Pizza box flying
 

How's everyone's box flying? I haven't heard much lately?

Pizza Box plane still flying great! And caught on tape!
 

I still can't get over how well a simple flat piece of coroplast flys!

This evening I setup my camcorder on a tripod and shot about 10 minutes of my Pizza Box plane flying around in my backyard. Now all I have to do is convince my computer-whiz buddy to convert a couple minutes of 8mm videotape to a file that can be downloaded so you guys can see this thing fly. It's amazing!!!

Anyone else got a Pizza Box plane flying besides Foamguy and myself?

Pizza box flying
 

Just picked up a piece of Coraplast and going to start mine base on yours. I've downloaded all the pic and info and I'm going to start it tomorrow. I'm going to put in the rudder servo right away.
Is the main fuse (wood) screwed down to the coraplast? What did you glue the rudder with?

Pizza Box plane
 

Ben,
I'm glad to hear that you intend to get a Pizza Box plane flying!

The wood "fuselage" is glued to the coroplast with medium CA, but the coroplast was "flashed" first with a propane torch to remove the oil film.

I would suggest that you insert a couple of 2" wood or plastic dowel rods into two of the flutes of the vertical fin, one near the leading edge, and one near the hingeline. These dowels should fit fairly snug inside the flutes of the coroplast. (I used the red colored outer tube from a Sullivan Gold-N-Rod). Drill holes in the wood "fuselage" to match the spacing of the dowels, then glue the dowels only into the fuselage. The vertical fin is held onto the dowels solely by friction. I haven't had any problems at all with it coming loose....except once after an inverted flat spin "landing".....which allowed the fin to cleanly separate with no damage other than a broken kevlar pull-pull thread.

If you still need some more specific info, I'd be glad to help!

Pizza Box Plane Video
 

If you do not believe a pizza box can fly, Check out the link on the McPizza Box Airplane. http://www.eldonmo.com/pizzabox/mcpizzabox.htm

If you have dial up you might want to go high speed so it will not take you all day to download.

On a cable modem it took just less than a min. to come up. This is a media player file.

Pizza box flying
 

I haven't made a 2nd attempt with mine. I used the radio and engine in my new Taco .25

Pizza box flying
 

anyone make up a makeshift plan or instruction on making one? like with pics and all?

Just wondering

Pizza box flying
 

I can't believe that thing flys... I've got a ton of coroplast in my garage... I guess I'll have to go for it....

Pizza box flying
 

hmmm.... I've got an old 25la... and a 25 fp..... you think a 2ft sq. piece of 4 mil coro with standard radio gear and the CG at 15% of the wing?? That would be 3.6" from the leading edge?

Pizza box flying
 

Paul, the piece of coro i used for my pizza plane was 18"x24" 4mil. The .25FP was plenty of power for that. I used all the same equipment that is now in my Taco .25. I had the CG at close to 20% back. It flew but not well. I'm not sure what the problem was but it was fairly out of control. Maybe it was the wind, maybe the CG was too far back, or maybe the coro was too small.

In any case, i think it could have been made to work well, and obviously the idea is sound as Dave and others have proven.

Anyway, as far as a more direct answer to your question, i would imagine that the 2 foot square coro should be pretty good for your 25.

Be sure to check out the old thread on this subject if you haven't already, there is a lot of info there. I dont remember what it was called but run a search for pizza box and i'm sure it'll turn up.

Pizza Box info
 

Paul,
Either the 25LA or the 25FP would be perfect for a 24"x24" Pizza plane. The HB 15 that I originally used was abandoned after only a few flights in favor of an old bushing OS 25 that was the predecessor of the 25FP engines. With a Tornado 9x4, it flys very well!

My Pizza Box is currently balanced at exactly 20% back, which comes out to be a shade over 4.75" behind the leading edge with the 24x24 wing. I'd recommend starting with the 20% CG instead of the 15% CG. It still feels a little nose heavy to me, but I haven't found the rear CG limit yet. Fortunately, this thing has proven to be almost indestructable, so finding the actual rear CG limit probably won't really damage it.


Mil,
Sorry to hear that your Pizza Box plane didn't turn out to fly well. But I'm wondering if your 18"x24" wing might have had something to do with this since it wasn't square. Was the span 24"? If so, I'd be willing to bet that was the root of the stability problem. But if the span was 18", I'm not sure why yours would have been so unstable.


JohnVH,
Between Foamguy and myself, you will probably find enough details posted in the original Pizza Box thread to build one for yourself. But if you still need more details, I will try to help.
Just click on the Flying Pizza Box to read the original thread..

