With today’s amazing supply of top quality and reasonably priced radio equipment, equipping your airplane can be a relatively easy assignment. But you do need to know a few basics rules of the road. Here are some tips to get you off to a good start. Initial setup Before setting up your radio’s control functions, [...]

Development in brushless motor design and LiPo battery technology have benefited the RC hobby especially for seasoned and wannabe jet jocks. Electric ducted fan (EDF) jets are quickly becoming one of the most popular branches of the modeling tree and the development of these e-powered speed demons is nothing short of amazing. When most people [...]

In today’s fast-paced world we are surround by many things that give you instant satisfaction, and the RC community is not immune to this reality. At any given flying field on any given day, you will find a majority of aircraft are assembled from an ARF (Almost ready to Fly) kit.  Occasionally you will find [...]

Converting a 1/3-scale aerobat from glow to electric comes with a host of considerations: which motor and mount to use? What voltage and amperage battery packs? What size prop works best? And last but not least, does it need a safety arming switch? In this article, Joe Ziomek of Islamorada, Florida shares how he converted [...]

In my opinion, the knife-edge spin is one of the most impressive extreme aerobatic maneuvers. It’s very demanding for the pilot and the airframe. First, I’ll describe the maneuver. In traditional knife-edge, the aircraft is rolled approximately 90 degrees from upright level flight. Then altitude is sustained by using top rudder. When the maneuver is [...]

By Lyle Vasser   This is our Ziroli B-25 with 101″ wingspan. My father, Robert Vasser, built the model, and I painted and added the detail work. I also fly the plane. (He likes to say he is the “builder” and I”m the “crasher”). My dad declared that if we build this plane it had [...]

TIE UP THOSE LOOSE ENDS If one of your model’s control servo connectors become unplugged during flight, at best, you’re going to have a real tough time getting it back on the ground in one piece. At worst, you could lose the model completely due to a serious crash. By simply crossing your servo lead [...]

Dave Garwood Slope flying for electric pilots Have you ever tried flying an electric-powered model in slope lift? Slope flying has been compared to motorcycle riding, with the wind blowing your hair back, big easy view of the open sky, and bugs on your teeth from the huge grin on your face. You are already [...]

An inside look at this local hub serving all of the U.S. Recently, I traveled to the Hitec warehouse located in Poway, CA, to visit our good friends Mike Mayberry and Shawn Spiker. These two guys are very well known in the RC community because they attend many events throughout the country during the year. [...]

The BP Hobbies Me 163B-1a Komet, reviewed in the October issue of Model Airplane News, is a unique aircraft with many interesting features. Here, reviewer Klaus Ronge explains some additional features of the aircraft and some of his modifications. There is a removable hatch to access the stock tailwheel assembly which I did not use [...]

  With a span of 68 inches, the Super Cub comes in just slightly larger than 1/6-scale and it is ideally suited for someone’s first “fun scale” competition flyer. It has all sorts of top-shelf features including a functional, shock-absorbing landing gear and leaf-spring tailwheel assembly, aluminum wing and jury struts, and two wing panels [...]

Batteries are an ever-changing technology that we use every time we fly our model planes. Whether it is to simply power our flight gear or to run our motor and flight gear, batteries are always a factor to be considered when building our planes. Ten years ago, not many people were paying much attention to [...]

The first thing you’ll notice when flying an EDF jet is the lack of propwash over the flying surfaces. Jets rely entirely on airspeed and smooth airflow over the wing and tail surfaces to generate the aerodynamic control forces for aileron, elevator and, if used, rudder control. While flying a jet more slowly, it will [...]

This great review will be in our November issue of Electric Flight, but you get the first look at this nice aircraft! Those who know me at the flying field understand that I have a “thing” for Piper aircraft—Cubs in particular! Piper’s Super Cub has been a favorite of mine for a long time and [...]