Tony's hangar

Just a bit of fun to let friends, family, colleagues and RC enthusiasts share in my antics with model aeroplanes. As a young lad I had a brief and unsuccessful first attempt at getting a model aeroplane to fly. Some 30 years later I had another attempt and look what happened :

...and after another few years (in 2012)....

Below you will find some more details on all the planes that I have accumulated over the years. I have also become interested in taking pictures and videos from within the aeroplanes during flight. Some of those pictures and videos are listed near the bottom of this page (here) and I hope that you enjoy them.
The link to the Concorde build page is here. The even BIGGER Concorde is here. The Sanger space shuttle is here.

Many of my videos are also available on Youtube - just search for DutchRCFlyer (that's me) and you will find them.

Update July 2019 : The planes in my collection are now listed below in REVERSE order, so the latest ones first.

#39 Dragon kite conversion

Length : 60 cm (+ 230 cm tail)
Width : 140 cm
Motor : 1300 Kv brushless
Gearbox : none
Propellor : Gunther 17.5x16 cm
Total weight : 290 gr (incl 2S 550 mAH LiPo battery)

I bought this kite in June 2019 for less than £3 new (!) as a challenge to see if I could make it into a model plane. There are some video clips of people successfully converting a bigger version of this kite so I reckon it is feasible. So far I have added a tiny brushless motor to its back, with a flexible mount so we have what's called vectored thrust. To stabilise that a bit I have also added a gyro. Testing is ongoing. It is quite sensitive to wind.

#38 Robbe Concorde

Length : 115 cm
Width : 78 cm
Motor : 2x Speed400 brushed (7.2V as standard)
Gearbox : none
Propellor : 2x Gunther 12.5x11 cm pushfit (as standard)
Total weight : 705 gr (incl 2S 2200 mAH LiPo battery)

Bought in May 2019 as a restoration project. Like the Sonic Liner (#20) this is a bit of a classic.
After I crashed my homebuilt Concorde (#23) early 2019 I did not feel like doing a full rebuild so I binned it and bought this one off EBay. It had various breaks and a lot of excess glue and was in a poor state; I fixed that and also removed the servo 'snakes' to go to my preferred setup of having the elevon servos right at the back, in the engine nacelles. I also swapped the old servos for newer ones, which are one fifth the size and one fifth the weight! . I kept the original motors and the speed controller but all other electronics were replaced with the bits from the crashed Concorde. To keep the centre of gravity (CoG) correct, the receiver moved back and the battery moved all the way forward, to where the original servos were located. Even then I still had to add 30 gr of ballast into the nose cone. After some experimentation I'm now happy the way it flies. It is slightly underpowered for launch, which means launching it full throttle and at a very flat angle. After building up some speed this is quite an agile plane, and also it copes with sharp banking much better than my orginal one. The motors and speed controllers from the original one can be fitted in future as a 'turbo' upgrade :)

#37 KingKong ET115

Length : 11.5 cm (excl prop)
Width : 11.5 cm (excl prop)
Motor : 4x 5500 Kv brushless (as standard)
Gearbox : none
Propellor : 4x 3 blade 2345 (as standard)
Total weight : 79 gr (incl 2S 550 mAH LiPo battery)

Keeping up with the latest trends (Oct 2018), this is a small racing drone complete with onboard camera and video transmitter ready for FPV flying.
Where the Phantom below is all about steady stability, this is the complete opposite. Again I have to say WOW, but this time it is for the insane performance that this delivers. At full speed it is so fast that it is difficult to track with the bare eye; on a straight-up vertical ascend is disappears out of sight in a matter of seconds. Wow. The battery only lasts 2 or 3 minutes at this level, but you will be glad of the break in order to get your heart rate down from all the excitement. Nice touch is the onboard beeper that is controlled from the controller, so you can find it again in the long grass. You will need this, as it just drops dead out of the sky when it decides that the battery is low, usually when it is furthest away from you ! I have flown it a few times as FPV (using the onboard video feed into the goggles) but still going high and slow. Eventually I hope to go low and fast what these were designed for.

#36 DJI Phantom 2

Length : 39 cm (excl prop)
Width : 39 cm (excl prop)
Motor : 4x 960 Kv brushless
Gearbox : none
Propellor : 4x 9.4x5
Total weight : 1300 gr max

After reading such good reviews about this I just had to try it out for myself. All I can say is WOW, they got this one right. By far the most stable and controllable quadcopter that I have come across. When you get it into trouble, just let go of the controls and it will stop dead in mid air and maintain that position all by itself. Flies itself back to the take-off point and lands all by itself when it gets out of range or the battery gets too low. Anyone can fly this thing which unfortunately will include silly people who do stupidly dangerous things with it, which may yet spoil it for the others. Go out and fly it while you still can !

