My History with RC Airplanes

I'm Back!!!

In May 2011, I had my third major back surgery. I came out of the anesthesia in considerably more pain than from which I had been suffering. It is now the end of January 2018. I had my fourth back surgery in October 2017 and I feel somewhat better! Although my back will never be like it was when I was younger, it is not hurting quite as badly as it did between 2011 and 2017.

I was not able to fly my RC airplanes for this seven year period. It was just too much for me to carry my planes, flightbox, etc. But now, I am getting all of my RC airplanes ready to fly again. I buggered a couple of them up before I stopped flying so I am fixing those to make them airworthy again.

Many things have changed in the last seven years, as far as the RC world is concerned.

• Many more people are flying electric RC airplanes.
• 2.4GHz is in 72MHz is out.
• Club dues to our RC club have gone up exponentially.
• Most people are flying very large RC airplanes.
• Most of those people are flying gasoline engines.
• Many people are flying real jet RC aircraft.

Allow me to take a look at each one and comment on them.

Electric airplanes have finally come into their own. The biggest problem with electrics in the past was the availability of good batteries. Now with lithium polymer batteries, RC pilots are getting good flight times with a lot of power. 

A lot can be said about electric RC airplanes. They are clean! You won't have castor oil coating your airplane after you fly and you don't have to buy fuel. They are quiet, which is a benefit if you are flying near homes. But, sorry, electrics aren't for me. I guess I'm old and set in my ways but I still love the smell of a glow engine! I like the sound of reciprocating engines.

All my radio control gear is 72MHz. Sure, I can still use what I have. I have a JR transmitter and probably at least six receivers plus servos set up in all my RC planes. I'll list them later. I lived in Salt Lake City from 1993 to the end of 2008. The state of Utah had a nice, paved modelport on the northwest side of Salt Lake City. I enjoyed flying there but all too often, I encountered fierce radio interference. Someone told me L3, a company down the street was the culprit. Either way, I lost three airplanes in one summer. All of those airplanes had been built from kits. I had meticulously fiberglassed the balsa fuselages and spent a lot of time painting and covering those airplanes. As I was flying them, suddenly there was no control from my radio whatsoever and down they would go. I believe 2.4 is going to be the answer to this problem. Also, with 2.4 you don't have to worry about someone turning on a transmitter that is on the same frequency as I am. When that happens, you can almost be sure your plane is going to crash.

My old JR6102 transmitter allows me to keep the memory of ten separate aircraft but it is getting old. The plastic is getting brittle and the transmitter has seen its better days so I am going to get back into the air with 2.4.

RCACF, the club I used to fly with has had an ongoing feud with their land owners. The land on which they placed their modelport is a landfill. Hardly anything can be done of the land. You would think that having a model airplane club paying rent would be a good thing for the landowner. For some reason though, the land owners don't like the airplanes, from what I hear. So, after I stopped flying in 2011, the landowners greatly increased their rent. I looked online the other day and dues are just under $500 a year plus you have to be a member of the AMA which is another $75!

It is fun to fly with others but I don't have to have a club to fly with. I can find a vacant field or an old country road somewhere to fly off of. 

I remember when RC airplanes started getting bigger. Bud Nosen put out his kits which contained two or three balsa trees! One of the first engines for larger RC planes was the Quadra. Nowdays it is common to see very large RC airplanes at the local flying field. 

The perfect size airplane for me is one with a five or six foot wingspan. I like to .60 sized airplanes. They are easier to store at home and easier to get to the flying field. I love flying the larger airplanes but the cost goes up with the size. Then, some of those airplanes fill up one bay of a garage all by themselves. We also have several people who fly jets now. BVM Models uses the RCACF for all of their test flying. I love the turbines too but they start out somewhere around $15,000 and go up quickly. I don't know how people can justify spending so much money on those wonderful models!

The largest engine in my inventory is an ASP 1.08. I have an OS .95, a SuperTigre .90 and a Fox .74. Those are the largest engines I have. They all run well!

Now, about my planes!

The last time I flew my Bridi Dirty Birdy, I think someone turned their transmitter on, which was on the same frequency as mine, just as I was about to land. The engine had died and I was coming in for a perfect deadstick landing when the plane flipped over and landed hard upside down. It did some damage but nothing catastrophic. The fuselage was cracked in about three places so I glued those today and started sanding the paint off of the fuselage. I have never liked the paint job I did on the Dirty Birdy so I am going to change it. 

Here are photos after the crash 11 years ago.

The airplane has Hobbico mechanical retracts. I really do not like them. I have used Dave Brown Southern Pro retracts and they are much better retracts. I am looking at going back with electric retracts when I finish repainting the airplane.

I had to add a bubble on both sides to get the landing gear to retract all the way into the wings. 

This is end of my JR 6102 transmitter.

The second airplane that was damaged right before I stopped flying in 2011 was my Hangar 9 Ultra Stick 60. I have it set up where the flaps and ailerons will "crow." I power it with my OS .95. This thing is a ball to fly. On its last flight, I was about 30 feet off the ground flying with a heavy wind, when the engine died. I didn't have enough altitude to get the plane turned into the wind. When I landed with the wind, the plane cartwheeled. The engine and firewall were broken away from the plane. The landing gear broke off and the horizontal tail broke loose. Not super bad damage but it has taken some work getting it back together. 

About radios -

I started flying RC airplanes with a 3 channel radio I bought when I was in Jr. High School. Then I bought an airplane with an EK Logictrol Champ transmitter. Finally, I switched to Futaba. After several years flying Futaba, they had a model of transmitter that had some glitches in it. I switched to JR radios then. I've always been happy with JR but they have recently filed for bankruptcy.

There are several less expensive alternatives to JR and Futaba. I just want radio that will fly my airplanes reliably. I do not want to spend a fortune on a transmitter, receivers and servos. For that reason I have been looking at this radio.

The Radiolink AT10II 12 channel radio.

I'll talk more about this radio in my next blog.