Open your mind, and broaden your horizons! Explore new (old) forms of flight!

While I spend most of my time in the multi-rotor section of RCG, I enjoy exploring different facets of model aviation. Fixed wing is also where I started out, when I built a Graupner "RC UHU" sailplane as a teenager. Here are a few RCG sub-forums that I like to read, which have inspired me to try out new and old aspects of our hobby.

Free Flight -- Free flight (FF) is where model aviation started, long before any kind of remote control. Incredible craftsmanship makes FF models light as a feather. Whether you launch them by hand, catapult (like a slingshot), or harness the power of a rubber band to spin a prop, FF is mesmerizing and a ton of fun.

Scratchbuilt Indoor and Micro Models -- Long before the current micro quad craze, intrepid modelers were building incredible micro RC planes from scratch and in all kinds of shapes. Fascinating and hugely inspiring!

Love the idea of converting a FF model to indoor RC, as user glider90 did with his Hyper-Lite Bipe below:

Micro Ready-to-Fly -- It doesn't get any easier than picking up a ready-to-fly (RTF) micro foam plane, even more so now that we have electronic stabilization. If you haven't tried fixed wing RC "out of the box," I highly recommend it!

Hand Launch Sailplanes -- Flying the winds without a motor is the closest we can get to soaring like the birds. Launching straight up from flat ground, i.e. without the help of a hill or cliff or winch, just seems special and surreal. While I only have a Whipit for now, Discus Launch Gliders (DLG) got me hooked and are just plain cool.

Electric Sailplanes -- Motorized gliders offer an easy entry into the world of gliders and sailplanes. Can't find a thermal to carry you aloft? Just crank up the throttle! And once you have enough altitude to feel comfortable, cut your engine and the prop will fold flat against the fuselage.

There you have it! Endless ways of enjoying flight and finding new recreational and educational pursuits.

Brainstorm, those links you posted are gold! There is so much to explore. Thank you.
It is such a great idea to "hot rod" some of these older concepts and make use of modern efficiency and miniaturisation.
I'm inspired to fit some basic light electonics to my old rubber powered model

My late father used to love the super slow indoor rubber powered planes where the prop turned so slowly you could see it
I wonder what he'd think of a tiny brushed motor buzzing away!

We all started somewhere, for me it was rubber powered Keil Kraft planes, like "Senator" and "Gypsy", built up on the workbench, covered with tissue paper strengthened with dope. We would use surgical rubber to power them, and wind them up with a drill. "Senator" flew astonishingly well, it was a great introduction into the hobby.

Senator:


Later I was to get involved in free flight sailplanes, then rc sailplanes. I used to salivate over the Graupner "Cumulus" sailplane. I ended up with a lovely "Ricochet" plane designed by a Melbourne man Ralph Learmont. From there I built up a Graupner "Ametuer" a 3 channel small powerplane, then other powerplanes from there. This was all in the 70s and 80s.
I have a yearning to return to the thermal soarers; it was such a graceful and relaxing way to fly. I recently bought myself a cheap dlg for the exercise...

I was very fortunate to have experienced the hobby back in the days where construction was such a big part of things, now we can retrofit some mods to reignite the passion

I've been on a bit of a journey looking through some of my builds from yesteryear, and I'm thinking I might rebuild another version of "senator" above and utilise a rudder control. here is a great video of a bloke with his rubber-powered plane, flying in close quarters to town, catching thermals, and yet being able to bring the bird back with just rudder control.

Flying Aces Sky Gull oldtime rubber RC - flying (4 min 40 sec)

Originally Posted by schrodingers cat

There is so much to explore. Thank you.
It is such a great idea to "hot rod" some of these older concepts and make use of modern efficiency and miniaturisation.
I'm inspired to fit some basic light electonics to my old rubber powered model

My late father used to love the super slow indoor rubber powered planes where the prop turned so slowly you could see it
I wonder what he'd think of a tiny brushed motor buzzing away!

Apologies for not responding sooner, Schroedinger's Cat! While I've continued dreaming about many possibilities, I completely forgot about my blog post.

Building and flying rubber-powered FF models is becoming a lost art. You are lucky to have learned the ropes with your father! I only recently discovered FF, as there is a local group here, the DC Maxecuters, which has an annual indoor FF flying event and is working to preserve the art of FF for future generations. Unfortunately, I really haven't had much time for any flying hobbies recently.

From FF models, it's only a small step to micro RC. Control electronics and batteries have improved tremendously. Given proper attention to weight savings, most vintage FF planes can become suitable candidates for RC conversion. I am personally most fascinated by the featherweight "penny planes" and similarly filigrane and slow-flying models. The easiest first step will be to resuscitate an FPV Vapor I bought on closeout sale some years ago. Then I can worry about scratch-building something more sophisticated later.

In terms of sailplanes, I am fascinated by modern discus-launch gliders. Specifically, I've followed development of the GO Mini 1m DLG by ArmSoar with great interest. While I hope to get one eventually, it nonetheless poses the same challenge for me as larger quadcopters -- I have to drive a long way to find an appropriate open space to fly safely and legally.

