Interested in flying your own RC airplane in your backyard? In the local school gym? At the local park or schoolground? RC MicroFlight’s contributors can show you how easy it is to get started. There’s no need to fuss over technical requirements or expensive gear—all you need to do is obtain a few key "plug & play" products from the wide variety available and you’ll be set to establish your own backyard or parking-lot air force.

If you are an educator, you will find direction and how-to instructions in RC MicroFlight that will help you and your students design and build micro RC aircraft at very low cost.

What is Radio Control?

Radio Control (RC) airplanes are aircraft that are controlled by a pilot who uses a small radio transmitter. The pilot stands and manipulates controls on the transmitter to direct the path of the RC airplane.

What is a Micro Flyer?

The new generation of ultra-small, lightweight airplanes are often called slow flyers, park flyers, micro flyers or backyard flyers. The smallest can easily fly in your front yard, in a parking lot or in a standard size indoor basketball gym.

Micro flyers may weigh only five ounces and fly at only four or five miles per hour. Such tiny planes are as safe to fly as the rubber-band-powered balsa gliders that have been available in toy stores for decades. Moreover, because of the development of inexpensive miniature motors and computer chips, the cost of RC gear has dropped to affordable levels. Radio manufacturers have come out with low-end systems with very lightweight servos and radio receivers.

Because many of the new micro flyers are in the "almost ready to fly" (ARF) category, they can be built relatively quickly. Although it used to take a few or several evenings to build an RC airplane, it now only takes a few hours (and sometimes less than an hour). Students can design and build their own airframes for very little money, and radio gear can be reused in different models.

For these reasons, micro flyers offer exciting new opportunities for modelers and educators.

Picking Your First Airplane

Your first airplane kit will probably be an "almost ready to fly" or ARF model. ARF’s are largely pre-built so that assembly only takes a few hours or less. Your first model will be considered your "trainer" because you will use it to develop your piloting skills.

Your trainer may be made from lightweight foam or it may have a carbon fiber or wooden "stick" fuselage with foam wings. Your first plane might also be have a balsa frame that is covered with mylar or plastic film. There is a large variety of products to choose from.

Want help picking your first airplane? Besides looking at reviews in RC MicroFlight and other publications like Model Airplane News, you can ask your fellow modelers on our free "list serve." A list serve is a community of enthusiasts who are members of an email network. A question or comment sent to any member in the network is received by all members. To learn more click on the "email discussion forum" link in the navbar on the home page of www.rcmicroflight.com.

AIRPLANE COMPONENTS

Motors and Props

Micro flyers are typically powered by electric motors that run on Nicad (Ni-Cd) batteries. Micro flyer model kits often come with a motor and matched prop.

Motors can either be "direct drive" (propellers are attached directly to the motor) or "gear drive" systems (propeller is mounted on a small gearbox that is attached to the motor).

Batteries and Chargers

Micro flyers are typically powered by Ni-Cd batteries. These are rechargeable batteries that may power an airplane for 5 to 15 minutes of continuous flight. Batteries can be charged and flown hundreds of times.

New battery types are now coming into use with micro flyers. Nickel-Metal-Hydride (NiMH) batteries have more "gas in the tank" than Ni-Cds but lower voltage (slightly less power). For the smallest indoor models, some rechargeable lithium cells such as the Tadiran lithiums offer stupendous duration—flights of an hour or more.

The flight battery pack also powers the onboard receiver and servos via AN electronic speed control (ESC).

A variety of chargers are available that will fully charge batteries in 20 minutes or so. Some are specially designed for the smallest batteries that power micro flyers.

Your Radio System—Receivers, Servos and Speed Controls

Servos move the control surfaces (e.g., rudder or elevator) on an RC airplane. A servo looks like a small black box with a nylon "output" arm or wheel protruding from one end. The output arm pushes or pulls a small rod that connects to the airplane’s control surface. A small wire lead running from the servo plugs into the radio receiver.

Electronic speed controls distribute power from the battery to the radio receiver, servos and the motor that turns the propeller. Modern ESCs can be as small as a dime and weigh only grams.

Getting Started