Thank you for allowing me to join your group.

I've loved anything that flies since I was a kid and I'd like to learn about RC airplane flying.
I just came across a guy locally to me who's selling a Wendel Hostltler Cessna 150 model.
It belonged to the seller's father who built it from plans. I'm told the workmanship is wonderful and it used to fly like a dream.
However his father passed away and it's been hanging from the ceiling for 10 years or so. It comes with radios etc...
It looks to be in great condition but I don't know if hanging it up for so long is bad for it.
It's a 1/3 scale model having a wing span of 10 feet and fuselage of 7 feet.
I don't know which engine it has or the radio type.

To see a video of another plane built from these plans please go to YouTube and search: wendell hostetler cessna 150
The plane I'm looking at looks just like it.
Even very roughly, what is this thing worth ???
I have the option at well under $400.
Is it a steal or should I run ???
Thank you...

If you have a local flying club, I would contact them and have someone that builds planes go with you to take a look at it.
Hanging from the ceiling shouldn't be an issue as long as the hanging medium was around the wings and fuse and not fastened to the structure with eyelets or similar screwed into it. With that price tag, it sounds like it's probably a good deal, if it's been properly set up for long term storage.

Thank you for the info. I'm off to look at it now. Wish me luck, it's only money after all.
As they say boats are a hole in the water to throw money in, I guess planes are about the same !!!

Actually "Boat" is an acronym for "Break Out Another Thousand", don't ask me how I know this..........

Now, this being the beginner's section I gotta ask, have you ever flown RC airplanes before? If no, then sure buy the plane if you like it, and keep it for your third or so plane after you've worked your way through a couple of actual RC trainer planes first.

Simply put, even though the full scale (real, carries people) Cessna 150 is used to train people how to fly, a 10 foot model of one really isn't likely to be the best choice for an RC trainer.

A gent named GBLyndon just posted a whole thread (link below) of appropriate RC trainers and something from his list really oughta be what you start out with......

My Best Beginner RC Plane Advice

Let's not talk about boats. Believe me, I know how expensive they are. A new 11cc(.67ci) engine for this one is $575-600 before adding headers and tuned pipes

Hydro, giant scale is a bit on the expensive side too. Looking to maiden this one Saturday.

Back to the topic. A Hostetler 150 is a plans built airplane and is a pretty advanced build. Odds are it has been built well by an old school modeler. Almost certain that it has an older magneto engine in it of around 30cc to 45cc. Will require a carb rebuild. The servos may be fine depending on what is installed, batteries will need to be replaced and depending on the radio if included may need to be replaced as well.

As to a beginner flying it, all things being equal giant scale is easier to fly then say a .40 or .60 size. The issue is that they won’t tolerate any sort of abuse without damage. The OP is going to need a trainer. Looking up and joining a local club is a good suggestion. As far as the actual trainer is concerned I would suggest something that is large enough to use a 20cc gas engine. Reason being is that he can learn about gas engines as he trains then the big Cessna won’t be quite as intimidating.

Thank you for the advice. I ended up buying the plane tonight. It's dusty but otherwise looks really great and huge with a 10 foot wing span. It was obviously a labor of love for the builder, but like a lot of things there's good and bad.

I couldn't get a good look at the motor because it looks like the propeller has to come off to remove the cowl. However I can see it has a horizontally opposed twin engine. I'm guessing its a DLE 60 CC gas engine. Now the bad. The engine is practically seized up, but as it's been sitting for over ten years I'm not to surprised. Hopefully a good lube and some TLC will bring it back to life.

It came with three Futaba transmitters, a ton of other related parts and a flight box. I'm guessing the transmitter for this plane is a Futaba PCM 1024 72 Mhz. Hopefully its not to outdated. It has Ni Cad batteries so they'll have to go. I wonder if there's a lithium replacement?
The whole package ended up at $280.00 so I don't think I did to badly. I'll post pictures of the plane tomorrow when I've got it into my shop and removed some of the dust !!

I did find a local RC club so I'll be asking them a lot of questions. THANK YOU AGAIN for your advice... I'll be back !!

Please do post pictures. There is no reason why you can’t use the 72 MHz stuff. There are lithium based batteries available. The LiFe 6.6V batteries will be best for your application if the servos can handle the additional voltage. Some Futaba servos can’t handle more then 5.5V. Any of the 3xxx series are junk IMO and can’t be run on anything higher then 5.5V. The choice there would be to replace the servos or use a voltage regulator if you go with LiFe batteries. You will also need to buy an appropriate charger. The engine is of interest to me. I did not expect a twin as until fairly recently they weren’t many available under 70cc. Perhaps you could let me know what size prop it has, that will tell me the size of the engine.

