I have to admit that I’m not the first to light up a foam airframe, but it’s hard to say (for me anyway) that I didn’t have the most fun doing it! It all goes back to Joe Nall Week about five years ago. A group of us had a bunch of Sea Winds and we took over the float pond. In the evening, a couple of the guys acquired “new” LED lighting strips (that were just introduced to the market at that time) and stuck them on their Sea Winds so they could tear up the 3D float pond that evening. As cool as it was, the drawback was that all you could see were the lit individual LEDs themselves. It wasn’t until the next year when we bought a bunch of Multiplex Fun Cubs on floats that we really got it figured out.

A while back I wrote a two-part article in Fly RC magazine explaining how I scaled out the big 1/6-scale WACO SRE ARF from SIG. That article was essentially about getting rid of the plastic covering, getting the servos inside where they belong on any self-respecting scale job, and messing with the overall appearance by adding things like scale tail surface cross sections, fuselage stringers, door outlines and the like.

For those new to the RC airplanes, all I can say is that “You’ve got it easy!” At no other time in the history of radio control aircraft has “the fruit” hung so low. The ARF and ready-to-fly market is enormous with offerings that range from micro-size indoor planes to giant-scale monsters.

Conquer Workshop Clutter This Weekend! If you have been in RC for a while you can probably relate to the inevitable crowded workshop corner where partially completed airframes sit mixed with those finished and flight ready, and maybe …

After bending a few aluminum landing gears on hard landings, I decided to make my own out of fiberglass and carbon fiber. My expertise as an engineer was designing carbon fiber structures and components for communication satellites so this endeavor was right up my alley. Many auto makers are now using carbon fiber composites for springs and body parts because they are not only lighter, they absorb energy better than steel and are three times stronger. For those same reasons, RC model airplane landing gear is a perfect application for composites.

Get the Best Performance from Your Foam EDF Jet Today’s RC flyer has a huge variety of molded foam ARF and RTF scale and sport planes to choose from and the EDF (electric ducted fan) is one of …

One of the goals of having a scale model is that you want the model to look real; to reproduce the full-scale aircraft. There is nothing more dramatic looking than seeing a warbird that looks like it has …

Recycle your old "Bag Chairs" by making something useful out of them. Based on the number of inquiries at the recent Hoosier Dawn Patrol at the AMA grounds in Muncie, Indiana has motivated me to share my ‘discovery’.

As an airline pilot, I get to fly with pilots from every background imaginable—some are civilian trained like myself, and others are military trained pilots who have flown heavy tankers, helicopters, and high performance fighters in their previous …

When building any model airplane, it is important that the wings have a bit of washout; and if the plane is going to fly properly, the wings should be washed out equally on both sides.

Most modelers consider the Dremel tool to be a must-have accessory for the workshop. They use them for any number of routine tasks, from trimming music wire to sanding, drilling, grinding and shaping. Many modelers I have talked to don’t ask their Dremels for much more than that though, and this is a shame.