I bought the basic model and have since added a 5.8 GHz video downlink so I can view and record on the ground what the on-board GoPro camera is seeing (and recording) in the air. The camera is suspended on a gimbal which compensates for any pitch/roll movement of the quadcopter. I also added the On-Screen Display (iOSD) unit which superimposes real-time flight data on the video link, showing things like battery voltage, distance, altitude, direction, speed, vertical speed, home direction and more. This will enable you to fly it back home even if it has gone out of sight. Should you lose the video link itself, just activate the Return-to-Home switch on the controller and it will make its own way back. Pure magic.

Here is a video clip taken with the Phantom 2 above a local nature reserve, and here is one made above the hills of Devon.

#35 Durafly Auto G2 - Autogyro

Length : 80 cm
Width : 82 cm (rotor diameter)
Motor : 800 Kv brushless (as standard)
Gearbox : none
Propellor : 3 blade 10x8 (as standard)
Total weight : 700 gr (incl 3S 1300 mAH LiPo battery)

I have another autogyro (#13 above) which never really flew properly. Time moved on and then I came across this one, which is like the next generation of autogyros. It has some big improvements over the old one.
Main one is the built in pre-rotator which spins up the main rotor before take-off via a small electric motor; this means you no longer need any wind to fly and it even makes a hand launch a straightforward affair. It has a full set of controls (rudder, elevator, aileron) which makes it very controllable. I've had a flew flights with it now and am enjoying it more with every flight.

#34 Robbe Seajet

Length : 67 cm
Width : 20 cm
Motor : brushed Speed600 (as standard)
Gearbox : 2:1
Propellor : twin 4 cm surface piercing (as standard)
Total weight : 1410 gr (incl 2S 2200 mAH LiPo battery)

Bought secondhand in poor condition (non-working). After a few weekends tinkering and adding some proper radio gear this is now tremendous fun ! Either going wild on a local pond or slowly cruising down the canal with a GoPro camera mounted on the front. This clip shows it on a local river (171 MB MP4 format); This one is the same river as seen from the onboard camera (147 MB MP4 format), and this one is onboard footage of a leisurely cruise down a local canal, with some relaxing music added :) (265 MB MP4 format). A full page with AMAZING pictures is here.

#33 Landyacht

Rear axle width : 50 cm
Length : 92 cm
Height : 104 cm
Motor : None!
Gearbox : none
Propellor : none
All-up weight : 1440 gr

Something different to play with when it's too windy to fly. From a design by A Newton (here). One servo for the front wheel steering, one servo for the main sail control and that's it.
The 2.4 GHz receiver and 2S LiPo battery are inside the PVC pipe. I also added a uBEC to bring the 7.4 V from the LiPo down to 6 V (which would normally have been done by the BEC in the speed controller, but as we don't need a speed controller.....).
The sail is made from the original kite for paradude (#22). Tested it on the beach but its performance was disappointing....will need further work.

#32 Concorde formation (own design)

Wingspan : 104 cm
Length : 155 cm
Motor : HXT 2730 1300Kv 85W brushless
Gearbox : none, direct drive
Propellor : 7 x 6
All-up weight : 565 gr

This is a follow-on from #14, the Red Arrows formation. Having 2 Concordes up & flying already, I just thought this would look awesome in the air.

Up to 4 full-size Concordes have flown in formation for real. I'm sure that having a flying formation of 6 Concordes must be unique in the world, even if it is only model-sized ones.

Was intended to be the Winter build project for 2013/2014 but I finished it early in November 2013. Maiden flight was on 23 Nov 2013. Only about 15 secs as it was underpowered, but it does fly slow and stable which is exactly what is needed. Here's that clip.


Since then I've simply added a faster motor (1700kV) and a bigger bigger prop (9x6 GWS Slowfly).


I had a perfect 2 minute flight with it in July 2014 : Here is that video clip,enjoy (incl music)! (144 MB so may take a while to download)
Same video in MP4 format (34 MB) is here. Highlights from several flights are here (40 MB, MP4 format).

