Greetings. Dave here from the U.P. Of Michigan. Just joined, thought I'd introduce myself.
I've been building model airplanes since the early '70s, taught myself to fly r/c in '78. Sailplanes are my first love, although I've messed a little with power here and there. Used to live in California, flew a lot there ( slope and thermal), but since I moved my family to Michigan in 1994 I've been mostly out of the hobby. During the winter I'll typically work on a project, but come spring other interests pull me away (camping, motorcycles, sea kayaks, etc.). Part of the problem has been finding fields large enough to launch a big glider. I live in the sticks, but it's all woods- not many open fields.
This winter as always I've been putzing with some unfinished projects and decided what I need is something I can fly close to home, on short notice, without a lot of setting up. I have an electric glider, but even that takes a fair amount of space to launch and land.
I was doing electric power in the early eighties, in the days of the 05 can motors, 6 cell nicads from cars, and simple on-off motor switches. The planes were heavy, the performance was low, and when they crashed, they shattered. But it was still fun. Then I messed with some speed 400 brushed motors in the early 2000s. But I knew lots had changed since then, and my search for cheap, fun, quick building planes brought me to Flitetest. I'm a confirmed balsa builder, and I'd always just dismissed foamies, but seeing what can be done with foamboard has me taking another look.
Long story short, I wound up buying a few sheets of dtfb and building a fuselage for a 3 foot balsa wing I had laying around. It's a seaplane fuse, loosely based on an old electric design called Puddlemaster. I stuck a geared speed 400 turning an 8-6 prop on it, and tossed it off my back deck into a gentle snowfall. It flew! Cranked it around the yard a few times, had a ball. The last flight ended in a tree, but very little damage. That was a couple weeks ago, and since then it's been either too cold or too windy to fly. It was underpowered with that motor, so I decided to order some more modern brushless stuff, which I'm waiting for now.
Meanwhile, to used the geared 400, I built a 50 inch "old timer" style floater. And even though it was 10 degrees and snowing, it was calm today so it got maidened. Needs a couple tweaks but got a few hops out of it before my fingers froze.
So yeah, I'm having fun with the hobby again. When I was in California we lived a few minutes away from a popular slope, and I was really into designing my own planes, and being so close to the slope was great. I could design, build, fly, and destroy a model in a weekend. This is kind of like that, but cheaper, and even closer. And the models are harder to destroy.
So I'll be following along here. I've got a lot to learn, especially when it comes to all the different motors. I'm not ready to give up balsa building- I find it very satisfying- but for low stress fun it seems like these fb planes are the way to go.
Sorry to ramble on so long.
Cheers,
Dave
I've been building model airplanes since the early '70s, taught myself to fly r/c in '78. Sailplanes are my first love, although I've messed a little with power here and there. Used to live in California, flew a lot there ( slope and thermal), but since I moved my family to Michigan in 1994 I've been mostly out of the hobby. During the winter I'll typically work on a project, but come spring other interests pull me away (camping, motorcycles, sea kayaks, etc.). Part of the problem has been finding fields large enough to launch a big glider. I live in the sticks, but it's all woods- not many open fields.
This winter as always I've been putzing with some unfinished projects and decided what I need is something I can fly close to home, on short notice, without a lot of setting up. I have an electric glider, but even that takes a fair amount of space to launch and land.
I was doing electric power in the early eighties, in the days of the 05 can motors, 6 cell nicads from cars, and simple on-off motor switches. The planes were heavy, the performance was low, and when they crashed, they shattered. But it was still fun. Then I messed with some speed 400 brushed motors in the early 2000s. But I knew lots had changed since then, and my search for cheap, fun, quick building planes brought me to Flitetest. I'm a confirmed balsa builder, and I'd always just dismissed foamies, but seeing what can be done with foamboard has me taking another look.
Long story short, I wound up buying a few sheets of dtfb and building a fuselage for a 3 foot balsa wing I had laying around. It's a seaplane fuse, loosely based on an old electric design called Puddlemaster. I stuck a geared speed 400 turning an 8-6 prop on it, and tossed it off my back deck into a gentle snowfall. It flew! Cranked it around the yard a few times, had a ball. The last flight ended in a tree, but very little damage. That was a couple weeks ago, and since then it's been either too cold or too windy to fly. It was underpowered with that motor, so I decided to order some more modern brushless stuff, which I'm waiting for now.
Meanwhile, to used the geared 400, I built a 50 inch "old timer" style floater. And even though it was 10 degrees and snowing, it was calm today so it got maidened. Needs a couple tweaks but got a few hops out of it before my fingers froze.
So yeah, I'm having fun with the hobby again. When I was in California we lived a few minutes away from a popular slope, and I was really into designing my own planes, and being so close to the slope was great. I could design, build, fly, and destroy a model in a weekend. This is kind of like that, but cheaper, and even closer. And the models are harder to destroy.
So I'll be following along here. I've got a lot to learn, especially when it comes to all the different motors. I'm not ready to give up balsa building- I find it very satisfying- but for low stress fun it seems like these fb planes are the way to go.
Sorry to ramble on so long.
Cheers,
Dave
