RC Planes. What’s it all about? (Part 2)

When time passes by, and you are getting better and better, and you feel that your first plane (very often a cheap trainer) has given you as much fun as it can possibly give you. You most likely will start thinking of buying yourself another plane. This time you probably would like a more advanced model. - A model that requires higher skills from the pilot to be kept in the air. Again, it’s time for building.

If you have a real interest of building stuff, you should consider purchasing a kit consisting of nothing else than just chips, and build your plane from the grounds up. You could use the wintertime to work on your new baby. Maybe you are lucky and have a spare room in your house that could be turn into a hobby room dedicated to model airplane building. This way, you can sit inside your house, looking out on the cold weather while dreaming about flying your new plane by springtime. But be aware that building a plane from the ground up is time consuming. Simple models could be done in 150-200 hours. Bigger projects can take you several thousand hours to complete. This is your decision, but it will at least take more time to finish a kit full of chips than it takes to finish an ARF model.

OK, so the winter has passed, the temperature allows you to be outside again, and your plane is finished already? Great! Time for the maiden flight! If you are lucky with this flight, it’s quite possible you don’t have to spend any time in your workshop this summer. If you are not so lucky, or maybe too daring, chances are that you will be in your hobby room real soon to repair the broken wing, or the landing gear that fell off. Don’t get scared, it’s lots of fun anyway!


If you are still flying model airplanes by this time, there are no questions whether you will continue this hobby or not. Because you will! By participating on different events, watch or participate in contests you might see another guy’s model that really steals your attention. Some day you might want to build this model yourself.

Maybe you also see some people doing some real stunning tricks with their planes. Very often this would be 3D flying. Is this something you should look more into? 3D refers to any maneuvers beyond the basic patterns, basically all the stuff that takes tons of practice to do at all. Let alone well. Not all planes are suitable for the acrobatic maneuvers you do when you practice 3D flying. There are special models for this, called acrobatic planes, or just acro planes. These models have a slightly different construction than ordinary RC planes. For one thing, the rudders can be moved in much larger angles, something that makes the plane react more quickly and gives you the ability to maneuver your model faster and more accurately. This is if you can manage to fly them at all. In addition to this, a 3D plane often have bigger engines installed which makes them easier to handle when you want it to perform some kind of trick. There is no way one can possible mention all the tricks you can do with an acro model. It is only imagination and skills that limit this, but here are some common ones: Hovering, snap roll, harrier, barrel row, knife-edge and torque roll.

You have all kinds of people piloting model airplanes, but some of them, or should I say some of us, are especially interested in model airplanes with cool effects installed. Don’t you think it would be fun to be the only one in your club to have a model that glows in the dark? Of course the lights are connected to a servo that makes it possible to turn the lights on and off from your radio. Maybe you like to draw some extra attention by having your plane make a lot of noise. This is very possible if you just do a little modifying to the plane’s exhaust system. You can also mount an extra servo working like a switch for camera. This way you can use your radio to take some nice “sky view” pictures. Of course the camera has been placed inside your plane too, so you better know what you are doing, you don’t want to crash your plane with your $1000 camera installed. Another effect that is quite common to install on model airplanes is smoke. Lots of smoke! You wouldn’t think that smoke and airplanes was such a great combination, would you? Well, you are absolutely right. Smoke and airplanes is not so good unless when the whole situation is controlled and predetermined. Then it’s just ‘plane’ fun. The use of smoke allows your showoff to look a lot cooler, e.g. when you take your plane into a loop or roll.