Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

This thread is about what the cheapest (skin flint) RC pilot in the world... make your nominations... anonymous of course, but they might recognize them selves.

Do they Glue back together their damaged wood props?
Do they scrounge the field's donation box for parts for their "best" plane?
Does the monocoat fall off the plane as it flies?
Do they try to reuse the old glo plug that failed a month ago? (what makes them think it is good now??)
How many crashes has that plane had and he still glues it back together??
Does the weight of the epoxy prevent the plane from flying???

Try to keep it funny! Yeah we all take the short cut sometimes!

Tell me your good ones.

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

we had a guy years ago in our club that was cheap.

we did glue wooden props back together, and when he sold you a plane at the field, he would go home and remove the radio and engine, but when you got the plane you bought from him the next day, he kept the fuel tank, all the push rods, control horns, he kept eveything.....if he was able to un-glue the hinges , he would......

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

Let me throw my hat in the ring as one of the cheapest RC hobbyist around. But first let me say that it is not because I can’t afford the hobby, I just love to restore and recycle still usable material out of crashed models.

As an example:
On all of my crashed models, (as well as what I recover from the trash barrel at the field), I will push out all the blind nuts and dig out all the nylon hinges and soak them in acetone, clean them up and put them back in my spare parts bin. I have boxes full of landing gear, motor mounts, fuel tanks and wheels that have been recycled. If a fuselage is totaled and there is a repairable wing and tail section, I save the repairable parts for future use. If the fuselage is repairable and the wing is toast I will save it and use it later when I mix and match parts to build totally new hybrid planes.

If I decide that a part is too much trouble to repair I will just strip it down and cut out all of the usable wood and save it in my scrap box. All the wood in the scrap box is sorted by thickness so I can easily find some piece that I can use.

Now I do have an inventory of fresh balsa and ply that would equal many hobby shops but I do enjoy gluing up two or three pieces of scrap to get a piece bit enough to use. I also am not above gluing up two pieces to get it to the desired thickness.

Everyone in my club knows that I do this and they also know that if they need something there is always the chance that I have it or have something that can be made to work. If I don’t have anything invested in the part I usually will just give it away or just ask for a small fee to cover any sweat equity.

Trainer planes provide a large part of the inventory because they tend to be short lived and many do not have the time or skills to do any repair. For all new flyers I advise them to spend their money on a good quality engine and computer radio and then come over and we go through the selection of wings, tails and fuselages and make up something that will get them in the air for $10 - $15 plus the cost of any fresh Monokote. (I also have a box where I keep scrap Monokote.) Many repairs and trim pieces also come out of the Monokote box and I have decided on a trim scheme based on what scrap pieces in have in the box.

Cheap? You bet. But I don’t necessarily do it for the money for the most part I do it because it is fun.

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

regent, doesn't sound cheap to me. sounds smart.....or resourceful

Mark

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

We had a guy years ago that had a Yellow biplane KNOWN to be made of five different crashed planes from the garbage barrel, personally I love this kind of innovation. A Long time ago I tried to start a thread that would be a competition of who could have the most frankenstein plane built from the most donor planes..unfortunately it never took off so to speak.

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

I'm much like the poster above who will scrounge the barrel for parts. I can absolutely afford the parts but on a "bad day" I can reap $30-40.00 worth of parts from those fellas who'd rather toss them out. I have a tackle box (or portable hobby shop) that has close to $500.00-$600.00 worth of parts in it. It took me 10 years to build that arsenal but I rarely have to by parts when I build a kit... And most of these parts are SIG and other high dollar parts!!!!! I agree with the posted above that despite my ability to afford whatever parts I need - Why pay cash when you can spend 15 minutes getting it for free? Now I pride myself on getting these parts but we do have one vulture in particular who will not even wait for someone to trash the plane. As soon as a plane hits the ground he'll say, "You want any of that"? At least I have the courtesy to wait until the plane hits the bin!

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

A few years ago we had a member who would not buy anything other than the engine, fuel and radio gear (usually used), He scratch built some really strange planes with Ash wood that was scraps from I think a furniture shop, His fuel tanks were hand lotion bottles, His fuel pump was a old windex bottle with a tube glued into the nozzle for real, and when ever he fueled up just walk away because fuel went every place, And the oddest was the wheels he used, He said they where the bottoms of oatmeal containers laminated with epoxy. He had some really interesting designes for planes and a few of them flew ok but most didn't fair so well. He was a nice guy but cheapest person I ever met. OH and his covering was a large roll of thin mesh thrown out by a fabrics company in the next city over, He got a huge roll of it and doped it to the planes.

