The past month I have been building an R/C Electric balsa wood airplane from scratch.

The design is a slightly altered Bell P-39 Airacobra which was used mostly by the USAF, RAF, and SAF during WWII

The instructions for building the model are two 32" blueprints along with 5 pages of written directions.



I will be using 4x parkzone servos from on older model of mine.
eflight power 10 brushless outrunner motor @ 1100Kv
eflight 40-amp sensorless brushless electronic speed control
Spektrum AR610 6-channel receiver dsmX

Progress pics





This post was edited by Mtgtopdeck on Apr 29 2014 07:19pm

Haven't flown R/C in forever but....I'll stick with ARFs, not spending months scratch-building something only to be pissed when I crash the fucking thing. Electric has come a long way since when I used to fly....all of my planes were 4 cycle glow, and much larger, probably .60-.120 size, few warbirds, mainly Extras. Was getting into helis with a .50 Raptor, never really got past the hovering stage with the wiffle balls before I got too into playing video games and shit and then I ended up forgetting about the whole thing...plus on top of that there's literally nowhere to fly in CT. If I were to get back into it I'd definitely get an electric heli though....nothing to really transport + electrics have insane power and battery life nowadays, 10 years ago gas (well, glow) was still the thing.

Nice job btw. I'm actually looking at prices for radios now and I'm astonished how damn cheap they are, especially these Spektrums....6 channel radios were like $500+ for a JR for Futaba back in the day, and those were the only really reputable brands for radios back then...unless you wanted to use a HiTek or some shit....6CH for $140? Shit...might consider getting myself a heli if everything is this cheap.

This post was edited by Vengeance_IV pwns j00 on Apr 29 2014 07:53pm

I'm super worried about crashing this thing. I might have to build a mini wind tunnel in my backyard to test its stability and trim it all out. Since it is a hand launcher I don't think I will have the guts to just throw it for the first time. I will have to find a field with VERY TALL grass to do a few test throws.

I have been doing rc for 12 years now. I started with a .4 glow trainer with zero dihedral. so much fun
Now I have 3 retired .4 (2 trainers and a p51), an electric zagi combat wing, and two RTF parkzone planes.
This will be my first complete scratch build.

Prices have dropped so much you are right. I have a spektrum dx6 controller and it is so amazing. you have 10 different saved model settings. fully customized channel mixing. even fully customizable exponential controls. Servos are like 20 bucks and receivers are only 80. and omfg batteries are so cheap, only like 40 each

Yeah...I only built ARFs or bought stuff already built at swap meets. Lol....I remember my dad buying me a YS .91 4 cycle engine back in the day, the things even had a little supercharger on them....that little engine was 350 bucks...crazy money....I still think a halfway decent heli is up there in cost....servos, receiver, gyro, battery, esc, motor....prolly $500 right there.

The best was this little pylon racer this guy brought around every now and then....entire thing was made out of fiberglass and it had a Nelson engine on it with a tuned muffler that essentially ran the length of the fuselage....that little fucker easily went 200+ mph, guy whipped it around the field hard, it was nuts to watch.

This post was edited by Vengeance_IV pwns j00 on Apr 29 2014 08:10pm

I have to say this. fuck helis
I don't know why they are so hard to fly. But I just can't.
I have like 60 hours of practice on an rc flight sim. nope doesnt help.

This guy must have some kind of super power because what the fuck.


This post was edited by Mtgtopdeck on Apr 29 2014 08:11pm

Helis are really difficult to master....Back when I flew a majority of them were 5 channel fixed pitch...nowadays most of them are 6 channel collective pitch helis which go fucking nuts, the ability to reverse pitch on your blades just adds an entire extra avenue for fuckups....Best thing I can say to do is start on a goofy little 3 channel co-ax, then a 4 channel with that extra axis of banking movement, and then a fixed pitch heli, and then finally a collective pitch heli.....helis are nuts though, they can get away from you almost instantly, and every crash is guaranteed to cost you a couple hundred bucks if you have a decently sized one....new blades, tail boom, skids etc + whatever head components you manage to fuck up and a main shaft....total bitch to rework all of that...especially the head which is insanely intricate and expensive.

Lol, Bert Kammerer is one of the best heli pilots in the world...no idea how the dude keeps orientation...he must have his share of crashes though.

This post was edited by Vengeance_IV pwns j00 on Apr 29 2014 08:19pm

As a rc guy I never could get into planes or helicopters, something about making a mistake and everything going in the trash was something I couldn't deal with


They are cool tho

I too did the R/C plane thing 5-6 years ago. It was just before LiPo electrics started taking over. I had an alpha 40 trainer as my first plane and an ultra stick 40 after that. I lost interest as my budget didn't allow for much crashing back then. There is a private r/c runway about 4 miles from my house in the middle of a cornfield. It was $30/mo per person. The farmer kept it well groomed for us and there was a nice covered area.


I'd love to try an electric like yours out one day. Its crazy how far they have come.

Never could get planes down. I did try a buddies heli a few times and had decent luck at simple flight but planes just wanted to crash on me. I had better luck flying the cars/trucks than planes lol