This one also got a mention in the Oct 2014 issue of the magazine of the British Model Flying Association (BMFA) :
(click to enlarge)

#31 Mikey's RC : FPV v3

Wingspan : 102 cm
Length : 77 cm
Motor : Keda Thumrun 2826/22 1450Kv brushless (220W max)
Gearbox : none, direct drive
Propellor : 9 x 6
All-up weight : 1120 gr

I'm setting up a system for FPV - First Person View flying. This is where you fit a small camera in the nose of the plane and you send that live camera view back to the pilot, which he/she then uses to control the plane. By looking just at the video feed, the pilot gets a true cockpit view and the whole experience becomes much more like actually being inside the plane while flying it. To start with this I wanted a slow, stable plane and I found the plan for this model on www.mickeysrc.com. Built over 2 weekends it has indeed turned out to be a slow and stable plane, with lots of room to carry the extra equipment for FPV. Here is the page with detailed pictures.
Flight videos here and here .

#30 Hubsan : X4 quadcopter

Rotor diameter : 54mm (four of them), 65 mm spaced apart
Motor : 4x micro brushed (7 mm can)
Gearbox : None, direct drive
All-up weight : 34 gr (only!)

Best father's day present in many years! This is a fully functional quadcopter in a minute package. Despite its size, it has full controls (left/right, forward/backward, up/down, rotate left/right) but is still easy to fly thanks to multi-gyroscope stabilisation. Flight time approx 5 minutes. Also has an Expert mode in which you can do tricks like flips and rolls. Very impressive how they have been able to cram so much technology into such a small package.

#29 Sanger space shuttle (built from scratch)

Wingspan : 70 cm
Length : 146 cm
Motor : twin EDF55 (re-used from big-C)
Gearbox : none
All-up weight : 1160 gr

Winter 2012 build project.

Converting my big Concorde to twin propellors took much less time than expected so then I had some time to do this one. This was one of the candidates to replace the NASA Space shuttle, but for some reason that never happened. Never built, never flown. All there was to go on was a few artist's impressions, a small prototype, plus Revell did a little plastic model of it. I started creating drawings for it in November 2012. With those I then created paper mock-ups and eventually I ended up with what you see here. Full details on the dedicated Sanger build page here . First flight video here

#28 Butterfly kite

Wingspan : 206 cm
Length : 110 cm
Motor : none, powered by wind !
Gearbox : none

And what do I do when there is too much wind to fly RC planes ? I go fly a kite !
This is my favourite, a giant butterfly produced by 'Spirit of Air'.

#27 Green Air Designs : Airbus A380 (kit)

Wingspan : 125 cm
Length : 130 cm
Motor : 1x 3000 Kv brushless (in the tail)
Gearbox : none, direct drive
All-up weight : tbc

Started Feb 2012, finished Oct 2012.
Had its first flight late April 2012; just like the supplier I couldn't wait until the build was completely finished so I flew it before it had been sanded and painted.Very tricky to paint and decorate, which I kept putting off between April and October.
Dedicated build page is here. Scrapped mid 2018, just too much hassle to get it to fly.

#26 BIGGER Concorde (built from plan)

Wingspan : 90 cm
Length : 180 cm
Motor :
    Originally : triple EDF55 with 2x 5000 Kv Turborix + 1x 4500 Kv Freewing brushless (using 700W+ total)
    Now : twin Keda Thumrun 2830/14 brushless,1600 kV, driving 7.5x4 props (using 330W total)
Gearbox : none, direct drive
All-up weight : 1725 gr

A bigger version of #23. That one flies well but can get out of sight very quickly. This is a 50% bigger version with EDF propulsion instead of propellors. Build finished summer 2011 but did not have enough thrust on 2 motors. Fitted third EDF unit during winter 2011/2012 and it had its first successful flight with that in March 2012.

Looks beautiful in the air, when this one flies past people stop to watch it !


Update autumn 2012 : Even flying on 3 EDF units remains a bit of a struggle, so this years winter project is to change it over to a twin propellor setup, (like the smaller Concorde). This will give more thrust for less power and less weight.

Conversion completed December 2012. First flight on twin props was successful, on 15 Dec.
See dedicated build page here.

Flight video is here(36MB).

#25 Nikko Microkite

Wingspan : 120 cm
Motor : Speed300 size brushed ; converted to micro brushless (on 2S LiPo battery)
Gearbox : approx 7:1, approx 10x4 prop ; converted to direct drive 8x6 prop
All-up weight : 500 gr

Picked up cheaply from eBay in Feb 2011 after seeing some promising videos of it on YouTube. Came with a 27 MHz radio set with a pistol-grip which gave me finger cramp very quickly so I converted it to 2.4 GHz so I can use it with my regular transmitter. Also came with a 7.2V 1300 mAh NiCd battery which runs flat after 5 minutes; no good, so I fitted a 2S 2200 mAh LiPo battery. Once that was fitted, the motor burnt out so I put a little brushless motor in, with suitable speed controller. In short, the only original part left inside is the on/off switch ! Now that the electronics are up to scratch it is a beautiful little machine. It will happily keep going for over half an hour and it will do a bit of thermalling as well. Very stable, slow flight, but slightly clumsy controls as the throttle acts as elevator (so to go up you need to rev it up a bit). Lovely for a bit of slo-mo relaxing flying.

