Flying RC Planes – Essential Tips

Flying rc planes is a great hobby which will give you immense excitement and joy. Anyway, in case you are a beginner, well, you will have to take up this hobby seriously in order to master the art of RC model airplane flying.

a guest post by Roy M.

The simplest way to start is the 2 channel electric type RC model airplane. You need not be an experienced one to fly these ones as they are relatively easy and are available everywhere. The level of expertise will depend upon the amount of money you are willing to pump in and your own seriousness about it. If you are not bound by budgetary constraints then you can purchase a RC flight simulator although this is a luxury for flying simple RC model airplanes.

Flying model airplanes can be a lot of fun if you are aware of the following things. Weight and balance are very important for an airplane. So if you have a bought a Ready to Fly airplane and followed all the instructions correctly then the weight and the balance of the airplane should be ok. But it is also important to check the balance before flying a RC model airplane. Just remember that an incorrect balance will make it very difficult for you to control the airplane and it might just crash.





The 2nd most important thing to do is to do the Pre-flight checks. This is an essential step for flying model airplanes. If you skip this test then your cherished airplane may end up with a crash. Go through the instruction manual and do the pre-flight checks as per the guidelines mentioned in the manual. The mandatory checks would include securing the wings and tail properly, checking the motor operation, to ensure the no necessary component is loose and also verifying that radio control gear batteries are in working condition. But the most important check is perhaps the Range Check. This is to make sure that the radio signal is strong so that you can safely fly your model airplane till a considerable distance.

The last check up is not essential but you can still go ahead with it. You can test glide your model airplane before an actual flight. This will give you an idea in case there is a failure with the motor of the airplane.

Finally I can only say that the onus of safe flying a model airplane lies only with the user. Remember that a large clear area is essential for a safe flight. The wind speed and distance also needs to be taken into account. If the wind is too gutsy that some of the trees are bending then it’s a clear sign not to fly your airplane. As emphasized earlier the radio batteries should be in peak condition. Trust me even if one of the batteries perform poorly then there is a high chance of losing contact with the plane and eventually a crash!

So I can conclude by saying that flying model airplanes for the first time will definitely make you nervous but with time you will gain valuable confidence and move on to more sophisticated RC airplanes.