RC Hobbies, how many have ground or air hobbies?

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For those who think the "R/C" hobby it too expensive it all depends on what you want to do. Actually, it is much like the rocket hobby. The cost depends on your involvement. You can fly Estes model rockets for just pennies compared to a level 3 project. There are small foam airplanes and quadcopters (I really do not like the term drone) that you can purchase ready to fly for between $25 and $100. Yes, on the high side, you can spend as much as you have on any hobby. Estes, of all companies, has an indoor quadcopter called Proto X that is very cheap and flies very well.
Yup, some nice looking indoor micro heli's too, for around $25 bucks.
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That is amazing! You definitely have constructions skills that I wish to have some day and lets not forget the skills in flying one of those planes. When I first saw the picture I'm like what the heck it looks like a full size plane just off in the distance slightly. Just amazing!!

FYI, most of the larger aerobatic R/C airplanes come already assembled for the most part in sub-assemblies (wings, fuselage, stabs) and pre-covered in one of about three or four schemes. The owner/flyer has just to install whichever engine/motor setup and electronics he/she chooses.
 
I raced 1/10 scale off-road for many years when I was 13-22. I was able to run with an sometimes beat the top pros. It just got too expensive to compete at that level. The pro drivers would have new tires nearly every run, the best batteries, and motors etc.
 
I used to fly RC helicopters (60 class) electric. That was before LiPo, so I was flying 24 cell NiCd & NiMH. I also flew fixed wing (electric also). Custom built B29, B17, B25, Mustang, etc. When I moved back stateside I got out of the RC hobbies. I recently got back into it (somewhat) with drones. I actually got back into drones more because I'm in airport management, so I wanted to be actively involved in the integration of drones into the NAS. Now, I have a handful of drones (camera ships & racing drones), and love flying them. I still have my RC B-29, but haven't flown it in years.
 
I've got a 29" RC replica of the Miss Geico offshore racing boat. If the winds are light, no waves, running 6S she'll get between 50-55 mph. She jumps out of the water from a stand still. Awesome boat, but I get nervous almost every time I open her up.
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https://youtu.be/raEcw1N_K1g
https://youtu.be/CNkUDR9yxUg

Nice Ryan! Looks like it loves a glassy lake to open her up. That thing is fast!


I'll have to take a pic but I still have a fleet of Tekno & Losi 10th and 1/8th scale buggies and short course trucks 4wd & 2wd. Still have a track behind my house, but a lot to take care of and rockets and boating starting to take the place of primary hobby.
 
I was thinking about attaching a trailer to one of the trucks and have it pull a portable launch pad with a low or mid power rocket and launch it remotely...I think thatwould be pretty cool:)

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ive been thinkin for years of taking one of those powerwheels jeeps and doing similar. maybe pull the body off and make a hummer body.and I have a great nephew with a jeep hes outgrowing. :) trailer wouldn't be that hard it seems. but Ive wondered how the trailered rocket would handle terrain rougher than pavement.
 
I'm up here in Anaheim, at least there's some openness where you are at. I have brother that lives down Vista...was a nice area years ago. I remember 30 plus years you can head south on the 15 from the 91 during the afternoon and you'd be hard press to see a dozen cars either way to Temecula and at night no one was on the freeway. Times have changed!

Man, you guys are REALLY gridlocked up in Anaheim! Where can you go to fly rockets up there? Lucerne is about the only place I can think of. Maybe come down to one of our launches one day. A bit of a drive, but a lot of good folks and it would be good to put a face to the name!

Do you remember Mile Square Park? It is over in Fountain Valley off the 405. It used to have a nice model flying field and rocket ranges. In fact maintaining model airplane and rocket flying facilities were requirements of the charter that granted the land to the county in the first place. Of course none of that mattered when they decided to get rid of the model fields to install (yet another) golf course...
 
Nice Ryan! Looks like it loves a glassy lake to open her up. That thing is fast!


I'll have to take a pic but I still have a fleet of Tekno & Losi 10th and 1/8th scale buggies and short course trucks 4wd & 2wd. Still have a track behind my house, but a lot to take care of and rockets and boating starting to take the place of primary hobby.

Wish I had a track behind my house ...sweet!!
 