Details of the conversion are here.

See it fly here (7 MB,320x240) or the bigger version here (16 MB, 640x480). Surprisingly this is the most watched video on my YouTube channel (search for dutchrcflyer on YouTube).

#24 PaperOne (own design)

Wingspan : 60 cm
Motor : HXT 2730 1500Kv brushless (on 2S LiPo battery)
Gearbox : none, direct drive, 8x4 prop
All-up weight : ? gr

Just a little experiment to try and make something that looks like a giant paper aeroplane. Made from folded and glued 6mm Depron. It does certainly look like a paper plane but that also makes it very hard to photograph as it's all white ! Turned out to be quite a fast flyer. Now then.... how much bigger could we go....

#23 Concorde (built from plan)

During April - June 2010 I built a small Concorde with the intention of making it look close to the real thing that you see here on the right. What I finished late June is shown below. How I got there from scratch is shown in detail on this special Concorde build page here











Does it fly ? YES !
See it fly here (9 MB) and here (17 MB).

#22 Para-Dude (own design)

Wingspan : 120 cm (the parachute)
Motor : Keda Thumrun 2826/22 - 1450 kV - 220W
Gearbox : none, direct drive, 8x4 prop
All-up weight : 490 gr (plus 100 gr for the parachute)

Spring/summer 2010. Take a 99p action man doll from a charity shop, add a kite in the shape of a parachute, some electric cable ducting, some packaging from oranges, some other bits and pieces and hey presto, para-dude is born ! First trial was short lived as the propellor ate the orange netting; second trial showed that a lot more power would be needed, so I upgraded to the motor shown above, which is more than double what a normal shaped plane of this weight would have needed. Third trial (in the back garden) showed that we had adequate power, but still not enough lift, time for Para-Dude to lose some weight. All that is left now of the original action man is his head, hands, shoes, and a bit of his chest (which holds the battery). Added a bigger parachute (a 180 cm kite, with adjusted strings to change the angle of attack) but that did not improve it much. Then I bought the microkite (#25 below) which gave me some new ideas for Para-Dude which caused it to evolve to this, which is the current shape :

#21 Silverlit : Z1-Tandem

Rotor diameter : 13.5 cm (two of them)
Length : 18 cm
Motor : ?
Gearbox : ?
All-up weight : 25 gr (only!)

This is a toy but works so well that it deserves a place in this gallery. After half an hour or so practicing in the living room I got the hang of it and it is lovely to play with now. I take it to fly in a local sports hall sometimes, where the extra space really brings it to life. Comes with an infrared controller which limits the range to approx 5 metres; flights are appox 7 mins max.

#20 Multiplex : Sonic Liner

Wingspan : 127 cm
Length : 124 cm
Motor : Turnigy C3542 1250 brushless (450W max!)
Gearbox : none, direct drive
Propellor : 9 x 6
All-up weight : 1320 gr

A dream come true ! To me this is still the most beautiful canard plane around today, even though Multiplex stopped production many years ago. While on summer holiday in Holland in 2009 I picked up this 2nd hand/3rd hand rescue project, it had crashed and had the fuselage broken in several places. I repaired that, added several carbon fibre rods for reinforcement, reshaped the back, fixed the elevators, added a bigger prop and.... put in some strobe lights that I had left over from my first Learjet. Maiden flight in Sept 2009 ; first few launches failed (minor damage luckily) because it turns out that it needs quite a hard throw to get away successfully. Now that I've got that sussed it is a joy to fly (and watch !). See it fly here (6.5 MB).

#19 Green Air Designs : Eurofighter Typhoon

Wingspan : 60 cm
Length : 88 cm
Motor : GAD brushless 36 gr - 2300 kV - 150W
Gearbox : none, direct drive
All-up weight : 480 gr

Another canard plane. This is a kit made from sheets of white depron foam (first picture). As I am Dutch this just had to be painted in the Dutch colours, Second picture shows it fully painted, after the first few flights.




I have also added 'vectored thrust' to it (detail in picture below), which means the motor can be repositioned during flight, which changes the direction of the thrust that it produces. This in turn allows it to do insanely small loops; unfortunately while experimenting with this during summer 2010 I lost control of the plane, and it crashed into the ground at speed, a complete write-off (or as some say it was successfully re-kitted, i.e returned to kit form, in many pieces).

