...because man, are they expensive.

Last year, I was given a discarded E-flite UMX F-16. I watched it crash and I later found it in a trash can. The owner gave me the rest of what he had and I rebuilt it with new E-flite parts and Callie Graphics decals. It's absolutely beautiful, it was far less expensive than buying a new one and it flies great.

It still cost a lot of bread for those parts.

I now have another wrecked F-16 which a new pilot thought would make a good first plane...and he stuffed it in within seconds. An employee at the local hobby shop gave it to me last year on their last day of business. They also had the airframe parts, but alas, they're gone.

The electronics work perfectly and I'd like to build a second F-16 in different livery.

Between this wreck and the parts I took off of the first one, I have two good wings, one good vertical stab/rudder, two good left elevons, a nose cone and all of the hardware and pushrods. I'm looking for the individual parts from a crashed model or a complete airframe with burned out electronics.

Anyone out there have one of these critters or some parts collecting dust? Thanks and please let me know. I already have an ad in the classifieds, by the way.

One of my earliest official reviews for RCGroups was for the now discontinued FlyZone SkyFly 2. Had some fun with it, but after one too many crashes and parts replacements due to a lack of power - we're talking brushed motor and Ni-Cd battery, after all - I set it aside.

I tried experimenting with a brushless outrunner which did one heck of a job of waking it up. One problem. It didn't have enough down elevator on its first test flight and wound up in a tree. The wing and tail were totaled and the tail boom broke loose.

Soon after that, I found all of those parts in the clearance bin of the local hobby shop. I still have them in the original packaging.

Since then, the motor I used found its way into a nice little park flyer and the poor hulk has been sitting in the garage. Last month, I had an idea. I was at the Gorilla Bob's booth at the AMA expo and asked for a replacement shaft for one of his motors. He didn't have one, but he was kind enough to mail one to me.

I now have everything I need to attempt to fly this thing once more less a prop, collet and some thicker pushrods for the rudder and elevator. The plastic fuselage at the tail boom is cracked, so I'll use a small hose clamp and possibly some epoxy to fix it in place. I'm also going to mount a couple of rare earth magnets to the canopy to keep it closed, replacing that funky rubber band setup.

OK, so it isn't a free project, but it sure is a darn cheap one! Pix and flight test to follow.