Man, you guys are REALLY gridlocked up in Anaheim! Where can you go to fly rockets up there? Lucerne is about the only place I can think of. Maybe come down to one of our launches one day. A bit of a drive, but a lot of good folks and it would be good to put a face to the name!

Do you remember Mile Square Park? It is over in Fountain Valley off the 405. It used to have a nice model flying field and rocket ranges. In fact maintaining model airplane and rocket flying facilities were requirements of the charter that granted the land to the county in the first place. Of course none of that mattered when they decided to get rid of the model fields to install (yet another) golf course...

Yeah Lucerne is the only place to really fly. I think there's launches at the Santa Fee damn? Yeah I know Mile Square Park. Might go there tonight after work to take my dog out for a walk. It's a nice place, but like everything else in the area it's changed and become populated with too many people. I don't think you can fly any planes there anymore and I know you can't launch rockets. It's a joke. I even have problems finding places to run my RC trucks...I'll probably end up selling them as much as I don't want too, but it isn't worth it anymore

As far as the golf course a waste of land. If I hit a little white ball and had to chase it down and I found it. I would just go home. I never did understand it. I think they could have found better use with the land than build a golf a course. ...its a complete joke. The whole area has changed.
 
George,

Putting an Ace actuator in a boost glider.....that's a really intriguing idea. I wonder what the rudder actually did while it was on boost, considering the torque those things didn't have.

The rudder probably blown straight backwards by the airflow. Although IIRC if I held left rudder, on boost, the model would roll left some. In any case, the first R/C RBG's used magnetic actuators. Doug Malewicki was the first to do it, in 1967 with gear was smaller and lighter than the Ace gear. LOTS of info on this web page I never got around to officially adding to my website:

https://www.georgesrockets.com/GRP/GLIDERS/EarlyRC/EarlyRC.htm

Malewicki had a 3-part article in Model Rocketry Magazine in 1969. It's at the above link, a sample below.

MRM-Oct-69-33.jpg


The MIT Rocket Society got into developing small R/C gear for R/C B/G's. They created a whole planbook including info on how to build very tiny receivers and actuators, around 1977. Some of the last plans in the book include info on digital R/C models as finally some "super micro" servos and receivers were being produced (such as by Cannon R/C)

MIT-Scans226.jpg


Some of the members of he MIT Rocket Society who were involved were "Guppy" Youngren, Bob Parks, Geoff Landis, and Chris Flanigan. Here's Parks with an early model.

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My brother bought me a 7 channel heathkit interchangable frequency module radio kit for my 15th birthday around 1982, was a fun project assembling everything.

Frank


I would have enjoyed getting my hands on a "Heath Kit" radio. Boy, those things looked quite impressive and reasonably priced too as you 'built' it yourself with not much more than a knife and soldering gun. I remember the 'escapement' radios of the time too. I believe Ace was in this category as well as others. Another radio I would have enjoyed getting my hands on were the "Kraft" series. Top of the line as far as radios went back then.
 
I fly RC electric and rocket gliders a lot, if not obvious to most people:) Taught myself to fly using a midwest aero-lectric wood kit with a can 05 motor, 7x6 prop and a standard servo pushing an on off switch for throttle, using a 6 cell nicad 1200mah pack, was good for 4 minutes of flying at full throttle(which was needed)and then you were landing. Not enough power to take off, you had to hand launch and figure it out before you killed it. Took two flights with minor repairs of the wing mounts before I got the hang of it...Built an electric hots, goldberg Mirage, hobby shack electric stick, then switched over to fuel motors for about 10 years, took a 3 year break and the brushless/lipo's had taken over and prices had dropped effectively in half or better with double the run time and twice the power. Flew an Astro-blaster back in the day but it gave only about a 20 second glide time. Started building my own rc rocket gliders about 10 years ago and haven't stopped.

