Flite. Touching them is bring some light to who is the better of the two.

I want to recap the models and first up is the potent Durafly P-51D meassuring in at Wingspan: 1100mm
Length: 945mm
Flying Weight: 1220g
Motor: 750kv Brushless Outrunner Motor
Wing Loading: 60.1g/dm2

and its competitor hailing from E-flite by way of the mother ship Horizon Hobby the E-Flite P-51D BNF basic measuring in at
Wingspan: 44.0 in (1120mm)
Overall Length: 38.4 in (975mm)
Wing Area: 334 sq in (21.5 sq dm)
Flying Weight: 42.8 oz (1214 g)
Motor Size: 15-size brushless outrunner, 950Kv (installed)

By the stats the E-Flite should deliver a slightly more stable flight. Its wing area is a better measurment and the Fuse length is a little longer which may help in giving a little greater lift to drag ratio.

More by the stats the Durafly actually has a little more flexibility right out the box with its...Continue Reading

Good afternoon RC fans. My research and discovery of warbirds continues. As of late I feel that my writing consist of my love proclamation of Horizon Hobby and all they are with the occasional affair with a Durafly model. The truth is if a company produces a model that delivers on the promises of what they offer, well that will be the one I buy. Any model from Horizon Hobby will be delivered with great confidence to the customers.

What I found today was some information from the last E Flite warbird that reinforces the integrity of Horizon Hobby. To be fair the other RC manufacteurs also have QC, but for E-Flite I feel it went above what I would have expected from other brands.

User Pittspecial put together a great list of events from the horrific release of the E-Flite Hawker Hurricane. Lets look at the aircraft from E-Flite that was destined to fail.

The E-Flight Hawker Hurricane was to be available the first part of July and on schedule Horizon Hobby had a press release that the models were on a boat on their way to the USA. Then on July 12 (my birthday) 2011 to all of our surprise Horizon Hobby announced that the entire shipment was rejected due to quality and that they were going to destroy the rejects as they did not want any filtering into the market in any way.

Lets analyze that. A large stock of product that could have at minimum been sold without a warranty at a cut rate but staying true to their standards Horizon Hobby turned down the profit. These...Continue Reading

Ferocious Frankie or Dallas Doll, with nicknames like those for an airplane I think we all win. Is there really a difference from one model to the next? In the end dont they all fly? Well in my battle series I will put popular over produced models against each other and with E-flites soon to be available P-51D "Dallas Doll" , I decided to call all P-51 models to the battle field.

The models that are the leaders in this category are the E-Flite and the Durafly. Dynam, FMS, LX (blitzrcwork), and anyone one else building and selling a P-51D are a distant second. Hopefully I find some surprises in my Battle of the Mustangs.

Lets start with the Dallas Doll. As a devout Dallas Cowboys Fan and a even greater fan of their cheerleaders, I will own an airplane called Dallas Doll. Aside from that pointless piece of info here are the stats

E-Flite P-51D
Wingspan 1120mm (so it is a 1100mm class)
length 975mm or 38.4 inches
flying weight of 1214 grams or 2.7 pounds
Constructed of proprietary Z-foam while fitted with a 15 size brushless motor and a 30 amp esc. This Horizon Hobby must buy is loaded! Weather you buy the available PNP or BNF "basic" (PNP plus receiver. Horizon Hobby if your listening can you just call it PNP Plus it confuses me when I open my kit and get no battery or charger on a BNF.) you will have retracts, flaps, and for the BNF basic a programable AR636 to get those gains just right on the AS3X. Horizon Hobby has never offered so much...Continue Reading

Good evening RC fans. With 2 Hobbyzone F4u Corsair S out of commission because of defects I have had plenty of time to explore the other Corsairs. Uniquely enough I stumbled across a Unique Models F4U4-XS Corsair.

Lets start with images:




...Continue Reading

The hobbyzone in action today

Hobbyzone F4U Corsair S review (8 min 11 sec)

Thank you for putting up with my amateur hour and attempt to be what I am not. I am your typical suburbia husband and father of 2 with the white picket fence, some property, and a pretty blonde wife. Thinking that more over and that is what most modelers are just your ever day joe and that is part of the fun of going to any rc club. With the 8 minutes you may have lost watching my production I really have put you through enough so lets meet back up tomorrow.

To make up for any of your boardem here is a fun crash video

Great Planes Extra 300 crash (0 min 26 sec)

...Continue Reading

AH yes a 3 am post. I did a 3 am post on youtube a few nights ago and the result was a delusional Mexican American rambling about all things confusing. This will be different as I am just waking up however, still expect it to sound delusional.

The battle of my corsairs continues. As I was trying to come up with what should I write about I pondered should I be battling the corsairs in my hanger? Why cant I just love them all equally and tell the world how much I love each. The truth is I am a RC airplane Swinger as there is no one airplane deserving of my love.

