Fascinating thread. My experience with RC stuff is a few years ago the dearest bought me a 4 ch HoneyBee helicopter. Not ideal to start your RC heli experience with but hey stick on the training balls on and I was away, well skipping around the garden like a demented hovermower without the hover bit... We went on holiday took the dogs and the helicopter, I spent two days mastering the bugger and finally got it to hover and move around a bit, mainly under some sort of control.
I was so impressed I called the dearest to come and look, she did, I crashed it she said "you got that sorted then" and went back to her book. I looked at the wreckage and ended up spending £25 on new bits.
New bits fitted helicopter returned to box and sat there for 12 months. Then I saw this on eBay (this isnt the actual one I purchased)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FMS-Cessna-18 ... 5223wt_954
I was smitten, I spoke to the owner who had never flown it because he was scared to, we did a deal my helicopter and £50 notes. A week later I was in Wales on holiday (someone has to) so popped round to his house to collect it, Dearest most impressed as the journey home meant this monster sitting on her lap!!
I got the bugger running set the flaps and away she rolled on the field at the back of the place we were staying in. I realised that this thing needed a bit of a runway and not the little bit I had started her off on. It got airborne and I got scared, almost as much as the old farmers dog who was in the bushes doing some nature stuff. I realised I was going to hit the tree that was in its line of sight so I did a sweeping right hander and dumped into the bushes just as the dog was dumping something else into the bushes. Dog bit plane I cried, plane now repaired and in box......
Maybe I will have the courage to try again... maybe I will trade it in for a scalectric ?