Videos: Sweet 'Wheel Landings' With The Under-6-Pound RC C-47!

 I expect that you need to have some taildragger experience in your logbook (or loads of RC taildragger time) to really appreciate how cool it is to see this 10 foot wingspan C-47 making such wonderful 'wheel landings'. If you aren't fluent in 'taildragger', 'wheel landings' are the ones where the tail stays nice and high as the airplane approaches the runway well above stall speed, then the main wheels are (preferably) gently planted on the runway as some forward pressure on the stick is applied to hold the airplane on the ground... hopefully without some sort of bounce, bounce, bounce thing happening. Wheel landings are a real challenge in many aircraft but they are sooo much fun when you know what you're doing. Add a nice grass runway to the mix and you have the stuff avgeek dreams are made of!

Video screenshot of the 10 foot span C-47 and shadow... pure awesome fun!

 
 Given the often twitchy nature of small RC aircraft, wheel landings are usually extremely difficult to master. However, my friend Gary in New Mexico with his awesome 10 foot wingspan C-47, that weighs less than 6 pounds, has it mastered! The very light wing loading and extra large size allow for incredibly realistic looking wheel landings. Lots of practice and some bona fide skill bring it all together beautifully.

 The video above is just one nice trip around the pattern for you to enjoy, shown twice tho, once from the 'hatcam' and once from the onboard cam. (check out that middle-of-nowhere flying field!) The video below is several touch-and-goes giving you several more great wheel landings to appreciate.  #LoveToFly

Video: RC Floppy Wing Flyer Loves To Fly Slow!

 
 My friend Gary (youtuber sr71afan) makes some of the coolest simplified RC foam flyers and fun little videos to go with them. By going with hyperlightweight foam and flying either indoors or in still outside air, he experiences a purified beauty of flight that really clicks with me... I hope it clicks with you too.

 This one is a very conventional looking taildragger with such a lightweight wing structure that the wings sag on the ground and have loads of dihedral in the air. The takeoff roll from a standing start looks to be under two feet and the overall slow flying is very relaxing to watch. And don't be impatient and give up after 30 seconds... if you do you'll miss the flight thru the lean-to porch at :50 (after the spectators clear a path), and even more important, you'll miss his sweet formation flight with a full scale aircraft passing overhead at 2:45. It's more of the creative RC flying that makes Gary's videos so much fun to watch. His hat-mounted video cam is also a big part of what makes his videos different. As long as he's watching the airplane, we are too. Plus, that's why we get some passes that go by so close to the camera.

 I've just created a new AirPigz category labeled sr71afan so you can easily check out the other videos from Gary, some of which are him flying and some are other cool flyers. Enjoy!

Video: Scratch Built Electric RC Autogyro = Fun, Fun, Fun!

Super simple electric RC autogyro - screenshot from the video below

 I admit that I've never been the biggest fan of gyrocopters, but old-time autogyros (or autogiro's) like the 1930's Pitcairn make me tingle as much as any flying machine I've ever seen... so it's no surprise that I really enjoyed seeing this scratch built autogyro from Gary Jones, the man behind ultra cool RC aircraft like the 5.4 pound, 10 foot wingspan C-47and the VTOL Dark Deltoid.

 Not only does this simple little rotary wing flyer with the tractor mounted electric motor fly great, but as usual, Gary's video is very well done too. His secret on the video is a camera mounted on a baseball cap. That way, all he has to do is keep his head pointed at the aircraft to give us a smooth track thru the air. This works much better than trying to have someone who doesn't know where the airplane is headed running the cam. And, these very light weight models also make it safe to fly them very close by so that they fill the frame. It's these great views of slow flying machines that really capture the magic of flight. And listen closely when the autogyro gets really close the the camera... you can hear that awesome 'whirlybirds' rotor sound! I love this stuff!

 If you watch the way Gary flies, you'll also see a pure love for the simple art of steering a flying machine thru an ocean of air. So, if flying is just a job to you, or a means to move you or some stuff from point A to point B, I encourage you to watch a video like this closely and see what it really means to Love To Fly : )

 Here's the simple HatCam that makes these sweet videos possible

Video: Indoor Electric RC Hammerhead Loop - Advanced Akro!

 Here's another groovy indoor electric RC video from the crazy guys in Texas! Who knew an overhead door rail could be such a useful tool for advanced akro? Maybe you're not as kooky as I am, but I literally laughed out loud (three times!) on this one. Pure. Fun.

more: youtube.com/user/sr71afan

Video: Wow - An XB-70 Valkyrie Flying - In April 2011!

