Advice on precision sport and stunt scratchbuild

MiniacRC

Well-known member
Hello folks. I apologize in advance for the long post.
I would love some advice from y'all on what to mighty mini scratchbuild for a strong intermediate precision stunt trainer.

For the last two years my hobby journey has involved a lot of simulator practice, some flight experience and mostly design work. In the first year of my journey, I progressed from knowing nothing about flight controls to being able to fly snappy high energy warbirds in clean circuits with occasional aerobatic like loops and inverted. (Credits go to the FliteTest tip videos and my flying buddy/mentor Dominic). I can now keep a plane in the air, save it from crashes if I lose orientation, and put on a decent show with crazy maneuvers (heuristic stick-banging so to say ;)).

editor_images-1530752540712-DSC_8892.jpg editor_images-1536034807097-IMG_20180902_094104_Bokeh.jpg editor_images-1557554729180-DSC_9559.jpeg

But for all of the second year, since I was caught up designing and decorating planes, I feel that my confidence level has gone down and piloting skills have just stagnated. I find myself afraid to fly inverted even though I have footage from a year and a half ago of me flying rolling circles toward myself ten feet off the ground with my first plane, the tiny trainer. Part of my fear definitely stems from decorating planes and having the responsibilities of shooting flight videos, etc. for design releases.

I want to take a step back and start going in the right direction again in terms of piloting training. To that end, which 4-ch mini (F-pack) plane would y'all recommend I build and fly to improve from doing basic inverted passes and immelmans to doing clean knife edges and precise point rolls (not necessarily 3d)? I'm looking for something small and simple to scratchbuild that flies precisely without coupling and stuff so I can fly the wings off of it and repair it easily!
@jpot1 @Dr. Looping Looie @Grifflyer
 
Last edited:

MiniacRC

Well-known member
One that I have been thinking about is Dan's Bloody Baron/Brit/his upcoming one.
I've flown the Brit and the only thing I want different is a plane with less coupling. Perhaps I can make one as a low-wing with a slightly more symmetrical airfoil?
Really beat on which route to go, and would appreciate any thoughts in terms of my thinking or airplane ideas! Thanks very much for reading! :)

178854_0ccfcacfde2b6917650ff5c8b89e621d.png
 

Mr. Gandalf

Elite member
Hello folks. I apologize in advance for the long post.
I would love some advice from y'all on what to mighty mini scratchbuild for a strong intermediate precision stunt trainer.

For the last two years my hobby journey has involved a lot of simulator practice, some flight experience and mostly design work. In the first year of my journey, I progressed from knowing nothing about flight controls to being able to fly snappy high energy warbirds in clean circuits with occasional aerobatic like loops and inverted. (Credits go to the FliteTest tip videos and my flying buddy/mentor Dominic). I can now keep a plane in the air, save it from crashes if I lose orientation, and put on a decent show with crazy maneuvers (heuristic stick-banging so to say ;)).

View attachment 145430 View attachment 145433 View attachment 145432

But for all of the second year, since I was caught up designing and decorating planes, I feel that my confidence level has gone down and piloting skills have just stagnated. I find myself afraid to fly inverted even though I have footage from a year and a half ago of me flying rolling circles toward myself ten feet off the ground with my first plane, the tiny trainer. Part of my fear definitely stems from decorating planes and having the responsibilities of shooting flight videos, etc. for design releases.

I want to take a step back and start going in the right direction again in terms of piloting training. To that end, which 4-ch mini (F-pack) plane would y'all recommend I build and fly to improve from doing basic inverted passes and immelmans to doing clean knife edges and precise point rolls (not necessarily 3d)? I'm looking for something small and simple to scratchbuild that flies precisely without coupling and stuff so I can fly the wings off of it and repair it easily!
@jpot1 @Dr. Looping Looie @Grifflyer

Mini sportster?

I have never flown one but it seems to be just the kind of plane you're describing.
 

FDS

Elite member
Nerdnic RC’s Chipmunk can be a real monster, build it with the speed wing. Still in the smaller size, really nice looking and sporty flight. Sportster isn’t that different to a spitfire.
Plans for it are on here.
Tundra type planes are good for sport flying too. Add flaps and flap/aileron mix for 3d levels of control. Wings are also good for speed, the KFM wing is an easy strong intro to those.
 

Grifflyer

WWII fanatic
When I built the baron I found it to be very touchy, but I fly with a lot of throws:cool:

I wouldn't recommend the mini sportster for training, while it is a super fun airplane I found that it could get into some weird high speed stalls when you start doing tighter maneuvers.

I personally was in the same situation as you last spring, I flew a lot of warbirds and I was always focused on keeping my flights as smooth and scale as possible, and to be honest I was and still am, really good at it. So I designed the Shrubsmacker to get better at flying inverted and start learning how to fly planes in more extreme attitudes. She's not the best a knife edge (a little bit of roll coupling) but I learned to fly knife edge like that and when I first tried knife edge on the FT Edge 540 I had absolutely no problems doing knife edge laps and loops. Now I might be a little biased but the Shrubsmacker is my top suggestion:LOL:

Some other good planes that I've flown are
The Mini Guinea add about a half inch of control surface to all the surfaces, move the cg back a little bit and it'll do almost any 3d maneuver,
The FT Vector

I haven't flown one but the Easy A/F with low throws should be able to teach you some aerobatics.
 

Bricks

Master member
If you are really thinking precision you just will not get it with foam board as foam board warps and changes with time and use. For a precision plane you want everything as close to inline as possible engine, wing, tail surfaces with enough of a fuselage for knife edges. There are very few planes that do not need some type of coupling in certain maneuvers. If you want to design a plane do a search on pattern planes and look how they are designed and copy there design.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FDS