Pizza box flying
 

A few weeks back I started a thread about my disk plane and about how well it performed. I have also build another
plane a few months back, but it had a rectangle shaped wing that measured 27 x 32 inches. I put graphics on it to make it look like a playing card, an ace of spades. I will upload a picture of it soon. Like the disk plane, this one also performs well and by having about 100 sq inches more than the disk plane it will descend with more control. Seeing the pizza box thread, of course I had to build one. I used the 24 x 24 size with rudder and landing gear. The little .46 LA is its power and the total weight is 3 lbs 1 oz. I haven’t flown it yet but plan on flying this weekend. From holding it vertical with the engine running I can tell it is going to have a lot of vertical thrust. I will have the pictures of both to post soon. James Goss

Pizza box flying
 

Great, thanks Dave!:D

Pizza box flying
 

Howdy people. I'm new to this forum. However, I have a Pizza Box! Foamguy told me about this forum. His first Pizza Box was so cool I had to have one of my own. I built mine out of 1" foam. It has a downspout fuse and landing (only) gear. It is 24" x 24" plus 3" elevons. I power it with a TT .46. At 5000 feet, the power is just right! Weight is about 4 lbs. Here's a link to it at the SPAD forum.

http://www.rccombat.com/forum/topic....rplane+Designs

Now I need a coro box!

A short video
 

I will try to place a short video for the dial uo users by Monday night. Let me get with Dave this weekend.

Thanks
Crash99

Pizza box flying
 

Here is the finished plane. I still can’t believe what a good flyer it is. It weighs 3 lb 3 oz with an os .46 LA and is 24 inches square. I like it with landing gear and tail wheel. The rudder steers it fine on the ground. The LA engine is just right for this plane and gives it rocket vertical. I have already built another version.

Pizza box flying
 

Here is another view of the little guy.

Pizza box flying
 

James, i just checked out your webpage, very nice planes you've got. What really caught my attention was the shop though! Words cannot explain my envy! :)

Here's what i have to work with :(

Pizza Box vs. Floppy Disk
 

James,
Just curious, but how does your Pizza Box fly compared to your Floppy Disk and your Ace Of Spades?

Do all of these oddball disk/octagon/square/rectangle flying wings fly this good? If so, I've been missing out on a LOT of fun over the past 32 years!

If you watched the video, you can easily tell we're novices at creating video files. I'll get with Crash99 this weekend to see if we can make a much smaller video file that won't take forever to download on a dialup connection.

Pizza box flying
 

Dave

In reference to the three planes, the disk, the ace of spades and the pizza box, I would have to say that the pizza box (spad park flyer) is the best. They all fly well, but the pizza box is stable at any speed and lands like a feather. It has a tail wheel, but it is not steerable. The rudder turns the plane on the ground with ease and I am still amazed at how well it did fly. On my new version I am using a ½ inch aluminum channel for the fuse instead of a piece of basswood. It is a lot stronger and very little added weight. How did we miss these type planes for the last 30 years of modeling? This opens the door for a lot of experimenting on oddball planes in the future.

Pizza box flying
 

Hi all,

I was inspired by all of you and now I am almost finished building my own Pizza Box Flyer. Construction is of 3/16" white foamboard. Dimensions are 2'x2' with 2.5" control surfaces and a 6" tall vstab. Power is O.S. 32sx. Weight is 2lb 5oz. A friend of mine hovers his 4lb plane with the 32sx and APC 9x6 prop, so a 2lb 5oz plane should be balistic with the 32sx. I also have a steerable nose gear and tail wheels like in the picture of the plane below. This plane has flight characteriscs like the Pizza Box Flyers too. It should be interresting to compare the two. I'll be test-flying my PBF in a couple of days, wish me luck.

Pizza box flying
 

I took the little postage stamp out for another flying session Sunday and believe me it really carried the mail. It had about six or seven flights through the day and I learned a lot from each flight. I still say this is the best little fun fly plane for the money that can be built. If you haven’t planed on building one, please do, you won’t regret it.

Another succussful Pizza Box flyer!
 

Yesterday, my good flying buddy Tim test flew his Pizza Box flyer, and like mine, it flew just great too!

We had a blast flying around in formation, including hovering together. We even tried "sorta combat" by trying to hover one Pizza Box above the other to see if the prop blast would push the lower Pizza Box into the ground! It never worked, but it sure was fun trying!

Here's a photo of Tim's Pizza Box flyer that came out weighing 2 lbs-2 oz. It uses an OS 25FP, a Grish 9x4 nylon prop, and standard size radio gear, except for a 270mah battery.

Pizza Box action photos!
 

Tim and myself were flying our Pizza Box planes yesterday evening. Crash99 happened to have his camera with him and managed to photograph some of the action.

It didn't take long until Tim and I starting combating with our Pizza Box flyers by trying to knock each other out of the air, and Crash99 even caught a Pizza Box to Pizza Box mid-air collision on film! It seems that combating with Pizza Box planes gives a whole new meaning to the words "Slow Combat". :D

Check out Crash99's Pizza Box action photos at this URL:
http://www.eldonmo.com/pizzabox1/pizzabox1.htm

Thanks Crash99 for helping us spread the word that these Pizza Box planes really do fly amazingly well!

AWESOME
 

Great pics you got there. That midair pic and the hovering pics were incredible :). I want one BAD. I have a Webra 32 with pipe (heli version) and was thinking about builting a pizza box for it. What dimentions would match my engine? How thick should the coro sheet be? How do you guys go about mounting the engine in the coro sheet? How about mounting the servos and fuel tank? Lots of questions but I really dont know where to start.

Thanks a lot