largest rc plane

b-29er

Well-known member
so google is wrong
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The biggest i know of is the 24' pink floyd, designed and flown by some college student
The guy was working on a 50' pink floyd and then the project died. There is a thread on rcgroups, i would strongly advise against posting on it as a lot of people will get upset for giving them hope lol.
 

Jackson T

Elite member
The biggest I've heard of is a Eta scale glider with a 15.45m (51ft) wingspan :eek:. Here's a link to a YouTube video of it.

I designed and built a 4 metre glider out of balsa myself, but the above glider makes it look like a toy! Here's a video of my glider just in case you're interested :).

 

Hondo76251

Legendary member
I'd heard rumor of an f22 that was going to be remote piloted, that would have to be up there. The boing was technically the largest so far that I've heard of, not sure if it counts... aside from the military though, I'm not sure I've ever heard of a civilian one specifically being the largest...
 

b-29er

Well-known member
After doing some research, I discovered the Northrop Grumman RQ-4, with a 39.9m (130.9ft) wingspan.
I wouldn't count that though, as the global hawk is entirely computer piloted and just told where to go. the MQ-9 Reaper, on the other hand, is entirely hand piloted, as it uses the same control station as the MQ-1 Predator.
There's also that one Boeing 720 that NASA made remote controlled to crash in the desert. That has a 130'10" wingspan, or a tiny 2" less than the Global hawk, but was actually remote piloted.
 

Jackson T

Elite member
I wouldn't count that though, as the global hawk is entirely computer piloted and just told where to go. the MQ-9 Reaper, on the other hand, is entirely hand piloted, as it uses the same control station as the MQ-1 Predator.
There's also that one Boeing 720 that NASA made remote controlled to crash in the desert. That has a 130'10" wingspan, or a tiny 2" less than the Global hawk, but was actually remote piloted.
I didn't think about that, good point.
 

speedbirdted

Legendary member
The one that springs to mind for me is the 1/5 scale B-29 that Byron Models built in the 1980s. It has a 339" wingspan and weighs about 400 lbs. It currently resides in Iowa and I've actually had the honor of seeing it in person! (not flying, sadly. It hasn't done that for a long time)

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An hononrable mention would be the 1/9 scale B-36 built in 1951-52 by James Pappas, which has a 312" span and weighs about 370 lb:
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Tench745

Master member
It depends a little bit on what you're considering rc and how you define "largest." Are we going by scale, wingspan, or gross weight? Do you count an aircraft that flies autonomously? How about one that is flown via a wired remote?

Back in WWII the US had Operations Anvil and Aprhodite. The following is taken from the wikipedia page.
"The plan called for B-17E/Fs that had been taken out of operational service (various nicknames existed such as "robot", "baby", "drone" or "weary Willy"[3]) to be loaded to capacity with explosives, and flown by radio control into bomb-resistant fortifications such as German U-boat pens and V-weapon sites." "The drone was loaded with explosives weighing more than twice that of a B-17's normal bomb payload."
The B-17 had a max takeoff weight of 65,500 pounds and a wingspan of 103 feet 9 inches.

There is also the Bally Bomber, a 1/3 scale B-17 which is not rc, but was built from a set of plans for a 1/9 scale rc B-17. I'm including it here only for the novelty of the thing.
http://theballybomber.com/