Does anyone build their own airplanes, and how do you do it?

MrClean

Well-known member
You've one post so I'm assuming you haven't looked at ANY of the FT foam board plans, reviews, construction videos. There are many more aspects to this hobby that now can be enjoyed without the drudgery of other parts IF the participant thinks of that part as drudgery.
When was the last time you built your own radio gear? Whats to be done with that?
Qui Sum - my largest designed, built and flown is a 52cc RC gasser my smallest is .010 control line. I started gluing models together before I went to kindergarten. My most hated phrases are "What happened to the kids in this hobby", "You're not a true modeler if you use blah-blah" and "What are we going to do about the lack of people who don't Blah-blah-blah".

I've read magazines from the late 40's that complained about the lack of kids. They also mentioned and I've watched the sliding scale of "your not a modeler if" and when I started it was "you don't use Ambroid" and has gone through rants about pre bought plans, inked balsa kits, die cut, laser cut, silkspan or jap paper instead of silk, monokote, epoxy, superglue, foam, foam core, coroplast, ARF's ARC's RTF's, BNF's. My most successful Coroplast design which has been built by a bunch of other people didn't qualify as a model at my home clubs Model of the Month awards. Though I had designed, built, test flown and adjusted, rebuilt after the crash to final form and published the darn thing THEY didn't consider any wing that was folded out of coroplast to be worthy and instead gave the award to a model that wasn't even halfway built.

I've no room in my heart for snobbery. There is nothing wrong with your perceived lack of building. Those of us who like to do it still do. Those who merely want to fly can now do so. Those who want to fly multi rotor, fpv, computer controlled devil machines? Well I'm right there with ya on that, get the pitchforks and torches...

See, I'm not really mad, I'z tryin to educate and entertain.
 

CrashRecovery

I'm a care bear...Really?
Mentor
You'll have to excuse the ol grump. Many of us on here build our planes. Like he said check out the scratch build section on here or go to the project topic in the forum. If it says the author is flitetest you know it will fly. Check out their YouTube channel and see what peaks your intrest, download the plans and get to building!
 

earthsciteach

Moderator
Moderator
My favorite part of this hobby is scratchbuilding planes of my own design. You will find good info on this site. Watch the swappable series of Flite Test episodes. Also, check out these other forums:
www.wattflyer.com
www.rcgroups.com

Do you have anything specific in mind? Do you have any experience flying RC airplanes?

And, did I miss something? What set MR. Clean off?
 

pgerts

Old age member
Mentor
Any one out there making RC planes himself? What is needed to be done for it?
First question - YES!!!!!

Next one is a very good question!

First of all - knowledge of aerodynamics for model airplanes.
The best way to get the knowledge is to read a lot of books and magazines about how to build model airplanes.
There is a lot of litterature from 100 years ago all the way to this date about model aircraft and the theories.

Another way is to look at other planes and try to figure out why they fly the way they do.

If you do not really want to make you own plane - get e drawing and a building description.
There are lots of monthly magazines with new model plane drawings in every number.

If you want to fly instead of building your own plane - buy a RTF. A ready built airplane is acually cheaper today than the material you need to build a similar plane. You wont be sorry if you crash a bought plane - you will probably be if you have spent 100s of hours designing and building a rare model.
 

MrClean

Well-known member
Oh man, did I read that wrong? Was he asking HOW to scratch build and I thought he was complaining about folks didn't?

Oh boy. Hey Test, just kinda disregard EVERYTHING i wrote.

WOW.

Yes, there are a bunch of scratch and design built planes on this site, they use cheap, in-expensive materials and produce really fun flying Trainers, mid-level sport and active combat designs PLUS there's quite few interesting jots off into the blue, like the full size Blender or the Turkey Hauler.

My suggestion, if you're willing to take it at this point, is to look at the Flitetest Youtube channel and look for the FT-Flyer, if you've not built before and need to train on an airplane.

And again, sorry I mis-understood your question. Oh I wish that could have been in person. I hope he has an email cuzz I'll send him a message. The question I did answer I've had to answer too many times before. About 10 years of working in a hobby shop once upon a time.
 

IamNabil

Senior Member
Guys? The op is a spam bot. The name is testservices, and the sig is two software testing services.