SocMan18,

We are talking dirt cheap, yes, less than $10 for the "airframe". The above pictured airplane is scratch built from Coroplast and Gutter pipe. It's designer, Collin "Kraut" McGinnis, hopes to reliese the plans showing how to build one soon.

The term "airframe" refers to the aircraft's fuselage, wing and tail. This does not include the engine mount, landing gear, or pushrods. The concept is something Collin and myself started about 5 years ago in the world of R/C combat because of the need for dirt cheap, quick built, extreamly tough airplanes for dogfighting. It wasn't long until guys at our local field who had crashed their last airplane in a million pieces, started looking at our combat planes for ideas. They took our plans, and built our combat planes, and then took the landing gear and engine mount and hardware from their crashed plane and made sport planes. The popularity of this has become huge, and it's become a very popular way to get back in the air fast after a devistating crash. As the concept has evolved, the planes have gotten better and better looking, and much better flying, to the point that they equal and sometimes beat their balsa counterparts in performance. There is a LOT of information at http://www.spadtothebone.com and there is a learning curve to working with plastic (especially gluing). This can be a little overwhelming at first, especially someone just getting into the hobby, and the concept is still new enough that it's not readily accepted by many who resist change. Let me just tell you this, I've been in this hobby for 25 years, and spent the first 20 building conventional airplanes..maybe one or two planes a year...I've spent the last 5 years building and experimenting with plastic...close the 300 airplanes they are so cheap, and am having more fun than ever! And having fun is the name of the game no matter how you do it!