#18 I-fly : I-Hawk (ornithopter)

Wingspan : 30 cm
Motor : ?
Gearbox : ?
All-up weight : 12 gr (yes just 12 grams!!!)

Another ornithopter (like #6) which flies by flapping its wings. Christmas present 2008.
Technology has moved on and it is amazing by how much. This is much smaller and lighter than #6 but easier to control and a lot more fun. Steering is done by pulling the back of the wing tight to one side or the other which works just as well as the way #6 does it (twisting the tail).
I regularly take this one for some indoor flying in our local sports hall.
Small enough to fly in the back garden provided there is no wind at all.

#17 CMPro : Discus CS

Wingspan : 265 cm
Length : 115 cm
Motor : BRC A2217/8T - 1100 kV - 200W
Gearbox : none
All-up weight :

Completed winter 2009. My first big semi-scale Glider, which I converted to electric power. Maiden flight in April 2009. Beautiful to see but not that easy to fly as it needs a fair bit of speed to keep going. With it being semi-scale (looking like its full-size original) I put a little pilot in as well.
In the autumn of 2008 the propeller broke in mid flight, causing the canopy to come off, including pilot and cockpit ! I got the plane back down safely and it is flying again after some repairs, but we never found the pilot again, he must still be roaming Chobham Common to this day....

#16 Jamara : Learjet 45

Wingspan : 114 cm
Length : 129 cm
Motor : 2x 3900 Kv brushless (300W+ total)
Gearbox : none, direct drive twin electric ducted fan (EDF)
All-up weight : approx 1200 gr

My birthday present for 2008 ! Beautiful isn't she ? No it’s not real jet engines in there, they are very small propellers which turn very very quickly (40,000+ RPM); as they are fitted inside a tube (‘duct’) this produces two jets of air which provide the propulsion. This one had its maiden flight in July 2008 and quickly became my favourite (and also that of the spectators). During October the wing snapped during some aerobatics and the plane was a write-off; however..... I bought another one which had its maiden flight in March and is also flying well.

See it fly here (6.5 MB).

#15 Richmodel : Quickie

Wingspan : 77 cm
Motor : HXT 2730 1500Kv brushless
Gearbox : none, direct drive
All-up weight : 635 gr

Given the beautiful flights with my first Canard-style plane (#11) I decided to buy another one, this time a scale model of the Quick-E (or Quickie) designed by Burt ‘Mr Canard’ Rutan himself. The canard (front wing) is almost as wide as the main wing, and the front wheels are attached to the wing tips. I took it for its maiden flight in March 2008 and it took off like a rocket.
The landing was a painful affair which damaged the engine cowl and saw the battery launch itself through the canopy. The damage was repaired, I fitted a smaller motor, caged in the battery and now we’re experimenting with different propellor sizes and batteries to see what flies best.

#14 Red Arrows formation (own design)

Wingspan : 70 cm
Motor : HXT 2730 1300Kv brushless
Gearbox : none, direct drive
All-up weight : 280 gr

Retired. Another experiment with Depron. As I live near Farnborough I have seen the Red Arrows display team quite a few times, so I thought it would be interesting to design something that looked vaguely similar, and this is it. It is made from 6 mm Depron foam; the horizontal bits are all joined up and cut in a single piece of depron. The vertical pieces (fuselage/tail) are cut individually and glued on separately. Initial test flight (April 2009) was quite promising but needed further tweaking. Not progressed since, but changed into #32, the 6-Concorde formation.

#13 LaHeli : Cierva C30 Autogyro

Rotor dia : 63 cm
Motor : Welgard brushless A22/08/12
Gearbox : n/a, direct drive
All-up weight : 340 gr

This is an autogyro, the predecessor of the helicopter. The rotor is not connected to any motor. To launch this one you hold it into the wind, tilted backwards. This makes the rotor spin, which creates lift. When it has enough lift, you switch on the motor at the front with the propeller and let go. Control is done by tilting the rotor left/right and front/back (via the 2 black steel rods that you can see going from the rotor down to some servo’s inside the plane). I felt this was insufficient control so I added a moveable rudder from the start. I have had 4 or 5 attempts at flying this thing now and all of them have ended in a crash. The landing gear is clearly not up to the job so I'm thinking about some improvements to make this a lot less fragile than it currently is.
Also in the picture you can see a beautiful (but very fragile) fake radial engine. This fits over the real motor but I have decided to leave it it off until I've sorted out the stability and landing issues.

