Why not fly radio control planes when you are away for work? If you enjoy model planes and occasionally have to travel for work, keep reading.

RTF planes are great for introducing new folks to the hobby, but as a former hobby shop employee, I’ve heard several folks comment on how if they somehow crashed a plane like Hangar 9’s P.T.S. P-51 Mustang, they’d have to throw it away and get a new plane. In hopes of combating the thought that an easy-flying plane like the Hangar 9 P.T.S. Mustang would be destined for the trash bin after a crash, I decided to show the rebuild ofmy own crashed Mustang from a first-timer’s perspective.

Many people often think of one word when they talk about racing: expensive. It’s a common misconception that one should overcome, because when you think of racing, it should be FUN!

To run properly, 2-stroke engines rely on perfect sealing in critical areas. In an ideal world, gaskets would not be needed. With two perfectly machined mating surfaces—much like the old Dick McCoy engines of the ’50s—a gasket isn’t even necessary. But most manufacturers use gaskets to guarantee a leak-free, airtight seal.

Spring steel wire, also known as music wire, is one of the most popular model landing-gear materials. It is readily available at most hobby shops, inexpensive, strong and easy to form into just about any shape imaginable with common tools. Whether you are scratch-building a new design, building a kit, or just repairing the gear for your latest ARF, no modeler’s skill set is complete without a few basic techniques for working with music wire.

This is the first installment of a series of articles on general engine care and maintenance of both glow and gasoline engines. I will cover most of the basics, including setting up your engines, basic cleaning, maintenance and troubleshooting. This month I will discuss the basic setup and tuning of two-stroke glow engines (without a fuel pump), still by far the most commonly used engines in our models.

The fuel system is one of the most important parts of your airplane, but how much do you really know about it?

One important but often overlooked aspect of flying precision aerobatics is setting up your aircraft—“trimming” it. This isn’t trimming in the general sense of adjusting flight controls to hold level flight, but rather the small adjustments you make to your airframe and radio setup to help your model fly as precisely as possible. While this may seem to be a bit of overkill for a new aerobatic pilot, I find that a nicely balanced and precisely set up model makes learning precision aerobatics much easier, and it really isn’t all that hard to accomplish. In this article, we’ll discuss the “why” of aerobatic trimming.

If you are anything like me, when you near the end of a new RC project, nothing seems more important than getting to the field for that first flight. I have been known to cut many corners late at night while looking forward to calm winds the next morning, and cosmetics are often high on the optional list. If that flight gets delayed though, adding some pinstripes is an easy way to dress up a new model a bit more and make those first flight photos even more special.

If there’s one maneuver that’s feared more than any other in the full-scale competition aerobatic world, it’s the rolling circle. I’ve actually been happy with scores of 4 out of 10 in competitions because that was better than the zero I expected! In my opinion, the rolling circle is the hardest precision aerobatic maneuver to fly consistently.

Even in today’s world of ARFs, modelers still enjoy creating their own aircraft. Many of these projects require a little creativity to enclose the powerplant. It may seem old-fashioned to build a cowl out of balsa, but there are several very compelling reasons to do so.