i have never built an airplane out of balsa wood all by myself, so i am going to start with this rubberband model, called the "fly boy" shown here http://www.turnertoys.com/G1/balsa_model_airplanes3.htm (copy and paste link) i have flown rubberband models before, and everytime i use one, it just keeps flying and flying away from me until it hits something and breaks, so when i build this one, i want to put a rudder on it so when i throw it in the air, i can conrol it with the rudder and prevent it from flying ontop of a building or into a tree. the only thing that i am nervous about is that it will be too heavy, and it wont fly.i have a 20 gram 4.8v battery i could use to power my radio which weighs about 10 grams, and a micro servo that weighs about 4 grams. altoghether, everything weighs in at 34 grams, which weighs a tiny,tiny bit more than 1 ounce. if i put all of these things in the rubberband airplane, will it fly? would it work if i somehow find a way to modify the wing to make it a little bigger for more lift?

thanks!

I tried that before but didn't work. What I did was used an engine from one of those Zip Zap cars from radio shack, little bitty engine. I used a 1 cell 370m Li-Po battery. The problem was you can't find servos that's small and light enough to lift it off the ground. Also there isn't enough wing area to stablize air for the weight of the electronics. Even the Gws micro servos are too heavy. Tough luck. At least speaking for myself, it hasn't worked. But if you are looking for something to fly in the house I think you may find these two links interesting if you haven't seen them already.

P.S. I have them both! Has made me happier than my big scale planes.

www.interactivetoy.com

http://www.comfortchannel.com/prod.itml/icOid/3372

oops, i was reading the scale wrong, the servo, battery, and radio weigh in at 25 grams total, which is almost 10 grams less. also, i found a very powerful motor that weighs in at 3 grams, so the toltal would be exactly 1 ounce with a good motor, would this now work?

I wouldn't count on it. You can try it anyway and see. It's just the wing area is not big enough. The wings are not sturdy and stable for it to fly that weight. You could try adding an inch of balsa to the trailing edge of the wings and see if will work. That's the only thing I didn't do. That may be your best bet.