December 21, 2001

8:25 AM

New type of RC plane going for around $100They're electric as opposed to gas powered, lighter than their gas powered cousins, and a fraction of the cost. I've always wanted to get into RC planes, but the cost was prohibitive until now.
posted by skallas (11 comments total)

a styrofoam wing, a corragated cardboard body, a engine and a receiver, makes a cool combat plane, and costs about $20 to repair when you have a mid-air collision.

Also, check out Greater Cincinnati RC Club for some cool videos.
posted by Mick at 8:32 AM on December 21, 2001

does anyone have any links to places one can purchase one of these planes for around $100?



The link provided in the wired article doesn't have any online shopping..I'd considered getting into flying RC planes with a friend, splitting the cost of a plane/radio/etc, but even then it's expensive, and months worth of work would probably go down the drain the first time one of us tried to fly it.
posted by chacal at 8:48 AM on December 21, 2001

Google turned up this plane for sale for $129 USD.
posted by tippiedog at 9:10 AM on December 21, 2001

This'n's $90 (plus shipping), but I can't tell if it comes with the remote-control unit or not. This'n's $120, controller included. Looks like fun, but I wonder if I could get away with flying one in the park across the street from my house?
posted by MrMoonPie at 9:11 AM on December 21, 2001

Tower Hobbies these guys have everything
posted by zeoslap at 9:22 AM on December 21, 2001

Doh, just try plain old Tower Hobbies and search for Park Flyer.
posted by zeoslap at 9:23 AM on December 21, 2001

Oh and check out RCMicroFlight this month they even have plans to build a flying Starship Enterprise! My fervored posting shall now cease.
posted by zeoslap at 9:25 AM on December 21, 2001

Am I the only one thinking how cool it would be to fix a little camera onto one of these. That would be perfect for snowball warfare recon.
posted by geoff. at 10:08 AM on December 21, 2001

I took a course in aero-modelling when I was 12, and I am pretty sure that you can build your own gas powered plane for less than $100. The problem with electric motors is that you need to have tons of spare batteries, with the gas powered ones, you can just fill the tank and fly. What I mean is that once you drain out your first set you need spares to go back up, and that can be a pain. Also the gas powered babies make a much cooler noise and are faster.

I didn't know you need liability insurance to fly model airplanes, so that might be a good reason to buy a park flyer.
posted by riffola at 10:19 AM on December 21, 2001

The problem with gas planes though is where to fly em, living in San Francisco the closest spot is a good forty five minute drive away, so being able to nip to Golden Gate Park instead of Fremont makes it that much more accessable.
posted by zeoslap at 11:46 AM on December 21, 2001

Years and years ago, I was working on a brine shrimp egg harvesting crew on the Great Salt Lake, and heard this (possibly apocryphal) tale.

Brine shrimp eggs float in great streaks on the surface of the lake. In order to find a streak to harvest, a certain company would charter a small plane out of Salt Lake City or Wendover, Nevada, and fly over the lake to pinpoint the streak for the harvesting boats.

Charter flights were getting expensive, so one of the companies' bigwigs got the great idea to attach a small video camera to an RC plane, fly it out over the lake, and bring it back to see what the videotape revealed.

As you might have guessed by now, the quite expensive plane went out-out-out over the lake, and disappeared out of radio range, never to be seen again, taking a thousand-dollar video camera with it.

This story never fails to give me the giggling fits, true or not.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:44 PM on December 21, 2001