Having a little time on my hands after surgery I built an guillows cessna 170. It has a 2 ft wingspan. I put an electric motor and servos for elevator and rudder. (they were off a parkzone ultra micro airplane) The maiden flight was today. It didn't crash. It was a bit underpowered with the 1 cell motor setup and it wanted to do a level skid to the right. I think I'm going to hang it in the kids room and stick to the pre made airplanes. I know I could probably mess with it and get it flying well but i'd probably run the risk of smashing it into pieces.
Sorry to hear about your surgery, I hope you recover quickly! The Guillow's airplanes are a bit too heavy for R/C conversion. There is a nice kit from Manzano Laser works that is a 44" span that would run 2S quite nicely. I have the kit, but I have had very little motivation to get it finished.
95% (+) of airplanes on the market today are almost ready to fly, or ready to fly. No more building/finishing; for ARFs, all of the major subcomponents are built and finished and only require final assembly and electronics/motor installation. The company I work for (Horizon Hobby) offers a lot of airplanes (and helicopters, and boats, and cars) that are ready to fly. Pull it out of the box and bind it to your radio and go.
While I have dabbled in sailplanes some, I fly mostly competition precision aerobatics. I've got a Blaster 3 discus launch glider and a few Radians (ready to fly, two-meter foam sailplanes) that we sell. Quite a few of our developers/directors are avid sailplane pilots and have several high-end 5+ meter scale glass ships that are between $7,000.00 and $20,000.00 a piece and everything in between. I would love to have a large sailplane, but there are quite a few things that I would rather put $20k towards before a big R/C saiplane (like a 170).
In the 50's, we not only built the airplane, but built our own radios. There were a couple of radios on the market, but they weren't very good. I used to build and sell a two-tube receiver that worked well.
To me, I want to build my models - that's as much fun as flying, and the satisfaction is greater. Just IMHO.
I used to love building airplanes all winter long and flying them in the summer.
Specially in gliders like the Gentle Lady where construction techniques mean the difference between a floater and a tank.
The ARF buy and fly planes are nice for what they are and construction is very good these days. Much less emotion when you ball one up too.
An ARF Cessna 170 would be a nice treat.
If I ever got back in to it, I'd get a decent hotliner (powered Fast aerobatic sailplane) and make two wings so I could still ride thermals on lazy afternoons.
My 3.4 meter ship was too much work to set up and winch launch and I was always worried about cracking it up.
The discus launch gliders were the most fun but on a flat evening, the flights are way too short.
I still have all my stuff. Maybe I'll buy new ni-cads some day.
you gotta be kidding.... A rag wing Cessna 170.... with dihedral.... no struts.... and a ppunk gear???
I don't think so! LOL
'53 B-model N146YS SN:25713
50th Anniversary of Flight Model. Winner-Best Original 170B, 100th Anniversary of Flight Convention. An originality nut (mostly) for the right reasons.
gahorn wrote:you gotta be kidding.... A rag wing Cessna 170.... with dihedral.... no struts.... and a ppunk gear???
I don't think so! LOL
So that is what the ppong gear mod looks like.
Not "Ppong"....it's Ppunk!
'53 B-model N146YS SN:25713
50th Anniversary of Flight Model. Winner-Best Original 170B, 100th Anniversary of Flight Convention. An originality nut (mostly) for the right reasons.
Great! A few years ago a friend gave me a Guillow's 170 model. I'm slowly finishing it with two-axis control and a single cell, just like yours. How did you mount the battery? Do you have an access panel on top?
I had a warp in the wing. Now it does pretty good. Keep it as light as possible and avoid anything that adds weight to the tail. I made a one piece removable wing to give me access to the receiver and easy transport.
Here I thought I was the only 170 nut powering up a guillows kit. I'm going 2s on mine with 5g servos and 6amp esc. Battery will go on the floor behind the landing gear. Not covered yet but should look just like its much bigger brother when done. Will it fly? Have to wait til the maiden. Maybe I'll come back and post the video.
Lopez....it was a joke.... about a model-aircraft.... with no struts and wire-gear-legs.
'53 B-model N146YS SN:25713
50th Anniversary of Flight Model. Winner-Best Original 170B, 100th Anniversary of Flight Convention. An originality nut (mostly) for the right reasons.
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