Frank
 
I fly RC electric and rocket gliders a lot, if not obvious to most people:) Taught myself to fly using a midwest aero-lectric wood kit with a can 05 motor, 7x6 prop and a standard servo pushing an on off switch for throttle, using a 6 cell nicad 1200mah pack, was good for 4 minutes of flying at full throttle(which was needed)and then you were landing. Not enough power to take off, you had to hand launch and figure it out before you killed it. Took two flights with minor repairs of the wing mounts before I got the hang of it...Built an electric hots, goldberg Mirage, hobby shack electric stick, then switched over to fuel motors for about 10 years, took a 3 year break and the brushless/lipo's had taken over and prices had dropped effectively in half or better with double the run time and twice the power. Flew an Astro-blaster back in the day but it gave only about a 20 second glide time. Started building my own rc rocket gliders about 10 years ago and haven't stopped.

Frank

Frank - Those rocket gliders you make are really cool....very detailed and well crafted! Excellent work!!!
 
I have a couple of quadcopters, but I think of them more as supporting my photography hobby. They don't require much skill to fly (you basically just tell them where to go). Sometimes, I fly one just for fun, but not often. If I had the time, I think I'd enjoy building a larger one from the large selection of parts available and tinkering with it. Also, if I had the time, I'd love to build, and learn to fly, a traditional R/C helicopter. Since I don't have the time, I'll just read about the cool stuff George is doing! :)

Thanks. As a kid, I dreamed of building an R/C Lunar Module that could take off and fly for maybe 30-60 seconds on rocket power and land before running out of fuel. But that wasn't possible at the time, and the rocket engine portion is still way out there for a hobbyist project (maybe a micro throttleable hybrid. But I can fly this model nearly 10 minutes for maybe 20 cents, 19 cents being the eventual replacement cost of the battery pack).

I got the chance to try out a multicopter (Quad) 4 years ago, got into it 2 years ago when I built my own. I could never handle an R/C helicopter, never tried a "real" one, tried some on a RealFlight simulator and could fly it for awhile but eventually lost orientation. I don't ever try flying a multicopter in full manual or "Acro" mode. Always with self-stabilization on to keep it level. Not into the "Quad Racing" thing for myself, though I have watched some races on video. And the 250 Quad I made is a "racing quad frame", just I'm not using it that way.

I do like flying them for fun. Most ironically, when the wind is up and would be no fun at al ro fly a plane, I can take my 250 Quad out and fly it since it is not as affected by wind gusts as planes are. And if the GPS and compass are working fine, then it can stay in place (Loiter), not get blown downwind.

I do want to use onboard cameras to take good video/photos. A few months ago I got into FPV, which helps in being able ot see where the camera would be pointing. I have access to a Blade 350 QX and GoPro, and have done some testing with that. But the Blade 350 wobbles about a bit, particularly in wind, the video was shaky. I have a $70 Walkera G-2D gimbal I'll be adding to it to get better video. I can even use a 7th channel to tilt the gimbal up and down in pitch. However, the Blade 350 does not have a 7th channel. The only way I can do that without replacing the Blade 350's combined receiver/Flight Computer board is to carry a 2nd receiver and use a 2nd transmitter. Which I may do for awhile. But the Blade 350 is limited in its duration, about 5 minutes, and there's some other annoying issues, so not a good long-term solution (I'd also like to use it to try to find lost models, but that's not much flying time to search and come back to land).

So, what I hope to do this fall is to build my own Aerial Photography Quad. Mostly using the same power system (ESC's, motors/props) as the Lunar Module model. About the same motor span (about 600 mm, or 24") and probably same square graphite tubing for the arms. But way lighter since it won't have the Lunar Module parts, just whatever is needed to have a reasonably strong structure and tall-enough sturdy landing gear to protect the camera and gimbal. I know it won't be as good for automated video as a Phantom-3 pro (or 4) with Lightbridge, but far less expensive and more modifiable. I really like the Arducopter / Mission Planner software for programming the Flight Controller for various features and settings. It also does pre-programmed flight patterns and maneuvers, but that's not as easy to do live out at the field as it is to do at home, so some of the commercial multicopters are more practical to do some things

FWIW - I took this photo to give an idea of size. A borrowed Phantom-1, Lunar Module, and my 250 Quad (which has GPS and a tiny FPV camera on it, among other things).

HRWfpeh.jpg
 
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Got a few RC airplanes. This is an 80's vintage Craftair Mystique that I finished a couple of years ago- my first balsa build in 25+ years... Need to get it in the air sometime...

Chris

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