Jeff – Wow, considering all your points, excellent and encouraging! Of special interest were your comments about the dihedral and polyhedral wings, very insightful and helpful. Your input is MUCH appreciated.
Please be sure to check out my link to the little 4x4 EPP plane at the bottom of this post for an interesting crash surviving add on!
As to
Dave’s sight, I found it before in my researching, and I like Dave’s site, but because most people tell me to stay clear from anything but a high wing with dihedral, I assume that his planes are too advanced and/or fast flying for me. I really like the looks and size of the war birds, but they are low wingers and are likely too speedy for what I am looking for in a first plane.
I somewhat knew about
EPP sailplanes with large wingspans, but I am not as much interested in that kind of flight as I am more sporty aerobatics. I think it would be wild if my first plane would be
- Bend not break crash thriving stuff
- modestly aerobatic and 4 channel so that I could end up learning basic aerobatics
- and perhaps with a brushless/LiPo upgrade, I could even practice hovering
In some circles, I’d be branded a lunatic for even considering such things. But the dream lingers. The Pigi from Hobby Lobby is a 3D trainer, and that intrigues me, but I would prefer a longer more standard wing to chord ratio, but with full length ailerons to help with hover roll control (from prop thrust only).
Modifying for slower flight
I was wondering about modifying something like the Eagle (a nice looking form and size) into being a slower flyer, like by adding a wing wrap of lightweight material around say 3/4 of the wing in terms of length and airfoil too, in order to produce more drag that a thicker slower moving wingfoil tends to produce, the few I’ve mentioned that idea to did not like it or just said it would not work.
The
A-10 sounds interesting, as a cross between a glider and a sport plane. But I’d like a wing that is something a bit less mid body like many sailplanes usually are. But who knows, I might like that, except I wonder how well that would do for modest aerobatics and especially hovering, probably not so well.
I may well end up building my own plane, but I would rather buy one and just modify it to suit my needs, that way all the hardware installation stuff is pre-engineered.
I also like the following profile plane, but it’s a blue fanfold type, but is really economical.
[link=http://www.troybuiltmodels.com/FoamPlanes.html]
CLICK HERE for a Troybuilt
profile aerobatic FF trainer.[/link]
So, in a perfect world, I’d have a plane that looks great like Cobra or Dave’s warbirds, but is forgiving in it’s flight performance and slow speeds like the Pigi and Troybuilt Extra 260 3D.
Oh ya, I forgot to mention another great innovation for creating a crash thriving plane.
[link=http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2064023#post2064023]
CLICK HERE to see a post linked to a great video
and a great close up picture (on the next post) of a
prop/engine AND landing gear shock absorption bumper system ALL IN ONE![/link]
In the video, the guy spins his plane around way too fast in a tight circle while on the ground and the plane does NOT tip over. And then takes off and lands in the greatest of ease in a narrow alleyway and skids around to retrieve the plane. It’s a smallish but most excellent 4x4 foam aerobat! Seems a bit small for my tastes, I’d like something over 3’ wingspan.
I know I can’t have it all perfectly the way I want it, but it is great fun trying to get there. Thanks much for the feedback and great links. So what do you think of that little 4x4 plane? Pretty jazzed up I think.