Since beginning the process of creating my video of the Battle of the Corsairs I have questioned any and every one in my path on looks, flight, and opinions about the airplanes and I would love to know your input.

My quest to complete this personal project includes stay as unbiased as possible. Who would be the most unbiased? Someone that has zero knowledge of the hobby and even less knowledge of any of the manufacteurs of any of the Corsairs I have. So, the first unbiased person I ran into was... MY WIFE!

I brought in my Durafly, Dynam, and Hobbyzone Corsair and parked them next to each other. Her very first words to me were why did I need so many of the same airplane? There are just some things that some one not in RC would understand and that is that RC Airplanes are like popcorn and I rarely see someone eat one kernel at a time. More than not someone will be popcorn with fistfulls at a time. I like...Continue Reading

For now this is all I want to add

Hobbyzone F4U Corsair S deffective (3 min 37 sec)

Frustrated that I profess my love on a consistent bases for a company like Horizon Hobby. When you are not a shill for a company one can not expect any thing much. A group of us are Your Turn RC and we use our own money to provide airplanes for high school RC clubs and do our own experiments without bias. Today we lost $299 plus tax moving on.

I last left with a brief overview of those that embrace SAFE. There are infinite reasons of why one might embrace SAFE with the most important being that a complete novice can fly without supervision and reduce the risk of crashing due to a rookie mistake.

While reading through post in the Apprentice S forum or in the Safe RX in another airplane there are people that seem to hate the positives that SAFE offers. My interpretation of some of the negative post is that there is a desire to keep the hobby small and intimate and SAFE is breaking that desire by making it easy for any one to fly.

While trying to wrap my mind around how anyone could not like the benefits of SAFE my last flight on a boeing 777 comes to mind. Most commercial airlines if not all have advanced auto pilot systems on board. As scary as it may be the hero on the hudson is the minority and most newer commercial pilots may not be able to make that same great landing. However, the technology is what makes flying safe no pun intended. As long as my airplane takes off and lands in one piece thats what I want.

Now to each his own. Someone that wants to impress us all with his advanced acro flying and ability to fly in monsoon like winds may not be a flying buddy with someone that needs a lot of sim time. One of the things that makes this hobby so intriguing is that all walks of life are a part of it from real young to just straight old.

SAFE is doing wonders for the hobby in my opinion and nothing...Continue Reading

This is coming from my mind as I have yet to touch the hobbyzone and going off of the Parkzone version that was discontinued some time ago. Also as I have been researching the airplanes I came to a realization that no one might care about. The Parkzone T 28 will never be introduced with Safe. The umx t 28 has not been introduced with as3x and really does not need it same can be said with the parkzone t 28.

Hobbyzone like all of the Horizon Hobby lines is a well thought out product with features most may not know they need. We all remember the early days of flight assisting technology like ACT. The problem with ACT it truly was good in theory bad in application. It was almost like you needed to be a seasoned pilot to not crash due to ACT. Most ripped it out or disabled it at minimum. Then we all were intrigued by SAFE. Search through Rcgroups and the extremes of both sides of the feelings of that technology will be clear. There are those that dont believe in it and seem to hate those that like it and there are those that like it and may or may not use it.

I want to first go to those that embrace it. Hopefully the great Jim aka suenaga who has actually made part of his hobby the ability to install SAFE successfully in anything but the Apprentice. Jim has installed it in a Carbon Z cub and even some Dynam airplanes. I gave it a go as well as I was inspired by Jims ideas. I flew my Parkzone T 28 with both the Apprentice S receiver and the Sukhoi SAFE receiver. Then I...Continue Reading

So my journey in the hobby has been great. I do tend to notice a few trends and age old questions that no matter how many times it gets answered can almost with certainty be expected to be asked again by the next newbie. That question is should I buy (any horizon hobby line) or (any of the common brands from china such as Dynam, FMS, Durafly etc)? I truly can see why this is asked so often as any leading common China brand is half to a third of the price of any HorizonHobby Product.

I do not have that answer and I really do not think anyone really can answer that for you. However, in my search around the internet for the answer I have found that usually this question is answered with many other questions. The first seems to be the most common and that is Do you enjoy flying or moding your airplanes? This is a very to the point and makes sense. Every Horizon Hobby brand I have had truly is air worthy after the 20 mins it takes me to assemble them. Every Dynam I have had takes me close to an hour to assemble and then an unknown amount of time to get airworthy. My most recent of the Dynam line their T 28, Hellcat, and Corsair all have needed substantial amount of weight in the nose and with the exception to the hellcat, needed better clevises as I learned not to trust the stock after my 3rd elevator lost in flight... Now for FMS/Durafly I will have my first experience with it on Tuesday as I will have my sample in hand, but from others that have owned them seem to be able...Continue Reading