RCPowers - Learn to Fly RC Planes

These Lessons are presented by Dave Powers of RCPowers (website) and are available to view from the RCPowers Video Blog (here) Be sure to subscribe to the RCPowers Youtube as you will find useful information in their past videos as well as the several videos they release through every week. Goto to forums for more information (here)

Lesson 2 Jan 22, 2009
I’m giving you a basic idea of how we all build these “profile foam” planes as we call them. They can be made out of almost any kind of foam. Here are the big 3:

Depron (I use this mostly)
Pros: Strong, rigid, and light. It sands, glues and paints well.
Cons: Pricey, snaps in a crash.

Blue Core (Also know as Fan Fold Foam, DOW, or ghetto foam)
Pros: Cheapest, lightest. Sands, glues, and paints well. Often found at LOWE’S or Home Depot.
Cons: Not quite as stiff as Depron. Its blue and comes with writing all over it.

EPP (Great for beginner! The Grayson Sukhoi is made of this)
Pros: Indestructible! Bends, doesn’t break.
Cons: Very saggy, not rigid. Does not paint, sand, or glue as well.

Here are the links I raddled off in this video as well as some more helpful things. Remember, this is a hobby and we ALL fight through it the first few times figuring it all out. This is an investment of time, money, patience, and practice to get it. Its hard for all of us getting started, that’s why its such a “brotherhood” once you make it through. So stick with it, take your time, bite off less than you can chew, and keep studying.
Lesson 1 Jan 15, 2009
This is our first week of Beginner RC Airplanes Class. We are just doing a fast overview of how it all works so you can have an idea what you are getting yourself into. There are generally 2 types of planes we do:

1) Scratch built Foam Planes

We build these out of Depron, EPP, Blue Core, whatever. Its about $20 worth of foam and we just transfer our electronics from plane to plane. It cost a few hundred to get started when buying your first radio, motor, batteries, servos, etc, but in the long run we save the most money building our own planes and reusing the same valuable electronics over and over

2) Ready Made Store Bought Planes (ARF, Almost Ready to Flys)

If you look on our website in the AIRPLANES TOP 10, you will see the planes from NitroPlanes.com fit this category. Here you buy and entire or partial package that cost %70-200+ every time you buy one. The parts are interchangeable and you can sell the stuff you don’t need on ebay or even transfer them to a scratch built foam plane.

There are endless options to get started. We will be covering all this in more detail in the coming weeks so you can make a confident decision when starting off with RC planes. What we are focusing on is whats best for you in the short and long term to maximize your flying time, and minimize your crying time (spending too much money!). There are very efficient ways of doing all this and that’s what we are sharing in this weekly series. Come back to this page every Thursday!