Dauntae

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

Its getting to the point on this thread the only way to be cheaper is to just STEAL all your stuff ;)

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

i myself do alot of parts digging, any left over tidbit from a kit or every little dirt cheap parts lot i can pick up from a RC (of any kind) swap meat i pick up.
especially with planes its amazing how often you find parts left out of a boxed kit, or wanting to upgrade to something bigger because you dont like the size or type of something included in a kit, many other reasions etc
i have built a few planes and other things completely from scrap, and actually had one great flyer completely designed from leftovers.
allthough crashed long ago, i think the cheap route is allways interesting and resourcefull, worth proving.
a boxed kit wont impress me much, unless heavily kit bashed etc, but something built from scrap and such is amazing.

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

I like to recycle stuff too. Once band sawed two Avastar just aft of the wing and then patched the two good parts of the fuselage together. It flew a long time, finally totalled it in a tree. I miss that plane, it would really snap in a loop - I guess the incidence was off a tad, ya think? But it was fun while it lasted. I also believe an airplane is no good until rebuilt at least once. Maybe a little heavier but is a hell of a lot stronger at the break points now. Some had so much epoxy, that they shattered when the hit the ground.

Cheers,

Chip

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

On Your Six,

I don't know about the cheapest R/C pilot out there...... but looking at the attached pic, I have no doubt about the cheapest pilot in the Universe........[sm=what_smile.gif]

Cheers

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

Reading these posts makes we want to go crash one of my planes so I can aquire some "repair experience"!  It would also help me to finally figure out what some of the stuff is that I got when I bought my planes.  Great topic, guys!!

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

Hi BillyFLoyd, hey, don't worry, that 3rd rock from the sun sometimes has this characteristic to jump into the air and knock a flying plane clean out of it's flight path.........they explained it to me once over a couple of beers.... all I came remember was it has something to do with the alignment of the sun, moon, Jupiter and the plane.......... whether it is correct or not, the fact remains that planes get knocked out of the sky... you will have your experience too....... Cheers


Talking about tight pilots. I know a guy that don't fly that much, his fuel is around 8 years old and by now certainly attracted moisture. He believes filtering the fuel with filterpaper to get rid of the moisture. Needless to say his engine don't run well at all and cuts out. I have never heard this before as moisture is extremely difficult to get out of methanol, if not impossible by normal means. Probably absorbing the oil onto the paer if anything.

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

Just remember, Every plane comes with an expiration date, They just used invisible ink so none of us know what it is....[X(]

Dauntae

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

We search for these types for a laugh. When we crash a plane into pieces, we leave it at the field parking area in a pile sometimes when it's a windy day with guys that haven't flown in awhile, and sure enough a few start picking through the pile. "I can fix that" or "there's a perfectly good mount and control horns on this fuselage".
I call two guys routinely to see when they're flying, we help each other carry planes to the line, search for lost planes, apply 1st aid if the need arises....anyway, I always tell them "Yeah retired the PT-19 today, it's in the trash can waiting for Wednesday pick up" and sure enough in 30 minutes it's gone.
I'll rebuild a kit, but not an ARF.

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

Why is it frowned upon to pick through wreckage looking for parts? Are [some of] you guys to proud to use old stuff? When someone crashes and leaves the pile of plane there, I usually pick through it and take the control horns, pushrod tubes, and just about everything that isn't balsa. I hate having to ask for parts out at the field or a get together when I just feel like bringing the plane and a glow ignitor, especially when it leads to watching some smug ******* dig through a box full of new crap and say "hmm, well I dont have any thing to give ya... sorry". Half my parts have come from wreckage, so I dont mind handing the crap out by the handfull... hell, I have even given out engines I have found (haha, I love when someone says "bring me the receiver and servos, you can have the rest"). And leave them in the parking area in a pile? so the wind blows the covering and balsa all over the place? personally, I like my runway free of garbage... and I appreciate it when people pick their exploded plane up and put it in the garbage can so conveniently placed. I personally have taken crashed planes home and rebuilt them... of course they never fly right, but they are still fun, and you wont cringe so much when you lawn dart the thing.

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

How about a guy who writes DA-50 on the side of his FREE Ryobi weedeater engine because he is to cheap to buy the real thing?:D

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

ckang, I may be stealing that low cost horse power trick !

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

I think that I am probably the cheapest flier at my field. Most of my equipment was either free or bought at a swap meet.
I am also the recipient of many smart comments for the oxidizing, scrap metal engines I employ.
Oh well, I enjoy the challenge of rebuilding $1.298 power plants i buy from swap meets.
Anyway where else are you going to get a RTF sport plane for $120. Even if it is held together with scotch tape.

