Indoor planes. Thoughts?

speedbirdted

Legendary member
Well, it appears old man winter has paid me a visit and decided to drop a foot of snow where I live. Flying off snow is fun but the cold gets annoying (and flying in thick gloves is just no fun at all!) Luckily my club has managed to work out a deal with the local indoor basketball court and we get to use it during the winter time on weekends, which is pretty cool. The problem however - is I have no indoor planes. Currently my smallest planes are not nearly small or slow enough to be flown around safely indoors while doing more than extremely tight circles which gets old fast (and yeah the micro wing I built that you might've seen some posts about a while ago ended up being a depressing failure) Luckily for me we have holidays coming up soon and relativ-- er, Santa willing to give us things, but - I don't really know what I want. Looking around I've seen many, many options for indoor planes from lots of different manufacturers at lots of different price points, and can't really decide. Micro planes are not something I often deal with and consequently my experience in this segue of the hobby is quite limited.

So folks! What are your thoughts and recommendations on indoor planes? Discuss, make suggestions, spread knowledge, go. If it helps, I've got a Spektrum radio and lots of little 1S lipos laying around so anything that uses those is probably best for me.
 

Bricks

Master member
As you are finding out there is a plethora of indoor type planes, it mostly comes down to how you want to fly 3D, pattern. F3A or just something to get in the air. Give us some idea here and maybe we can be more specific in a recommendation.
 

speedbirdted

Legendary member
So you are looking to strictly buy a plane and not build, am I correct?
A build is not entirely off the table.

As you are finding out there is a plethora of indoor type planes, it mostly comes down to how you want to fly 3D, pattern. F3A or just something to get in the air. Give us some idea here and maybe we can be more specific in a recommendation.
Nah, not really like that. More just something to fly around and have fun with. Was considering a Champ and might just go with that if no one (including myself) finds something better to buy, but something with ailerons would be nice.
 

BATTLEAXE

Legendary member
A build is not entirely off the table.


Nah, not really like that. More just something to fly around and have fun with. Was considering a Champ and might just go with that if no one (including myself) finds something better to buy, but something with ailerons would be nice.
If yo are looking for something to buy and fly indoors you could go with the HH Sport Cub S which has ailerons and the SAFE system and will take your 1s lipos. I learned the basics of aircraft control on that and it is small and light enough to fly indoors, as long as you keep it to a respectable speed, doesn't take much though.

Or you could go bigger and just as slow with a couple of FT designs such as the Old Speedster or Old Fogey on B packs with 10x3 props on 2s for some indoor fun, even the Mini Speedster could do the same. I made a biplane version of the Mini Speedster that flies indoors.
20190817_204329.jpg

You could easily do the same
 

Grifflyer

WWII fanatic

BATTLEAXE

Legendary member
I watched this the last time you posted it, so light and floaty. I would be scared to transport it, I would break it just building it for sure lol
 

speedbirdted

Legendary member
Or you could go bigger and just as slow with a couple of FT designs such as the Old Speedster or Old Fogey on B packs with 10x3 props on 2s for some indoor fun, even the Mini Speedster could do the same. I made a biplane version of the Mini Speedster that flies indoors.

I was considering doing something like this out of 2mm depron, by taking some FT minis and just scaling them down so all the folds will line up. I've gota micro coreless motor with a gearbox as you find in most 1s powered indoor foamies and could get one of those brick ESCs off banggood for pretty cheap (last I checked the dsmx version is like $22) However - my local dollar tree and hardware store don't really have suitable materials. Might have to resort to buying it online...

I could also go the old school route and dig into Outerzone to find some old rubber F/F plans that could be easily converted to micro electric power, since after all they were built to run off of minimal power requirements. Guys at my club have built those little Guillows models to run off of micro power systems and they honestly fly pretty well.
 

Bricks

Master member
It is hard to beat the Horizon Sport Cub S off of the Horizon web site it is $99 shipped. It makes a very nice indoor plane and even outdoors with a light wind. When I fly mine ( what is left of it ) in the wind I put a 500AH battery in it and it handles wind pretty darn good. With it being 4 channel it flies inverted knife edges loops and rolls where the Champ being 3 channel cannot do these things.
 

Hondo76251

Legendary member
Big fan of the UMX Timber myself. I've flown it in my shop a time or two. With flaps down it'll fly about anywhere... I've got a Vapor I fly indoors as well. I can even fly it in my house (double wide trailer) But its more fun in the shop.
 

LitterBug

Techno Nut
Moderator
A few uber light ideas in my fleet:
UMX Night Vapor
UMX Vapor Light

Inductrix switch air
https://www.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0095p?FVSEARCH=BLHE2262

I don't have the "air" wing for my switch, but have the hovercraft an numerous other inductrix/whoop flyers. Our field meets at a church with a small gymnasium. There are some small foamies including 3D flyers there as well. The whoops really took off when I started leaving my FPV feed up where everyone could see it.

Cheers!
LitterBug
 

Hondo76251

Legendary member
The whoops really took off when I started leaving my FPV feed up where everyone could see it.

I always prefer to fly fixed wing but when it comes to indoors (especially in your own home) whoops are really the way to go TBH...

I've got several inductrix FPV+ that I really like (haven't tried the switch yet but plan to) I've got a team black sheep tiny whoop but it's a little aggressive for my kids to fly. They actually prefer to the fly makerfire blue sharks (with alt hold) and after having had them for quite a while now I'd have to say they are some of the better "bang for your buck" fpv setups you can buy for beginners.

like I said, I've got stuff I can fly indoors but I find that I prefer to keep my fixed wing stuff outside and do the whoop thing inside, especially with young boys...
 

speedbirdted

Legendary member
Tiny whoops especially with FPV are quite fun indoors. Our indoor sessions with the club actually started as tinywhoop sessions where we would just bring random obstacles like hoops and tables and stuff and create impromptu courses, and then race around them. However the meta at least on the club level appears to have shifted to helis and fixed wing, and the fact that I both have neither of those and that my whoop also died is an issue. For now I'm mainly focused on something fixed wing to fly indoors, 3D perhaps something I'll get into later.

On the other hand... I was talking to some club members about it and one of them offered me a sport cub S for $40... and I might just take him up on that. Owners of this plane, what do you think?