Maybe I should just stick to making paper airplanes instead...

Ha yes indeed

It's been great, I made a buddy on this thread, gossie is a really nice and helpful bloke, and has a Senator like mine

I have a dlg I'm yet to build and I also just recently bought one of those cheap kids balsa rubber powered planes. I was thinking I might try to power it with an electric motor and use some linear sliding micro servos..... Of course a Vapor would be much better

Funny, we think alike

Bringing back old memories! I started with ~19" balsa ff gliders with clay balancing, we would fly them off the high school football bleachers, then I got into ff tissue, then I had a idea in 1974, i was 9, and it worked! I used a weight hanging on a pendulum (penny or nickle), then a push rod would control the elevator, mechanical auto level 45 years ago . A few years later I built a working FF rubber powered HELI, it used dental floss from the main shaft to drive the tail, took a bit of trial and error (several months) for the correct gearing. Then I got into rubber tissue, then rc cars on road got a hold of me (not racing yet, just my bro and I, and rc on road bikes (eleck-rider in 1976 from kraft)). After doing some larger FF (~50" stuff), I then found rc gliders, built a gentle lady, loved that plane, high start at the school and then slope and slope thermal flying. In 1980 I started racing 12th scale on-road, well that hooked me for 21 years, sponsored for 10 years, 12th place in the 1996 worlds, was a blast. I also did a decade of slope combat in Long Beach bluffs, that was the best fun i had in gliders by far, 3d competition!, my best was 5..5 hours on sat and sunday for 11 hours flying total over the weekend (yep, I had funny crystals, aka my own channel, great fun), I miss them days, especially the high level racing events.

Wow, that's a whole lot of incredible, Oz. I really like your auto-level idea, very clever for a young lad. The rubber powered ff heli is nothing short of astonishing. I'd love to see a picture of that.
I was at a scale road (carpet) event today, and it was a real eye-opener to see the 12th scale pan cars running, especially watching the world champion (a bloke from the Netherlands I think) driving. It is robotic and incredibly precise, and so bloody fast!
Having done some full scale motor racing, it was quite a blast to see the capabilities of these cars.
Incidentally, I ran into Thomas Bitmatta and his dad there, I had a good opportunity to have a great chat about all things quads. I gave him a Rocket Angel88 that I had with me They really are great ambassadors for the fpv quad racing sport
I lift my hat to you for achieving what you have in all forms of rc, including of course, your amazing quad skills. You have great tenacity and discipline mate

Thanks for the kind words! Besides go karts, 12th scale carpet was the best. On the good tracks we were doing 600+ turns in 480 seconds (8minutes). A friend videos a race, then when we watched it back, I was amazed by how consistent we were hitting the lines. I have read 30+ racing books on setup and driving and my favorite is "the soft science of road racing motorcycles", it said it teaches high speed thought. It was the single most influential racing book for me. It teaches a plan on where to spend your attention, this was gold for racing. You hear the word "focus", this teaches what and how much attention to focus on. It makes you faster and more consistent. Its all about motorcycles and there you need to pay attention to 5 things at once, where rc cars was only two, much easier, I went from B-mains to top of A-mains in two months after applying this book. I did a decade on racing online (NR2003), that was a blast too, I found a partner and shared info and grew together, won a ton of races, first 4 years of that game, I averaged 26 races a week (minimum races was ~17 minutes long or longer), it was a blast.

Interesting, thanks, I'm going to chase up that book too, sounds like a real beauty.

Reminds me of a novel (far less technical, but a beautiful read) called Racing in the Rain (iirc)

I've always loved racing, and speed in general. I was lucky as a kid to have done quite a bit of gokart racing. This was in the late 70's and early 80's. In Australia, it was the wild west for kids, virtually no limitations, so we were running 100cc racing rotary-valve motors, same as the senior sprint karts. We used the same crazy-sticky tyres too, that is until we were going faster than the pro seniors....
Competition was pretty full on (though not as full on as these days), I managed to get to the level of being consistently faster/beating the national champion, (we didn't travel interstate for the actual event).

The grip etc of these machines really put the onus/limitation on the driver rather than the kart. I still remember the shock of driving a normal racing car on a track years later and being horrified by the (comparative) lack of grip.

Only do hill climbing these days, have driven anything from a modern open wheeler to a 1930s race car. I love hillclimbs, kinda low key and more my pace.

Rob Roy CC2 2013 Subaru WRX David Bell (1 min 49 sec)

Awesome stuff! thanks for sharing. yep on the insane grip a gokart has, bang for buck they cant be beat. That hill climb was cool too. I had a 70 and a half SS camaro, big motor, was fun, well till I got a street bike, i just liked the freedom, acceleration and lean angle.