The only reason I suggested having an experienced builder look the plane over is (s)he might catch something a beginner wouldn't . Other than that clarification, I have no arguments about anything anyone's posted. Too bad I don't have an extra $400 or so laying around or I might be asking where to find that plane as well. Just got to thinking, a 10ft span works out to 30.3% so a 7ft length is actually fairly close to a scale.

Agreed, having one of the club instructors take a look at it would be a great idea. He may even enjoy seeing his new purchase flown after it’s brought back to airworthiness.

I finally ended up paying $280 for the lot. It's got a horizontally opposed twin motor.
I believe it's a DLE-60 (60cc) gas engine. It started at $400 but he took my offer of $380.
Then I found the motor to be almost stuck, which dropped the price another $100.
I'm guessing that since it's been sitting for over ten years it's just gummed up.
I'll find out more tomorrow. I'll get it into my shop, clean it up and post some pictures.
Thanks for helping me...

OP, you are new modeler with an old plane, engine and electronics. The last thing you need to do is dick around with different battery technologies that have different voltage outputs. Yes, replace all your batteries but use NiMH batteries instead of LIFE or lithium. NiMH are direct replacements for NiCds and are readily available. They have also greatly increased their amp-hour output. I have over a dozen 2300mAh AA batteries and in total cost less than $50.
IF IT WORKS, DON'T "FIX" IT.

A little bit of a mystery. The DLE is a fairly new engine and the rest of the equipment sounds early 2000’s. I’ve never seen a gas engine bound up from sitting but hopefully this will be the first. Typically the cylinder(s) are seized due to lack of oil in the fuel mix or run too hot. Good news if that is the case you can send it to Valley View for repair. Batteries are a little bit of a can of worms as you can now see. Personally I haven’t used a Nicad or NiMH battery in over 20 years, nor have I had a battery failure since then either. I just ordered a pair of 2200mah Lipo batteries for the large Edge ( 106cc ) pictured previously, $27.00 delivered. Although I agree that the older battery tech would be a direct drop in and there would be no need to worry about the higher voltage.

I couldn't get the cowling off of the motor at the sellers "shop". It was night time, freezing with snow blowing in etc, but I could see through the cowl and it's definitely an opposed twin. I was just guessing at it being a DLE motor, maybe it's something older. I agree the motor being tight isn't good but for as much as it's worth, I was told it was free when it was last used (over ten years ago) without any problem. Who knows ! I guess I'll find out later today.

I actually bought a set of drop in NiMh batteries last night. They will take a week to arrive. For now I just want to keep it simple and cheap. I don't even know if these radios are working or legal to operate. I got three transmitters, all Futaba. The best looking one is a PCM 1024 with a FP-TP-FMdrop in module at the rear.

Whatever, at $280 for the whole thing, so far I don't think I did bad !! Here's hoping !!!

The one radio you said is a PCM 1024 is legal. My Futaba 9CAP is the same type, a PCM 1024 and it's also legal. It is actually the only non 2.4 radio I have that is legal. What makes a radio illegal is if it's a "wideband" transmitter, something that hasn't been sold in 30 years. The difference is a wideband transmits a signal that could vary by up to 40KHz above and below its given frequency. These were made illegal in the early 1990s when the FCC mandated a maximum 20KHz variance, required to increase the number of available frequencies usable for R/C models

Based on the age of the airplane my thinking is the engine is probably a Zenoah G445 or GT80. Will be following this thread with interest. I have a Hostetler Cessna 206 with a GT80 and while it is a great flying model you should listen to the advice about working up to it.

Hi!
A plane that big, with a gas engine is not suitable for a beginner!!!!!!
If you would like to be "model flier" , flying R/C models a much better way of starting/learning is to go with smaller 160cm span plane with a .25-.28 or even a .40 seize glow engine.
I know small electric foam planes are more suitable if you will learn on your own but yoyning a club is the best way and fastet way of learning to fly an R/C plane.
The plane below is a Kyosho "Calmato" .40 trainer (powered by a MVVS .28 glow engine) which was very popular in the late nineties.
I myself prefer glow engines before electric motors

Unfortunately, as a new member I'm not allowed to post pictures...

Hello again...

