New Member Hello from Seattle, and a Question

Virology76

Junior Member
Hello everybody!!

I am new to the forums but have been a fan of Flite Test for a long time, they are the reasons I got into RC flight to begin with. I fly quadcopters and have a couple of fixed wing aircraft, including a very beat up HobbyZone Duet. It has gotten to the point that I am not really able to repair the Duet any further, but the electrics are in perfect order, so I hate to toss them! On another note, I have been wanting to get into scratch-building for a while. Maybe many of you can see where this is headed....


Does anyone have any ideas for building some sort of small aircraft that would function using the electrics from the Duet? I have spent hours searching the internet and forums to see if anybody has made something like this, but I have come up empty. I really liked the Duet, it was a great way to get started in fixed wing RC, but it is incredibly fragile. HobbyZone does not sell much in the way of parts for it, mainly because they consider it to be (in their words) "toy grade". So I am trying to come up with ideas to build a replacement aircraft for the electrics.

I know that I have several hurdles in this project, the two main ones as I see them are weight and differential thrust. I have looked at the plans and speed build kits to see if something could be adapted, but I think my own design may be the only thing that will work because of the hurdles I mentioned. In my mind I have been leaning toward some sort of small craft with a simple one piece wing and a tail section with single vertical stabilizer and full length elevator. Then I was thinking of connecting these with a boom of some sort (carbon tube, BBQ skewer, etc) just to keep the weight down.

That's about all I have. I think this is a challenging build, but a rewarding one. I know for my internet reading that I am not the only person to be in the boat of having a Duet with perfect electrics and a shattered fuselage... Any ideas or guidance that you guys and gals have will be greatly appreciated!!
 

flyingsquirrelRC

Senior Member
Yeah I would work it into some simple, lightweight, twin engine design. You could, in theory, make it a water plane if you are able to waterproof whatever material you're using. The differential thrust would allow it to steer on the water. However it might be too heavy. You might end up having to scratch build your own design of an ultra micro plane. Peter and Josh did a video on it:


Who knows! maybe you could do that Up house thing!
 

TestMaster

Junior Member
As a first scratch built, I would just either design my own plane and use the electronics to bring it to life, (in this case, it would have to be a dual engine), If you don't feel like going through the pain of custom building something, you should just buy some foam and reproduce one of your favorite planes. And if you are really inexperienced, you can just buy a kit of a plane you like. But I think that you are better off reproducing an already existing plane and adding your own touches to it, but it really all depends on you.
 

Virology76

Junior Member
Thanks to you all for the quick and awesome replies, I knew this would be the place to get ideas and help!! :) Anyhow, I have to apologize for missing that Micro Plane Projects video... I have no idea how that happened, I looked through those vids pretty closely. I am going to watch that video after I post this for sure.

As for the idea of designing my own plane or using an existing design, I would be quite happy to use an existing design if I can find the right one. I am looking forward to trying to work with the foam board since I love to build stuff. I think it could be the start of something really cool, especially since the Duet really is a blast to mess around with, but suffers from the fragility of a flying glass sculpture!

I will do my best to keep this thread updated with and info and/or photos.

Thanks again!