Stopped in Harbour Freight late today after selling some wheels and tires I had sitting around, pocket full of cash. I couldn't resist when I saw them on the shelf. 15-20 years ago I had some balsa kits I put together with gas engines, haven't had anything for 15 years though. I did have an electric way back then but it sucked pretty fierce.

I had looked these guys up before, bunch of youtube videos out there and they seem to perform ok for what they cost. Some people even soup these models up, may have to look into that. Wild Hawk trainer and a P-51 Mustang

The batteries are charged, control surfaces/servos are trimmed, and I'm getting up at dawn to go try them out. Hopefully they'll still be in one piece when my son gets back into town from a hunting trip he is on with his granddad.

Cool, those planes are pretty good for what they cost.

What's all the stuff stashed in the sofa cushions?

Let us know how they fly.

Looks like lotion and porn and a fleshlight

Careful with that P-51! Those things are fast as hell! I had one last summer and flying it was a constant controlled crash. Pretty damn impressive when the wings let loose half way through a high speed loop.

Has someone been playing "hide the salami"?

Hickory Farms!

EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT.  Looks like a vacuum packed sausage on the right.

I just busted a gut...

There is even a piece of cheese for a bayonet!

WIN

<–––– Drizz's Son ~ 18

Electric planes are becoming quite common nowadays.

I started when I was 11 with R/C planes and learned on Nitro burning engines.

Have too many that don't run, and not enough that do right now.  

Bought an electric P-51 from Horizon 2 years ago....first electric i ever owned.  Seemed to perform alright even in some pretty heavy winds.  Some powerful ones out there nowadays.  Best one i flown was another members ZigZag, flying wing type electric...thing was fast and very maneuverable.

Disadvantages of Electric (My Point of View)

1) Charge Battery - cant just fill it up with fuel and go.
2) Don't get that scream as the engine throttles up and the plane blasts by u at 80+ mph.
3) Don't get that strangely erotic smell of Nitro in your nose as u start the engine and rip a whole in the sky.

Could you mount some light weight lights on them and fly at night?

is that two sausages and a package of cheese stuffed in your couch?  

You should hear my 10 cell brushless Devastator pass by at 90+ mph.

thread full of fun! meat full of preservatives and RC!  

O for sure...i dont doubt it lol.  Guess my first love will always be Nitro though.  Loved planes so much when i was a kid....and flying them for fun since age 11....i leave end of July for Army ~ 15W Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Operator.    I want to play with big toys!!  :)

Close, not quite.

It's like 3-4 hours to fully charge, I'll see how they do tomorrow, if I have fun in the morning I'm gonna go home, charge 'em and go again at lunch. May have to get some extra battery packs.

I do dream of having some gas models again.

Oh man......

I'm gonna start out with the trainer to get the feel back, when it runs out of juice I'll move to the P-51. It does look fast in a bunch of the youtube vids but alot of those guys have added hotter motors and batteries.

For sure.  If you plane on doing any extended flying in one day, having some extra batteries is a must.  Also...might do some good to find a decent charger for your car/truck.  The one we have, although not used much, you have to pop the hood and hook to the battery. Keep one charging while you fly.

They are a blast, hope you have fun!!

EDIT: Also wanted to add...if you have any questions, want to get started in on R/C, or just see some cool vids of planes, cars, boats or anything else R/C, go to....

RC Universe

I have some LEDs at work, wouldn't be too hard to put a red on the port side and a green on starboard and maybe a clear white one on the tail. Might be against some kind of FAA reg though, someone might mistake it for a real plane at night

As far as I know nothing illegal about it.
There is even a forum for night flying over at RC Groups

The FAA hasn't complained about the various RC planes and helicopters at work.  One of the guys has LED's on most of his stuff, even built his own circuit boards to make the lights more realistic (white strobes, red flashing beacon, nav lights, landing lights).  It's weird to walk out of the hangar and see an electric RC helicopter hovering over the ramp with all the scale lights going.

1) Buy extra batteries.  It takes a minute or less to change battery packs and get back to flying.  Even back when NiMh packs were state of the art, I had a plane that I could keep in the air for 30 minutes if I didn't run it at full throttle.