In racing, i love working wheel/pedals at the limits, its a great feeling, as my mom said, your living in the moment. What I really liked about the pc sim racing was tire management. When I started I was getting some hand me down setups, i was learning the tracks, then I got a semi good setup, so I analyzed for a few days with replay analyzer that setup on that track, what the sim wanted (tire temps and wear mainly), that was golden info. then I started to build my own sets and then expanding on what I learned, it was awesome fun. That sim had so much depth to it, fuel strategy (over gearing 4th gear, clutching to save fuel, and then undergearing 3rd gear to optimize the drive with older less grip tires), grill tape strategy, etc. I am a road racer, but ovals was a big challenge, more setup, but then the style of driving was also different. The game had 26 tracks, 2 were road course, but people figured out how to convert other games tracks, at the end we had 150+ tracks , most road circuits, I still miss that sim.

here is the book i mentioned
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/sof...hoC9GwQAvD_BwE

Thanks for the link, ordered that...

I'm curious, did you drive the RC cars sticks or wheel?

oh and the art of racing in the rain https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/art...780061537967#/

Originally Posted by schrodingers cat

Thanks for the link, ordered that...

I'm curious, did you drive the RC cars sticks or wheel?

oh and the art of racing in the rain https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/art...780061537967#/

I used a wheel, I got super lucky, I guy was getting out of racing and he sold me the kraft controller, that thing was awesome, then the futaba magnum 1024 pcm came out, i bought it, doh!, I could not get with in 1 lap of my track record, after two months i gave up on that thing, I did finally figure it out, the "expo" setting was not expo at all, it was arc-point, to figure it out I taped the wheels together and added a arm of about 8 inches, then did the same with 2 servos, then I mapped input to output, bingo! there was my answer (see picture, this is not the graph I did decades ago, but it shows what arc-point is, ignor the red box, I was pointing out how much expo changed the rates). Then i got the futaba 3pj super, I really liked it.

I did drive the fataba box wheel radio, there was a killer classic big event, if you used the box you got a 1 lap advantage, i borrowed one, added servo reversing switches and endpoint adjustments. It was great beating the 3 world champs that day

I remember at the 1996 worlds, masami hirosaka was fooling around, driving with sticks,,,,with his toes!

Speaking of gearing in my last post, I found a picture of what I was talking about (last picture), Without the excel gearing table and knowledge, you could never be able to chose these options in the game, we has so many tools to use to gain speed.

My CRC from the weekend just gone No permanent carpet tracks out my way so relish the opportunity to hit the rug when an event comes to town!

Originally Posted by Big Gles

My CRC from the weekend just gone No permanent carpet tracks out my way so relish the opportunity to hit the rug when an event comes to town!

Very nice! I quit rc car racing after 21 years, i quit in 2003 and started online sim racing. My AE 10th and 12th still used T-bars, I had the 12e/i/l/lc/lw, i did create a t-bar that was adjustable, really helped compared to just two thicknesses to choose from, now its a simple spring change. It was great being able to keep stiffening the rear roll stiffness until it started stepping out, then back it down, it was great. I got out right before LiPo's and brushless, so I drove in the dynasaur days, or was that fossil days, lol, I missed out on the good stuff. That gearing is hysterical, looks 1:1, haha.

For awhile it was a battery war in 12th scale (sucked). I recently went to a ready race of champions, a race just finished, next racers stepped up and started doing hot laps, i told my brother xxx, after a minute the said hot laps are over, line up! In 12th scale, we would push our cars to trim them w/o wasting power for the race, lol, times have changed. I dont miss cutting comm's and changing brushes every run. I remember the hand out races, in the old days (mabuchi and igarashi) we would water dip them to break the brushes in, or in the newer motors cut the comm from new of 0.30" to 0.278", taking 80% of its life away, but it really helped with power.

I first got sponsored by novak, but his rx glitched, and later his esc overheated in pro mod sedans, I switched to tekin in 97, I liked their stuff. Yokomo sponsored me after winning the yokomo nationals, and a free trip to japan, yatabe arena and the yokomo worlds, I got second. I had a bag of small electrolytic caps, we would solder reverse to someones brush motor before his run, after 2~3 full thro, the cap would blow with a bang and smoke, everyone would yell novak, it was pretty funny. Great memories, i will see if I can find some pictures of my fossils.

EDIT, added a few pictures: my 1st and second street bike, my camaro 70 1/2, rc12i i won the classic race, some slot cars stuff (instead of 12v, we ran separate power supplies each lane and 25V, with a nitrous switch of 40V), and the last picture is not my plane, its a USRA unlimited plane with 100" wingspan, motor cant be more than 12lbs, its a twin 200cc and making 52hp, 1800 foot apart pylon cones, doing 265mph max on the straights, pretty amazing. These pictures are a great memory refresh, share if you have some.

I swear Senna is looking at me!

That pylon racer is off the planet! amazing!!!

I remember doing the underwater thing with the brushed motors too

Awesome Oz, truly great to see some of your rides, many and varied

The book arrived today too