Click on image to go to YouTube video

So last year around October I started to get into the RC airplane hobby, buying a simple 2 channel Firebird Commander 2. That plane was literally “gone with the wind” and I replaced it with a nice 3 channel Super Cub. The Super Cub is currently grounded because I have to glue the tail together. I’m hoping to fix that soon.

The latest plane I bought is a T-28 Trojan from Parkzone. It’s an RTF (Ready to Fly) model which means it comes with everything. The radio, Li-Po batteries, servos, ESC, even the AA batteries for the remote! You can get one of these for around $219.99, but if you have the rest of the parts already you can get the PNP (Plug and Play) model that comes without the the Li-Po battery and radio which goes around $159.99.

T-28 Trojan (you can see an animated version of this image in the video)

One of the main differences between this model and my Super Cub is that this plane has ailerons. Before I had to steer the plane with the rudder, but now that I have ailerons available, you can do a lot of more maneuvers and the plane becomes much more responsive. It also makes flying a bit more difficult, however the T-28 is nice starter plane for people moving to 4 channels and the radio has a setting that prevents you from over steering the ailerons too much (you can turn off this setting of course).

The plane comes in a nice big box, with everything that you need except the screwdriver. I say that because for some reason the Super Cub came with that too, which I thought was overkill but greatly appreciated. Putting the plane together was not too complicated, however the front landing gear was a pain and I couldn’t install it. There’s a very small screw that clamps on the landing wheel, and the screw would not move at all, to the point were I forced it and ended up with a stripped screw. Luckly, the folks at HobbyTown in Melbourne, FL removed and replaced it. Thanks!

This past Sunday, I made a short (2:30) video of my maiden flight with this plane and it was a lot of fun. My wife was operating the camera and our baby was there with us supervising the event. Everything went fine, until the landing, when I got some cross wind and unfortunately hit the curb. The right landing gear fell off, but it should be easy to glue back to the wing. Also the front wheel fell off, but that was just a matter of screwing it back in.

Right click and chose “Save As …” on this video link to download higher quality version.

I may get one of those FlyCamOne2 cameras, and get some more exciting onboard video. They seem to be around $100, I’m only worried about the image quality. It’s hard to evaluate as a lot of sample videos are in YouTube and that site really screws up with the original video quality.

I plan on flying this bird again this weekend, hopefully I’ll be able to make more maneuvers. One thing is, this plane is much faster than my Super Cub so I have to get used to that. For most of the time I was flying 1/4-1/3 throttle and it seemed pretty fast for me. It should be fun pushing this model to its limits to see how fast it can go. I’ll probably try a loop or two, but what I’m looking forward to is a bit of inverted flight. Not sure if I will be able to achieve that soon, but we’ll see.

A couple of weeks ago, I finally bought my first RC airplane. I always wanted to fly one of these things when I was a kid, but never got to it. When a new hobby shop opened near work, I decided to take a peek to see if I should get an RC boat. I went with a friend from work who convinced me to get an airplane instead, so I got the HobbyZone Firebird Commander 2 model. This is a starter 2 channel plane, with this thing called “ACT” (Anti-Crash Technology) that makes it easier for you to fly.

Well, the ACT is not magical as you can see from the picture above. On my first day, I couldn’t find any good size fields to fly the thing in the first place. So I ended up messing up the wing on the first 2 tries, only flying the plane for a few seconds. Finally I ended up at a bigger location, and was successful flying the plane for a lot longer. Unfortunately I couldn’t land it, I didn’t really have enough space for a proper landing, and in one of the landing attempts the plane just nose dived and crashed. The wind didn’t help either, I should have followed the instructions and flown it with no wing.

The damages from this first day included:

• Dings and small damage (well in some cases small pieces missing) to the wing
• Broken tail wing
• Lost propeller
• Motor became detached from its casing in the fuselage.

The wing I fixed with packing tape, the propeller I couldn’t find and the tail wing wasn’t really fixable so I ordered those parts (total $20 with shipping and handling, less if I had bought them at the local store). The real problem was the motor. After tweaking it a bit, I was able to pop it in place and had to use some metal parts that were holding it inside the fuselage outside to it would hold with 2 screws. I almost glued it, but I’m glad I didn’t. The current setup it has seems pretty stable.

This past weekend I was able to do 3 successful flights with good landings, so it seems I’m finally getting the hang of it. This past Tuesday on the way to work, I flew it by 192 in Florida, and while flying it noticed the shuttle launch smoke trail on the background. That was very cool, too bad I didn’t have my camera with me.

I’m having lots of fun with this plane, and I’m already planning on the next steps. So many choices, there’s a “night flight” module that sounds interesting, and I’m looking at 3-channel RC planes that might be good after I want something more challenging. What really has my attention though are these aerial photography setups, either video or still pics or both, I might experiment with that soon.

I’m also looking at things like Sun SPOT technology, to start with simple things like recording the airspeed for the plane, and maybe even having programmatic control of it. The problem with that is that SunSPOTs costs over $500!!! Cool technology, but not affordable at all! Still, the idea of taking Java programming to the skies like this is very tempting, I’m hoping an affordable solution becomes available soon

For now, priority #1 is make sure we keep avoiding those crashes, specially when landing