#12 Ultrafly : Cessna 182

Wingspan : 110 cm
Motor : Speed 400
Gearbox : 3:1
All-up weight : 760 gr

After I lost the other Cessna (#9) I wanted another one as it was such a good looking plane. This is the same model but made from a special kind of polystyrene which means it is harder to damage and easier to fix. It doesn’t look quite as realistic as #9 but it still looks good and is pretty easy to fly. In the right conditions it will even do a bit of thermalling with the motor switched off.

It came with a spare wing which I converted late 2010 into a twin-rotor autogyro platform which you can see on the right. Simply by swapping the wing (1 screw) I now have 2 very different planes. Unfortunately I never got that setup to fly properly.

#11 Graupner : Canary

Wingspan : 100 cm
Motor : Speed 300+
Gearbox : none, direct drive
All-up weight : 300 gr

Something completely different again. Look at the picture on the left, which way do you think it flies ? The little tail on the left is what’s called a ‘canard’ wing and it shows where the front of the plane is. The propeller is on the right, and is a ‘pusher’ type so it is mounted at the back. Some people have complained about insufficient rudder control (left/right) so I added some extra balsa wood to increase the relevant surface area.

In the picture on the right the area to the left of the red text is what I added. Rudder control is now more than sufficient and this is one of my favourite planes now.
Longest flight : 28 mins on a 2S/1200maH LiPo battery.

See it fly here (4.5 MB).

#10 Micro Mosquito

Wingspan : 16 cm dia dual rotor
Motor : so small that I can’t tell what it is
Gearbox : 18 : 1
All-up weight : 30 gr (!)

The Piccoo Z was the first indoor micro helicopter that was stable and robust enough for beginners. The micro mosquito is the next step, which adds forward/reverse control through the tail rotor. Unfortunately that tail rotor is not quite powerful enough to give proper control, but still, for £15 this is tremendous indoor fun !

Here the mosquito is just taking off from my hand, note the extra weight I’ve added to give a bit more forward speed.

#9 World Models : Cessna 182 Skylane

Wingspan : 104 cm
Motor : Speed 400
Gearbox : 2.5:1
All-up weight : 740 gr

Made from balsa wood with a plastic film covering, this beautiful kit comes with a finished wing and fuselage so it only takes a few more evenings to complete it. This is my first ‘scale’ model, which means that it is a reasonably accurate small copy of an actual full size plane. Looks beautiful, flies beautifully, especially on slow, low passes close by.

Scrapped November 2007: during a landing one of the wingtips touched the ground and caused the plane to flip over. This broke the wing and ripped one side off the fuselage.
I love the model but I hate how fragile it is, so I later bought the same model (Cessna 182) again, but this time made from foam, see #12 .

#8 Ptera 1 (own design)

Wingspan : 96 cm
Motor : GWS IPS
Gearbox : 3.5 : 1
All-up weight : 290 gr

This is a prototype, still in progress. My first design made with foam (6 mm depron) and also my first use of a brushless motor. The propeller is at the back, pushing the plane forward (instead of pulling it from the front like a normal plane). The head can move up/down and left/right and that is how the direction is controlled. It started off with a brushless motor but that proved far too powerful, so now it has a tiny GWP IPS motor in it with a 3.5:1 gearbox driving the 10x4.7 prop. Longest test flight to date is about 6 seconds. This may sound very short but it means we are getting close to achieving proper flight (remember the Wright brothers first flight was only 12 seconds!).

#7 Multiplex : EasyGlider

Wingspan : 180 cm
Motor : BRC A2212-15 - 930 kV - 120W
Gearbox : none
All-up weight : 880 gr

The first of the larger planes in my collection, with a 180 cm wingspan. Luckily the wings detach easily so it still fits in the car. The motor is only used to take it up as high as I dare; switch off the motor and from then it can take anything from 5 to 15 minutes to glide down again; open up the throttle just before landing and off it goes again to repeat the whole cycle. Best flown on a warm summer evening, when there are thermals around which can keep the plane in the air for much longer than 15 minutes without use of the motor. Motor upgraded from the original speed 400 with 3:1 gearbox to the current brushless set up (no gearbox).

I also use this one for taking pictures and video in-flight. I started with the WiFi camera and the picture on the left shows how it is attached to the wing, easily detached and leaving no damage to the wing.


Then the FlyCamOne2 came out, purpose made for taking pictures and video from model aeroplanes. It doesn’t need a receiver or laptop so it’s much easier to use than the WiFi camera and never goes out of range as it records straight to the onboard memory card. As it's so light it just attaches to the top of the wing with a bit of Velcro, see picture on the right.



