Once upon a time, RC planes were expensive models that took months to build and big money to equip with electronics. Since the 20th century though, powerful batteries have become cheap, as have servos and radio controllers. Combine them with a bit of old packing material and you can get a little RC trainer up and running for peanuts, as [Samm Sheperd] demonstrates.
[Samm] started referring to this as the “$5 trainer,” though he admits that it will cost more than that if you don’t have some bits and pieces laying around. He demonstrates how to cut cheap foamboard with a hot guitar string, and how to form it into a viable wing. That’s the most crucial part, with the fuselage and tail surfaces relatively simple by comparison. With that complete, it’s as simple as bolting on a motor, some servos, and control horns, and you’re up and running. You can even whip up a landing gear if you’re so inclined! Then, figure out your center of gravity, get it right, and then you’re pretty much ready to fly.
It’s a great primer on how to build a basic RC model, and if you do it right, it should have pretty forgiving handling, too. Plus, it’s so cheap that it should be easy to repair if you crash. Happy modelling! Video after the break.
My basic trainer setup (all included) in the mid 90s was about $500, back then.
Easily one of the the most fun per dollar spent though.
This video predates the now federally mandated Internet-linked GPS tracker and bluetooth ID broadcast hardware, and the FAA pilot testing and nominal registration fee which add a bit to the cost now as well (or the size of the fines risked if opting to avoid those costs).
Thankfully the tracking hardware has come down to $30 from $150+ just a few months ago as the market becomes more competitive.
Flite Test also has numerous free plans on their website for foam-core board and hot glue RC planes that are even easier to assemble as the cutting is less complex. Airfoils are formed by scoring and gluing the sheets to formers, rather than cutting a wing shape with wire.
There is an exception cut out in the reg’s that specifically excluded foam board RC aircraft from just about every requirement except remaining in line of site.
You can build this or any other foam model and fly it anywhere that isn’t controlled airspace as much as you like.
Citation please? I’ve not seen any exceptions for foam RC aircraft, board or molded, other than the 250g/8.5oz weight threshold that applies regardless of building material. The only other exception I’m aware of is if you fly at a FRIA site, which some RC clubs now are.
R.I.P. Samm Sephard
Yeah. Six years to the day. Lewin, did you plan this?
Roundabouts are generally a good idea, except this time they took out a good ‘un.
Duckduckgo.com did not find “Samm Sephard”
Who was he?
Typo. Lewin got it right.
https://www.youtube.com/@SammSheperd
Thanks!
I can’t post a slowpoke image here sadly.
Why would you even want to post a picture of me here?
B^)
I want to see someone ditch the conventional airfoil which requires a hot wire cutter and use Kline-Fogleman airfoils using paper backed foam board which is actually a composite material. MUCH simpler to make, but would it perform adequately? The rest of the plane would also be made of paper backed foam board.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kline%E2%80%93Fogleman_airfoil
There is no need for an airfoil at all. Sure it helps a little but the power to weight ratio of an RC plane is so crazy high that any vaguely flat shaped thing can be made to fly. As I’ve said here before I’ve seen a pizza box with a motor and control surfaces “fly” just fine.
I’ve also seen someone put a motor in a dollar store foam glider that worked kinda ok.
i used to use paper-backed foam board (quarter inch) because a friend of mine pulled a dozen biggish sheets of it out of the dumpster behind kinkos one day. my general feeling is that it tended to be heavy compared to everything else i tried. the paper on the outside is heavier than strategically-placed stiffeners, but still not that stiff. but there’s a bunch of lighter foams that come in sheets that people use for every kind of airfoil, including flat ones, all the time.
of course with the state of the art of tiny batteries driving tiny brushless motors driving huge props, ‘heavy’ doesn’t even need to be a deal breaker!
Search for free plans at the Flite Test website. They have a load of foamcore board RC plane designs available, often with step by step construction videos. I don’t recal any that are properly Kline-Fogleman. Most warp the foamcore board to an airfoil shape over formers, for a low mass hollow wing, or forego the airfoil shape altogether and use a flat wing.
Pair this with a $5 Pi Zero and you’re off and running!
There’s a whole world out there known as SPAD (Simple Plastic Airplane Design). My goto is an aerobatic plane made from 1/4″ folding foam building insulation. Electronics aside, each cost about $3. I flew one into a phone line once and had it patched together and flying that afternoon.
So, have they built a SPAD S.P.A.D.?
B^)
can confirm there are relatively cheap ways to go about it. when i got into it 20 years ago, i still thought of the components as expensive…but once you have a pile of servos and rx/tx and motor and so on, you can build airplanes for cheap until the cows come home, using foam or covered sticks or whatever. i lost a few things to wrecks but usually the bulk of the electronics package would survive for the next prototype.
the downside to that is you are learning to fly on prototypes…depending on your approach to building and designing, that can be pretty discouraging. i think there is some advantage to getting a kit that will produce a relatively known product.
but the thing that made the most difference to me is a program called ‘slope soaring sim’ or now available as an android app called ‘picasim’. though the google play store has declared war on developers so you have to get it directly if you want it. it was so essential to get some thumb time under my belt, learning “i want to turn left but the airplane is facing towards me” reflexes. really immediately made flying the real thing a bunch more rewarding.
Stupid question; how difficult of a project would it be to make a very simple artificial horizon for a RC controller? I’ve seen all kinds of HUD for FPV drones, commercial UAS applications, etc, but not much for the “old school” RC plane world.
The controllers have gotten rather advanced with multichannel rigs, color LCD displays, and all sorts of bells and whistles. If there’s already telemetry data coming back from the aircraft is pitch/yaw/roll too much of a lift?
I ask these questions as a very amateur pilot who’s only played with the ready to fly kits you can get in hobby stores. Maybe its already been done and just wasn’t that helpful.