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It seems that, as a boy growing up in the 80s, I was not alone in having an interest in R\/C airplanes.\u00a0 R\/C anything, really (where R\/C meant ‘radio control’, not the laughable ‘remote control’, which was toy company code for ‘has a 10 foot wire between the controller and vehicle, and anybody who buys it is a sucker’) – cars, boats, tanks, airplanes, helicopters, whatever, but particularly R\/C airplanes.\u00a0 I did get a control line P-51 as a present one year, but it never took to the sky, perhaps as part of my disdain for any sort of tether between plane and operator.\u00a0 Looked good hanging from the ceiling, though, where it perennially engaged in a static dogfight of sheer will against a plastic model UH-1 Huey – first to fall due to weight of accumulated dust lost air superiority.<\/p>\n
I had several issues of R\/C Modeler, which was like crack cocaine for young imaginations.\u00a0 Within the tattered and well thumbed pages were some articles (filled with technical jargon of unknown meaning) interspersed between glorious advertisements for incredible flying machines (and cars and boats, too – the ‘glass filled nylon’ bit in the Tamiya Hornet ad confused me for a while until I learned about fiberglass composites).\u00a0 I recall ducted fan scale models of the fighter jets that graced posters plastered around my room, brightly colored aerobatic planes (which I didn’t pay much attention to – anything displaying a propeller rather than an afterburner didn’t merit much thought), and quite possibly the coolest thing ever, a scale R\/C version of Airwolf<\/a>, the baddest-ass helicopter EVER (although Blue Thunder<\/a> runs a close second).<\/p>\n All of this airborne fantasy had one big drawback, however – price. I understood the hobby well enough to know that you had to have a lot of gear – an engine, radio, receiver, servos…\u00a0\u00a0 …oh, and the airplane itself.\u00a0 I also understood the hobby well enough to know that crashes were a royal pain when repairs were needed.\u00a0 Building a fuselage for a free-flight plane taught me that repairing cracked balsa gets old really fast, and the stuff will invariably warp on you.\u00a0 Over the years, I’d thumb though other R\/C magazines at the library, and I’d go to a few of the charity exhibitions held by the local R\/C club to get a taste.\u00a0 I even modified a ‘buddy box’ so I could play with an R\/C Simulator<\/a> on my computer. Eventually, it all sort of drifted out of consciousness.<\/p>\n Fast forward to this past Labor Day, where I went to a party hosted by my friends Chuck<\/a> and Molly<\/a>, with lots of kids in attendance. At one point, we all headed down to the local park to launch some model rockets, courtesy of Chuck’s sister. Chuck also brought along his son’s little 2-channel Air Hogs<\/a> type of R\/C airplane. Due to the slight wind, none of us could keep the plane in the air for more than a few seconds, but I was fascinated by its simplicity and manufacturability (i.e. low cost). I had a hunch that while I hadn’t been paying attention, R\/C airplanes suddenly had become far more affordable than in my youth.<\/p>\n Sure enough, after a bit of web searching, it became apparent that advances in battery technology coupled with sturdy, lightweight foam and cheap outsourced manufacturing had yielded the ideal starter R\/C aircraft, at a price that even a global economic meltdown couldn’t make unattractive. There were a number of such RTF<\/a> trainers I found, but the least expensive (hey, ‘affordable’ is no reason to stop being a cheapskate) looked to be the Firebird Phantom<\/a>. Several of us took the plunge, and we ordered 4 of them and a bunch of extra batteries. While waiting for them to arrive, I tried to consume as much information on them as I could, and I watched Dave Herbert’s Youtube videos<\/a> on the plane (I figure if a guy who has been in the hobby for over 3 decades thinks it’s a good starter plane, I can feel confident about the purchase).<\/p>\n Upon receiving the package, I knew that the first thing to do was to strengthen the wing, so out came the strapping and packing tape. I even removed the stickers on the wing to reduce weight (a bit silly in retrospect, like being horribly out of shape, deciding you want to compete in the Ironman, and shaving your legs to give you a 0.6 second edge during the swimming phase of the event). I then charged up all 3 of my batteries, and eagerly awaited the next day.\u00a0\u00a0 After work, I excitedly rushed home, grabbed the plane and batteries, and headed over to the park we had been at on Labor Day.\u00a0 I found an unused ball diamond in the park (crucial, as any witnesses to what was about to be attempted would undoubtedly result in exponential embarrassment) and quickly assembled my aircraft.\u00a0 Despite the overwhelming possibility of failure, I hurled my charge into the air, then furiously worked the controls to adjust throttle, pitch and yaw.\u00a0 Though my attempts were valiant, ‘soaring”, ‘majestic’, and ‘skyward’ were not adjectives applicable to the flight that followed.\u00a0 After an ‘air time’ that generally requires the precision of an atomic clock to accurately relay the brevity of, the craft was reunited with terra quite firma.\u00a0 Foam is nothing if not resilient, so second and third attempts were quickly mounted.\u00a0 This third flight (I am of the opinion that any object, be it a tossed coin or a hummingbird, not touching a static, grounded item, may be considered ‘in flight’; issues of control, intent, and the ever-pesky ‘lift’ nothwithstanding) met with ‘arboreal interference’.\u00a0 After throwing increasingly large sticks at the restraining limbs, I rooted around in the brush to find a 15 foot branch suitable for extracting the plane.\u00a0 I was back in the air in no time (and nose-down in the ground in even less).\u00a0 My final flight was perhaps the most dramatic, culminating in two full loops interrupted once more by tree branches.\u00a0 This proved a disastrous end – though the plane miraculously managed to escape from the branches, the propeller was nowhere to be found.\u00a0 Thus ended flying for the day, as well as the week.<\/p>\n After the disappointment wore off, I went back to the web to watch more videos and research what others had done with the plane.\u00a0 I found that there were 3 things that had contributed to a less-than successful outing: Wind, space, and wing.\u00a0 Though the wind was pretty low that day, it appeared that ‘dead still’ air was really what I wanted as a raw beginner without an experienced pilot to help me.\u00a0 Additionally, more space (free of aircraft eating trees) was needed to allow for more altitude, larger turns, and simply much wider error margins.\u00a0 Finally, a number of people commented that the stock wing was rather ‘fast’, and that a larger wing would slow down the plane and make it much more docile.<\/p>\n At the local hobby store, I looked at the selection of foam wings, and found a ‘Sky Fly’ wing for about $12 that had a generous surface area, more dihedral than the stock wing, and simply seemed a bit sturdier than the stock unit.\u00a0 I then cut out the rear center of the wing to fit it to the Phantom.\u00a0 Still without a prop, I did a number of hand tossed glides with the new wing to see how it ‘felt’ and whether it was too nose heavy.\u00a0 I did some more launches with the stock wing and thought I could see a bit of difference – the stock wing felt ‘twitchier’ than the big one, and was more prone to rolling.\u00a0 I also took the opportunity to tear out the ACT sensors, as the prevailing opinion seemed to be that ACT caused more problems than it solved.<\/p>\n
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