I tried for over an hour last night to post pictures if my new plane, but as a new member I'm not allowed, or so it seems. I upload pictures but when I go to post I get a warning telling me that I cannot post URL's as a new member, but my pictures are not URL's.

Anyway... I'd previously posted that I couldn't get the engine cowl off the plane at the sellers location because of conditions there, but that I could peep through air vents to see what I thought was a Horizontally Opposed Twin motor. People expressed their doubts. Well folks you were right. After getting the plane to my shop and removing the cowl I found I was totally wrong...

The motor is actually A Horizontally Opposed FOUR cylinder.
It's an OS Pegasus 320 or an FF-320, same thing.

As I said before the engine which had been sitting for over ten years, was just about stuck which obviously isn't good. So I removed all four plugs and filled the cylinders with Marvel Mystery Oil.

After a few minutes I was able to rotate the prop 360 but it's still tight. So I've now left it to soak overnight. Hopefully it will be freed up when I get to my shop later this morning but I have my doubts.

I'm fortunate to have an extremely talented mechanic at my shop who'd have no issue tearing the engine down, honing the cylinders and replacing pistons, rings etc, but I hope it doesn't come to that, and are parts available? Who knows... One way or another we'll get there...

The rest of the plane cleaned up very well. It had quite a thick covering in dust but some spray window cleaner "without ammonia" soon had her shining again, being careful not to over wet the plane or wipe dry dust across the surfaces and cause a million scratches. A ten foot wingspan model is a bit of a hand full even with the wings off, the fuselage alone is over seven feet.

I do own a full sized ultralight and a light sport plane, A Quicksilver Sprint and a Kolb Firestar II, but I understand that doesn't mean I can fly an RC plane, in some way RC is more difficult. Also my full sized planes have ballistic parachutes, these don't. So I will get training and start off probably with an electric / foam built horror. There is also a local RC club that I'll approach for training.

Please can you give your opinion on PC based simulators for very basic training. Considering it's -4 degrees here as I write, that's about all I can get for the next few months.

Also do you know if and where parts can be bought for this engine. I have seen a few parts on Ebay.

Watch this space.

Thank you...

I just found Horizon Hobby that seem to have all the engine parts... Great, now I have more hope !!!

I know it's confusing, but the admins set a requirement of 10 posts before being able to post a picture. This was due to people putting a single post up to talk about an R/C that they were going to be marketing that turned out to be a total scam. The 10-post rule stopped the practice

Now that you know what is powering the plane, you might be better off ordering the parts and just rebuilding the engine. If there's any deep scrapes in the cylinder sleeves, you will need to replace them and the matching pistons anyway, might be money ahead to do so up front. At that point, if you find that some of the piston and sleeve sets are still good, you can keep them as spares

It's not really possible to hone out a sleeve. They are usually chrome plated brass with aluminum pistons. Unlike a gas engine, where a crosshatch pattern is desired, a nitro motor you want to have just as smooth as possible. The other little detail about the sleeve is that they are usually tapered in at the top. Not sure if your engine has rings or not but, if not, you don't want to remove the inward taper or chrome lining at the top of the sleeve

You need to remember, your two full sized planes have you sitting in them so you see AND FEEL what it's doing. An R/C you lose both since you're watching it from a distance. While the controls still work in the same way, the rudder pedals are now a second stick and that requires some getting used to, especially since the second stick also controls the throttle

Why rebuild the engine when you don't have to. Maybe some people enjoy tearing an engine apart but frankly I don't. If you can get it to turn freely and it seems to have compression, try to get it running (might be ahead to mount it to something solid besides the model and get an experienced guy to help).
You lucked out with this deal at the given price

I totally agree with the "if it works, don't fix it" idea but after a really good soaking in penetrating oil for 24 hours the engine is still semi-stuck and it feels gritty as I turn it, so bad things are going on in there... Thank you for your input...

Noted, and I agree. Thank you for your input...

Wow what a score. Even in that shape the engine is worth an easy grand. The good news is that after some clean up if should be fine. The grit that you feel is most likely the bearings being rusted. Bearings are easy to get, they are the only thing besides rings that I suggest not buying OEM. RC bearings.com is a much better route. The crank, pushrods, rocker arms, cams and wrist pins are most likely rusted as well. They typically clean up well with fine steel wool that gas been lightly oiled. The cylinder sleeves are steel as well and may need to be cleaned up too. Some oiled 600 grit on the inside bore is a good idea. If you want to replace the rings do a google search on Bowman rings. I think the most difficult task will be removing the cam bearings.