After a while I wanted to make better quality pictures and video though, so I got myself a (very!) cheap but decent quality second hand Casio Exilim digital camera from eBay (7 megapixels).

This needed a purpose made mounting which I made from some leftover polystyrene and is shown on the left. I'm very pleased with the results which you can see in the picture and video section below (here).

#6 Cybird P1 (ornithopter)

Wingspan : 74 cm
Motor : Speed 300
Gearbox : ?
All-up weight : 200 gr

Something without a propeller ! I bought it just because it is so different. A small electric motor inside makes the wings flap up & down rapidly. The manual says it flies like a bird, this is true but what it fails to mention is that it flies like a FLEDGLING bird : it can only just stay in the air and can only do very wide turns. Interesting for 10 minutes but after that extremely boring.

#5 Multiplex : SpaceScooter

Wingspan : 83 cm
Motor : Speed 400
Gearbox : 3:1
All-up weight : 550 gr

Something cheap and cheerful. Looks nice in the air but a bit boring to fly. I used this one for my first experiments with in-flight video. In the pictures you can see the WiFi camera mounted on top of the fuselage. This camera sends a WiFi radio signal to a receiver on the ground, which in turn feeds the video signal into a laptop computer, which records the video direct to its hard disk, from where it can be edited later on. Some of the videos near the bottom of this page were made this way. The plane was scrapped after I misjudged a turn and one of the wing tips hit a football pitch lightpost at full speed. The lightpost won big time.

#4 MicroLight (own design)

Wingspan : 76 cm
Motor : GWS IPS (tiny!)
Gearbox : 3.5:1
All-up weight : 175 gr

The wing for this was bought ready-made and I designed the rest around it really. The tricky bit was how to design the flight controls as there is no tailplane, rudder or elevator. The way it works is that the wing can be tipped forwards, backwards and sideways through the remote control. This moves the centre of gravity sufficiently to steer it. It looks beautiful in the air and has a slow, stable flight as long as there is little or no wind. I lost this one for a week once, when the wind took hold of it and dumped it on top of a huge oak tree. It took a week to work its way down into someone’s back garden.
Upgraded to a Blue Wonder tiny brushless motor since then (1300 Kv) which is still powering it many years on. Flight video is here.

#3 WildRC : Mini-IFO

Wingspan : 64 cm
Motor : GWS IPS (tiny!)
Gearbox : 8:1
All-up weight : 145 gr

Designed by someone from NASA, this one is made from thin carbon fibre rods, ultralight nylon, held together by Kevlar wire and superglue ! Although made for indoor flying (IFO = ‘Indoor Flying Object’), I like to fly it outdoors as this is one mad plane. It will fly any way up, in any direction, will do stupendously tight turns, will fly for 20 mins non-stop on a single battery charge and has so far proved unbreakable.
As you can see in the picture, the main carbon fibre rod passes in front of the propeller. If the plane dives nose first into the ground (which it has done several times!), this protects the propeller and diffuses the force of the impact very effectively. It was still going strong after many many flights.

#2 Graupner : Funky Chicken

Wingspan : 105 cm
Motor : Himodel 2212-6 - 2200kV - 180W
Gearbox : none ; Prop : 7x5
All-up weight : 600 gr

Bought initially because of the beautiful wing shape, it is delivered as a plain white ARTF (Almost Ready To Fly) kit. This means most people should be able to put this together in a few evenings.

If you Google it you will be amazed at how many different styles this thing can be painted in. I thoroughly enjoyed painting this one in parrot-style with dopey eyes. Initially I used the standard motor (Speed 400) and propeller that were in the kit but that wasn’t really up to the job. After it had dangled a few years from the ceiling in the garage, I upgraded the motor and reinforced the wings during winter 09/10. After some further experimentation it all came together during June 2010 and it is a joy to fly now (see clip (6.5 MB)).

#1 Multiplex : PicoCub

Wingspan : 116 cm
Motor : Speed 400
Gearbox : 2.3 : 1
All-up weight : 600 gr

This is the plane that started me off all those years ago. It is what’s called a ‘trainer’ style aeroplane : the wing is at the top (a ‘high’ wing) and has a slight V-shape (‘dihedral’). This plus a few more subtle design features, mean that this plane will want to fly the right way up and straight all by itself. This is quite useful when you’re learning to fly: when you get into trouble you just let go of the controls and the plane will usually get itself out of trouble, provided of course you’re not aiming it at a brick wall !

I lost this one after about a year, when one of the wings broke off at great height. Normally the foam that this plane is made of is very easily glued back together, but because it fell from such a great height repair was no longer an option. The fond memories remain (as do the electronics as they have all been reused).