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

Last winter flying my Vapor indoors all season I burnt my motor out. Of course too impatient and cheap to order another one I scrounged my house looking for anything that possibly had a small brushed motor in it. Cd and tape decks, too big. So I found one in a small mustache/beard trimmer aka Magic Razor. It worked pretty good.

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

I once got a few extra runs out of a burnt out .40LA by taking the sleeve out and heating it strategically to make it shrink in the right area. Thus giving me compression back. I reeeellie wanted to fly but didn't want to spend money for a new engine that day.

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

How about the guy who solders Futaba J connectors, from dead servos, on even older S28 servos with "G" plugs.

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

Spring is coming... I would like everyone to keep their eyes pealed for that next level of "recycling" and report back. Oh the DA-50 marking was classic... kudos

I will be watching a particular pilot, cuz I know I can depend on him for a good laugh. Heck, I dig reusable stuff out of my own untimely deaths, but there is a limit to how far I will go. I encourage you to proceed without limits.

Has anyone built an aircraft out of free materials like the coffee stirrers at Starbucks? Ooops wrong crowd... you guys would never buy a $7.00 latte. How many guys grab the catchup cups at Mickey Ds for epoxy? I know you cheep b....ds eat there. :D :D

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

I can get a 22 oz. refill custom mix coffee for $1.05 ...if I wash out the foam glass !!! :D

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

Hey Six, been skimping on your English spelling lessons lately old chap........:)
Nah, just yanking your chain.

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

I know a guy who reuses toilet paper

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

I would suggest that fellow has other problems other then just being cheap.LOL:D

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

.Hey I hadn't thought of using those ketchup cups for that. Thanks’ for the tip.
Come-on I know you done it, something like that didn't just come out'a the blue

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

As a mere lad, one of me Polish school mates used to wear socks one day on one side and then the next on the other side...
kinda like the toilet paper issue !!! :D or was that tissue?
We always thought "BonCabbage" practiced the sock trick with underwear too, but no one was willing to pursue the issue.

Yeah, I think the Micky-D's plastic epoxy stirring containers are just dandy.... don't know why anyone would buy them in the LHS.

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

I have a new nomination for cheapest pilot alive and he is just getting started.

Electric starter, glow stick, rubber bands, fuel.... don't need'em... cause I can borrow them from the guys...

So this guy digs a pathetic looking trainer out of the basement... built pre-mastadon era (we confirmed that with droppings carbon dated from inside the fuse)... and he is retiring so he needs a hobby... Oh what luck we have to find him at our doorstep. Oh happy day!

So he thinks two rubber bands is enough... off we go begging, Batteries have Thomas A. Edison signature... but darned if they don't hold a charge from MY charger and MY 12 volt battery... Fuel tubing leaks so guess what... off we go begging again. Guys are starting to say just take the whole darn kit... help yourself (you are going to get it anyway)...

Push, tug, pull... darn all the surfaces hold and the servos that were made in the Ming Dynasty are working... imagine that I can't get mine made last year to work. Off we go into the wild blue yonder... I was amazed... flat spotted foam wheels add to realism on the takeoff roll.

We are flying.... shoot... guess these old birds do quack. Up and down, nothing destroyed .... wait a week and we are flying it on Sunday morn in front of vulture's row... He has played with all the trims so we are off on a maiden flight of venture again... easy, get it trimmed for level flight... oooops.... there goes the left wing.... just eviscerates into balsa (pixy) dust. Right wing in place, lawn dart in progress... let's see if I can get the old girl into a knife edge and land her like that "human pilot" on youtube... Nope, this old girl is a air to ground seeking missile with gopher hole on it's mind... it planted itself almost vertical.... looked like one of those crosses on the side of the road... no use praying for this one... she's a gonner.

Now that is what I call Karma! Cheep SOB.
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RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

Hey On your six, I almost fell of my chair laughing,,,,,you've made my day,,,,,,hey tell me, I always wanted a nice pair ofgenuine Ming Dysnasty pocelain servo's,,,,, did any survive?

Cheers mate

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

you know that you can turn a mixing cup upside down and use the bottom to mix glue as well ! Its just wasteful not to !

That is when you aren't using your tower hobby annual catalog ..that you turn into four glue mixing disposable sheet dispensers.

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

It just does not stop.... The first nominee for Cheapest RC Flier alive just found a $40 - 100inch wing-span plane (spent $50 in gas to get)... Nothing is too good for this plane so he will put a 0.46 engine on it. "should be enough power". I cannot wait to see this Frankensteinian plane of the "future", should be a good one. It has third generation control horns.... defined that means they were pulled out of one wreck installed in a second plane and pulled out of that wreck and put into this one. The plastic is getting thin enough to read the New York Time through them, but you know those new fangeled modern poly-mers, dee be a-might strong.

