Classic British Flight Sim

Hi chaps,

I've recently started flying for real. With no hint of a mouse or a joystick..!

Radio Controlled Model Aircraft.

I started the hobby last year with a very basic 'Cub' style aircraft and recently progressed onto a bigger and more powerful model.

Its certainly not as expensive as it used to be. Especially in the days of the old balsa wood models. These days its cheaper than ever.
A basic ready to fly model aircraft and radio transmitter would set you back around £70.

As I've got more confident and competant with the hobby, I invested in a little micro camera that attaches to the nose/wing of the aircraft via a velcro strip.

Doing this enabled me to have an onboard view of the flight and also see how the aircraft behaves in flight.
This footage was recorded recently, around the hills and fields of my local country park.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSkgEGWOVsA

I apologise for the buffeting and wobbly recording but I'm still learning to 'fly' and the wind wasn't best ever for flying.

The biggest hurdle when flying these things is the weather. You require a nice, still, calm and uneventful day. This day was'nt. It was a mild to fresh wind causing the wings to rock and also raising and lowering the nose constantly.

However it still recorded a good bit of footage and its very interesting seeing your dog walking area from 500ft up.

The aircraft I flew was an EZ Hawk. Cheap and basic but very good for newbies. Costs about £100. Heres a snap of the plane. Large wingspan and can sloap soar with ease! It can potentially stay up for over an hour with good weather and thermals.



Oh and you can see the Pilot in Command a few times if you watch closely towards the end of the video. There are a few snippets around 08:12.

Welcome to the world of expense...... Not a very good picture but heres one i built from scratch , its off my Iphone Eddie....shame you don't live near Heathrow....we could have fun....



And heres one i'm working on now.....bad quality again i'm afraid....



No prizes for guessing this one....

All the best

Tony

Brillant !
I saw a snippit of a post you made awile ago Eddie. glad you're having a good time with it.


I have the Dragon Fly Helo. which is a shite toy in comparision.

but then again it's kinda like a real helicopter maintainance wise..


Tony, you are a fine model builder.

That's c o o l Eddie

It was difficult to tell if you had the camera fitted pointing fwd or to the right but as you said, the wind was doing it's 'thing'. I was speaking to a chap a while back on the top of Lardon Chase.. a rather steep hill opposite the pub and he had this delightful RC glider with a camera fitted. He did tell me how much it was worth but I've forgotten. Needless to say, it was WELL out of my price bracket Apparently, they use the onboard cameras when doing cross country racing. They set the glider off then follow it by car

Tony.. I'd be scared to get that Spit in the air mate. Well.. not so much in the air, the thought of landing it would be enough to put me off.. uncless of course someone else had bought it and didn't mind if it pranged Obviously, you don't start on something that size so one would like to think you'd be proficient enough having spent years moving up the scale

ATB
DaveB

Wow...I bet that generates a great feeling of achievement, getting that "eye in the sky"...I enjoyed watching and I did spot the PIC a couple of times

Techy111 wrote: And heres one i'm working on now.....bad quality again i'm afraid....

An electric convert?

Just started flying again. The temptation never to go back to glow engines is great, particularly with the sensible prices of motors from overseas.

Tony,

Those models looks very impressive. Sheer items of beauty and the result of many hours of hard work and dedication.

What scale are those? They look very big.

I must admit I cheat and do it the easy way and fly the models pretty much straight from the box. As Dave said, I'd be frightened to death of flying those wooden ones. I'd almost certainly crash and burn. Then I'd probably cry at all the damage.

With my skills still very much on a steep learning curve, I think foam is the safest for me. Although I'd love see your models flying.

I just bought a secondhand Wildcat the other day. This baby is the next rung on the ladder for me.

Its very fast and performs aerobatics with ease. Its tricky to land though. Another belly lander. It requires a good build up of speed and isn't as forgiving as the Hawk due to its stubbly size and short wingspan. Its very impressive in flight though.



In fact I'm off today. I'll pop over to my flying spot later with the dog. She goes off sniffing whilst I scare myself witless.

Heres the Wildcat in action this morning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUq7znXEjtE

WOW... fast and furious or what! Very impressive performance. What was it like to fly?
ATB
DaveB

Its a real hoot dave.

Very fast, covers ground quickly and will barrel roll for fun.

A little too responsive perhaps. But I'm a firm believer in getting thrown in at the deep end.

Great fun to fly. Any of the aerobatics are done with plenty of height to recover. Especially with a learner like me.

Has all the control surfaces. Ailerons, Rudder and elevators. I don't touch or need the rudder really. Thats for the pro's!

I only flew it at approx 50-70% throttle. At this stage its far too scary to fly at 100%.