In-flight video equipment used :

Swann BlackHawk WiFi camera + receiver : camera weighs 60 gr all-in; range approx 100m in the air (150m with better receiver antenna); 10mW RF power; built in rechargeable battery lasts approx 5 hours. Works well but it’s very easy to get out of range; it’s a bit cumbersome to have to carry the extra laptop to record the video, on top of everything else that you’re already carrying to the flying field.

FlyCamOne2 : claimed to be smallest generally available video camera in the world. Video : 640x480 pixels at 24 fps ; 1280x1024 still pictures; weight: 37 gr all-in (!!!); records directly to built-in SD memory card up to 2 GB. Built in rechargeable battery. And all that for £ 45 only (e.g. from www.robotbirds.com). Video works well but still pictures are unreliable (which you won’t know about until you’ve gone home and are trying to read the memory card on your PC).
Update : I've added a little adapter which feeds power from the flight battery into the camera; video and pictures are very reliable now.

Casio Exilim Z75 : bought secondhand from eBay in Feb 2010 (for under £20 !). Up to 7 MP stills plus VGA video at 30 fps. Weight approx 130 gr, which the EasyGlider copes with quite well. The quality of the still pictures is good enough for professional use so who knows what this could develop into...

Nikon Coolpix S570 : another bargain from eBay. Up to 12 MP stills plus VGA video at 30 fps. Size and weight are very close to the Casio Exilim, but pictures are slightly sharper and the colours are warmer.

JVC Picsio : eBay again. Up to 8 MP stills plus up to 1080p HD video at 30 fps. Size and weight also very close to the Casio Exilim. Not used for stills as the Nikon is far better at that, but for video it's quite impressive. I prefer the 720p setting as its 60 fps looks much smoother than the 30 fps of 1080p. A 10 min clip uses approx 1 GB of storage, which takes a long time to process on a normal PC.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS5 : eBay again. Up to 10 MP stills plus up to 848x480 video at 30 fps. Size and weight (120 gr)also very close to the Casio Exilim. Bought mainly for its special features : Leica optics (the best !) plus optical image stabilisation.


Video clips with WiFi camera :
Easyglider over Chobham Common on 20 April 2007, 18 MB, 16 min (320x240)
Video showing me launching the EasyGlider on Tank Hill in Chobham 29 April 2007, 16 MB, 54 sec (320x 240)
EasyGlider over Tank Hill Chobham on 29 April 2007, 16 MB, 4 min 20 sec (320x240)
SpaceScooter over Frimley Green on 8 June 2007, 7 MB, 2 min 6 sec (320x240)
As above but 15 MB and 640x480
EasyGlider over Tank Hill Chobham on 10 June 2007, 24 MB, 6 min 26 sec (320x240)
EasyGlider over Frimley Green on 19 Oct 2007, 15 MB, 4 min 18 sec

Video clips with FlyCamOne2 camera :
EasyGlider over Tank Hill Chobham on 27 Jan 2008, 14 MB, 3 min 8 sec (320x240)
Easyglider over Chobham Common on 1 Feb 2008, 5 MB, 1 min 31 sec (320x240)
as above but 11 MB and 640x480
Easyglider over Lightwater on 8 Feb 2008, 7 MB, 1 min 50 sec (320x240)
as above but 13 MB and 640x480
Easyglider over Chobham Common on 5 May 2008, 13 MB, 1 min 50 sec (640x480)
Easyglider over Lightwater Country Park on 17 Oct 2008, 18 MB, 5 min (320x240)

Video clips with Casio Exilim camera :
EasyGlider over Brentmoor Park (Lightwater) on 25 Oct 2010, 17 MB, 3 min 6 sec (640x480)
as above but smaller version, 8MB and 320x240 size

Video clips with Nikon Coolpix camera :
EasyGlider over Devon hills near Axminster on 30 Aug 2011, 38 MB, 5 min 9 sec (640x480)
as above but smaller version, 19MB and 320x240 size

Still pictures made with FlyCamOne2 :
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HD pictures made with Casio Exilim (3 MP or above)
(clicking on the thumbnails below will take you to a new page full of pictures; click your browser's BACK button to get back here)

HD pictures made with Nikon Coolpix S570 (3 MP or above)
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HD pictures made with Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS5 (3 MP or above)
(clicking on the thumbnails below will take you to a new page full of pictures; click your browser's BACK button to get back here)

HD pictures made with GoPro Hero 3+ Silver (5 MP or above)
(clicking on the thumbnails below will take you to a new page full of pictures; click your browser's BACK button to get back here)

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