Fact is that the local hobby shop is emptying the field's trash cans (at night) now just to keep the old farts from picking the wrecks clean.... definition: old fart- anyone exactly one minute older than me, so it is a sliding scale.

Not to be detoured, nominee #2 has had a good summer of borrow/beg. Never did find that starter in the basement... he is buying fuel, but nothing else we can see. Has higher priorities in life, can't wait until he wants to fly every day after he retires (and retires does not mean buying new tires for the car, but I digress). Oh forgot, he did buy a chicken stick, but you know how hard some of those engines are to start hand flipping (and he really thought I said "chicken fingers" as he was hungry). Oh what a sad day when he ran over his field box, just about laughed myself into the asylum.

Coming on strong is nominee #3 with his own recovered, repurposed Rockwellinian flight attempt. Guy is getting creative and reusing Balsa. We may be closing in on a winner here... and then we have another guy advertising for donations... hey you have to give them the creds for using their internet connection and free forums.

Damn, I had not thought of turning the free McDonalds catsup pots over and using the bottoms for mixing epoxy... good one.:D I had always been tilting the cups and putting a waste piece of balsa in it so I could pull the dry solid epoxy out and reuse... I have been experimenting with Pam as an epoxy release agent (but she is getting tired of my antics). [8D]

So from the land of cheap, I will sign off now... but just know, I am watching your back for new extreme cheap behavior. Don't stop, just know, I am watching. I always get a good chuckle.

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

I confess, I have won the ugly airplane contest on more than one occasion. I can't stand to see bits of hardware are a mostly assembled wing go to waste. Oddly enough I have had several offers from people at the field wanting to buy thier planes back after I had bashed them with 3-4 other planes and made something impressive. I try to reuse monokote from them as well, I had one with every shade of monokote that was the real winner of the bunch. It was a kadet senior top wing, a hobbico trainer bottom wing, canopy off a corsair, rudder from a wanderer, elevator form a tiger 60, and the fuse was a bit of a big stick 60 and the cowling off of a piper cub. It was a kite with a os 60 fp. I have found many of my crashes have just resulted in a "new" airplane.

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

years ago I tried to start a competition on a thread.. Who could build the most frankenstein airplane out of as many different planes as possible. I even thought possibly a points chart could be drawn up for bonus engineering when the right and left wings were off of different planes.. fuselages that were one thing up front, and another in back etc !!!

Sure the test flights would need to be done away from the flightline on slow days....
But am I the only one that would get a kick out of such a running competition online? :D

I don't mean pure garbage thrown together.. just really odd pieces put together with some attempt at success, not crashes...

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

Wow this thread is too funny. [sm=lol.gif]I like to save all my old toothbrushes for cleaning engines, and I save all the lids from plastic deli and butter containers to mix epoxy on. I'm inspired by this frankenplane thing to take a Mustang wing I have and some gutter pipe and coroplast and .......:D:D It might be a cool event to have at the field some time. Keep this going. We have some old Pa Dutch guys at our field who are good candidates.

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

OK guys, we are getting into the spring flying season once more... I was pleasantly surprised to see this thread pop again. I have been making notes on a lot of you and investigating an entirely new level of cheep RC flier.

I have yet to see my usual suspects hanging out on the island in the street begging for nitro, but close to it. Why buy, when you can beg? Folks we need all those designated extreme cheep investigating agents to step forward and divulge your sworn secrets. You can tell on your buddy, I am sure he is too cheap to have an internet connection or a mobile device to use the free wi-fi at McDonalds... so don't worry about him reading about his habits here.

Maybe we can have a Frankenplane competition here this year... the worst of the worst, but it has to fly SAFELY... what about that???

How the heck do you reuse the covering? Do you have to iron it flat? If you keep ironing the monocote, does it disappear?

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

I too have a "MAGIC BOX" from years of saving STUFF. The other guys often ask for parts or send the new guy over for a part. It got nicked named THE MAGIC BOX cuz it usually has what is needed.

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

ALPHA BAT
Ok, so I was given a leftover Alpha trainer wing after someone's crash. Just for kicks I bought two of the Walmart big fat red plastic bats. added a piece of dollar store bat handle to one to get the tail length I needed and used just the fat part of one for a cowl. Bolted the yardstick servo rails and alum landing gear to a cutting board motor mount and zip tied the whole thing together with some coroplast tail feathers. Put an OLD Fox 40 up front. I built it using all the specs from a Goldberg Eagle II. Damn thing flew just fine and got plenty of laughs:D It was fun to fly cuz I didn't care if it crashed.

RE: Cheapest RC Pilot Out There
 

...Now this I have to see!