2) Google "Zagnutz".  Build it to the given dimensions, but clip the wings down to 34", cut the vertical surfaces down to maybe half the plan size, and mount a good brushless motor on it.  Be sure to reinforce the wings.

3) If I want a smell to remind me about flying, there's always plenty of fuel and exhaust smells at work.

Sweet.

sweet! i might have to pick up one of these. my dad has been trying to get me into the r/c planes.

Went this morning, so here are the results:

The Wild Hawk is awesome for a beginner, plenty of power, very stable, nice size control surfaces that make the plane respond well. Takes off from the ground no problem and is balanced nicely. Got around 20 minutes of flight time.

The P-51 was a little different story. Nose heavy due to the battery location and weight, had to hand launch. It is underpowered for what it is, needs a better motor/prop and a a lighter weight Lithium battery instead of the Ni-mh it came with. The controls are very sensitive and the plane is very responsive but being underpowered makes overcorrection very unforgiving. It's a good platform but now I see why people modify them and I plan to as well, will be a fun project.

Didn't have any problems with the Wild Hawk, had a rough landing or two but no damage.

I busted one side of the landing gear off on the P-51, hit the ground hard on the first hand launch, no biggie because I just took the other side off, needed to anyway to reduce drag because of the power issue. Took a nose dive into the ground ok, a little crumple but remained intact and broke a prop. More power will solve this plane's problems.

One thing that messed me up was the controls are different on the two transmitters. The Wild Hawk is 3 channel and has throttle on one side and elevator/rudder on the other. The P-51 has throttle/rudder on one side and elevator/ailerons on the other. That really screwed me up with the P-51 because I flew the WH first. I may see about swapping the aileron and rudder channels on the P-51 so the two transmitters match.

I'm happy with them, have some tinkering to do with P-51 but it will be fun. Here are some pics, the batteries are recharging now and a buddy of mine is gonna go with me after lunch to check them out and take some in flight pictures for me. I did manage on quick shot while flying the WH. Had to stop be the store and get some repair supplies also.

Standard setup in the US for a four channel is throttle and rudder on the left stick (you need to make small corrections for throttle changes with the rudder), ailerons and elevator on the right stick (same as full scale).  

For three channel, if the transmitter is a three channel, it's usually a single stick with rudder and elevator on the stick and a slide for the throttle.  

Running a three channel plane with a four channel transmitter, I've seen setups with the rudder on the left stick with the throttle, and setups with the rudder on the right stick with the elevator.  Seems to be a matter of personal preference on that combination.


If the P-51 is running a NiMH battery, just switching to a LiPo battery pack (if the voltages are similar) with a similar maH rating, should make a big improvement in performance, due to the reduced weight.  Of course, switching to a LiPo and a brushless motor always makes things that much more fun.

I'll just have to see what feels comfortable on the controls. Going to upgrade the battery and motor for sure. Just looking real quick most Lithium batteries seem to either be 11V or 7.4V. The current battery pack is 8.4V. I'll just have to draw out the circuit and see how everything is connected, what's running on/requires what voltage, what I need to modify, etc.

I was looking at Grayson Hobby, electric setups appear to be cheaper today than gas setups were 15 years. Anybody have any good recommendations for supply sources?  .  

The 2 cell LiPo packs seem to come closest to a 6 cell NiCad or NiMH pack, but they sometimes work as a replacement for a 7 cell pack (if the weight savings makes up for a loss in voltage).  The NiMH packs don't perform quite as well as a NiCad, so it may be closer to the LiPo in performance, than to the NiCad.  

The 3 cell LiPo falls between a 9 cell and 10 cell NiCad or NiMH.  I've replaced 8 cell Nicad packs with 3 cell LiPo packs, and the difference (lower weight, more voltage) was just incredible.  Of course, the increased voltage meant that I had to switch motors or at least go to a smaller diameter prop, to keep from burning up the motors I was already getting too hot to touch.

The big problem with the switch to LiPo packs is that you will need a new charger, and the speed controller may also need to be changed.  If you always land well before the battery is done, you'll probably be OK.  If you run a LiPo pack down too far with a speed controller made for NiCad or NiMH, the LiPo pack may be internally damaged, due to the different minimum voltages in the different battery types.

Hobby Lobby (not the craft store chain) is a good source, for electric RC, to start with.