 Ok fine, it's not a real XB-70, but man this 1/62 scale, electric powered, and very lightweight Valkyrie is an awesome sight in the air.  There's a bunch of cool people in Texas flying all kinds of really lightweight RC models indoors. It's some of the neatest RC flying I've ever seen. This video is from the 2011 SPEF indoor RC event.

 There's such a grace and beauty to these very low-wing-loading airplanes being flown away from the typically turbulent outside air. I just love this stuff! If you like this video, be sure to check out some of the others I've posted recently:

Dark Deltoid

Dyke Delta

10' C-47 (5.4 pounds!)

OMGosh... Awesome Electric Indoor RC Dyke Delta! (Video)

 You had me at Dyke Delta... seriously, that's all it took to get my mouth watering. This recent video is from the Texas Indoor New Year (TINY) event that featured all kinds of cool and unusual indoor electric aircraft. The video is from youtuber sr71afan who might know is the guy with the too-cool-for-words 10 foot span (5.4 pound) C-47. And the Dark Delta VTOL video too! These guys do really cool stuff : )

 The awesome model flying in this video is patterned after John Dyke's very unusual delta shaped homebuilt aircraft from the mid 1960's. The real Dyke Delta could never dream of doing those wildly tight inside and outside loops like this model, but it still was a truly fantastic achievement from about every angle. Even tho only about 50 have been built over all those years, it's regarded as a great airplane with a realistic ability to carry 4 people and cruise at about 180 mph on 180 hp. Those numbers are great even by today's standards which tells you how far ahead of its time this little flying machine was. Plus, the pilot in front and three seats behind him cabin arrangement meant that most of the pax were very close to the CG. This also means that the two outside pax have amazing leg room! One other unique feature is that the wings were designed to easily fold flat over the fuselage allowing the airplane to be towed down the road.

 The forward-thinking and overall versatility of the Dyke delta is just awesome... I think this little gem of an airplane needs to gain some modern-day popularity. Maybe this little video can get a few more mouths watering!

Black Ops 'Dark Deltoid' VTOL Caught Flying In Texas Hangar

 It's hard to believe something so small, light, and inexpensive could look so stinkin' cool in the air, but this little Dark Deltoid RC model is all that and more. I've seen a lot of nifty RC ideas in the last couple years, but nothing makes me wanna get active again more than this little thing. And no, it's not really 'black ops' material, and technically the building isn't really a hangar, except for when a group of electric modelers take over and bring their airplanes inside.

 You might recognize the building from the amazing foamy C-47 video from last summer. I enjoyed communicating with Gary (youtube user sr71afan) last year about his stunning 10' span C-47 that only weighs 5.4 pounds, and I found this Dark Deltoid video today on his page. Gary and friends have been building a wide variety of hyper light foam RC aircraft and flying them inside this football field size building in Texas. The combination of unbelievably low wing loadings and the still air of the building create some of the most fascinating flying I've ever seen. Not only does this little Dark Deltoid fly slowly with tremendous maneuverability, but the vertical takeoffs and landings are spectacular. It's just pure avgeek fun!

 The video below is another similar VTOL worth checking out as well. It's the VFO from Great Planes and it also flies great. These guys definitely know how to have fun : )

Video: 10' RC C-47... Under 7 Pounds & Flies Like The Real Thing!

Screenshot pix from the video below

Don't let the boring thumbnail fool ya, this is a Must See video!

 Radio controlled models are awesome, but one thing they don't do very well is look like real airplanes in the way that they fly. They're usually very quick on the response and move thru the air too quickly for their size to really look like a full scale airplane. However, this ultralight C-47 made out of foam has a 10 foot wingspan but it weighs less than 7 pounds. That may not seem like a big deal, but just watch it fly in this video... this big size and really light weight make it one of the coolest flying machines I've ever seen! (UPDATE 8.16.10: I talked with the builder of the C-47, Gary from Clovis, NM, and he said it actually only weighs 5.4 pounds! That really explains the great slow flying qualities. More coming soon.) 

 The much slower flying speed and the relatively low power of the motors makes it look amazingly real. This is especially true on the fabulous wheel landing at the end of the video. I could watch, or even better, fly this thing all day!

 I'll have more on this brand of off-the-scale avgeekery soon : )