Bonzo Moon

Test glide was OK, but it was a bit nose heavy. That, plus very gusty wind didn't help. I re-glued the wing and did a quick test in my garden and after a little trimming it flew straight and level. Need a good light wind day for a proper test! 😏

Another fail test flying my 4 motor mini Lidl foamie. When I built it it was intended to be steered by differential thrust, but that failed, so I converted it to aileron/elevator. I will get this flying eventually! At least this was easily fixed anyway.

Someone has asked me where you can buy this. Banggood is one source I've seen, about £30 with delivery https://www.banggood.com/custlink/m3G94fRZlS?title=WL V398 chopper

My original post is in English, I was just being courteous replying in French?

C'est merveilleux, oui?

Mon français est plutôt bon mais je ne peux pas refaire toute la vidéo en français 😞 MAIS si vous allez dans les paramètres, il y a une traduction automatique pour les sous-titres ? Bonsoir.

Something a bit different from me this time. I was sent this little twin-rotor beginner helicopter for review and it's fun. I've got a few small helis, but I've never seen one with a missile launcher on it before! It's the WL V398-C Missile Aircraft, 6 axis gyro, altitude hold, which works well and it flew nicely, quite stable. It's described as an indoor flyer but I flew it outside on a calm day and it was OK. Could be fun if you had a mate with one, you could have battles shooting missiles at each other. My test flights are at 5m16s including an outdoor test and landing pad challenge! I got it from Razordon who are big helicopter sellers, but seems to be available in a few versions under different badges from £30 to £40.

The saga continues in my efforts to sort a plane for FPV, though my advice here applies to any kind of RC plane of drone build. 😔

After 14 Lidl cheap foamie RC conversions, finally, here's my first Lidl pusher! Can't say I've had much success with pushers in the past, but after going against the online advice of the desired thrust angle and changing it to more like my Bixler's angle she flies well. Test flight is in the video as well as build details.

Windy day at my strip, but I'd planned to test return to home on a flight controller I'd installed, so I went for it. I'm new to this kind of technology and was feeling a bit anxious, hence I made a mistake. The idea was get some height, position aircraft well upwind, and first off hit 'loiter' and then check the fpv signal on some goggles I'd brought with me. Trouble was, when the plane was a long way off I flicked the wrong switch on my tx (as I didn't dare look down at it) and before I'd realised my mistake the plane had flown away. I'd lost sight of it! Sick feeling in my stomach as I gazed into the distance, plus a real panic moment. Would it actually work? ☹️. Some nice aerial footage in my video.

First there was the Lidl glider, then there was the Mini Lidl, then Mini Mini Lidl, now at 26cm the Mini Mini Mini Lidl. It's a pusher, with motor an prop and recharges. Is anyone man enough to convert one of these to RC control?

One small step for man maybe, but here's part 3 of my continuing journey into FPV, including two fails in my trips to the flying strip, and sorting the problems afterwards. But (spoiler alert) after a couple of weeks of hard learning I found it fascinating to be able to flick a switch on my basic FlySky i6 tx and watch my rc plane change it's course and circle around in the spot it was in! No doubt those used to flight controllers take it for granted, but it was another step forward in turning my old Bixler into a good FPV aeroplane! I just need to test return to home and then next it'll be a proper FPV flight test! It's been quite a journey so far, but perseverance pays off.

Here's part two of my quest to get into FPV flying with a fixed wing aircraft and it's been a much harder journey than I anticipated! Even the simple task of connecting my SpeedyBee F405 Wing flight controller board to the PC didn't work. Perseverance and Google helped. A beginners look at FPV , Inav and installing a flight controller in a small aircraft. Part 3 coming soon shows my 2 unsuccessful trips to my flying strip where I didn't even get off the ground. Did I get lucky the 3rd time?

I've been trying to get into RC FPV for a long while, but finally concluded recently that a flight controller was going to be essential in the aircraft I was using if I wanted to achieve that goal. This video tells what brought about that decision plus has a quick look at the SpeedyBee F405 Fixed Wing Flight Controller I decided on and mentions the HUGE and at times very frustrating learning curve I've had. Part Two has more detail about that leaning, setting up and installation in my Bixler.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to try and build a mini Lidl RC plane with 4 brushed motors and differential thrust and elevator for flight control. A crazy challenge some said. How did it work out? Here's the quick build blog and a very windy maiden. It was a long hard road and it's quite a long video, (there was a lot of testing) but you can skip to the maiden at 16m 46s. Is it time to quit?

It's less than a 100g AUW and looks like it'll power hang with those 4 motors! I'm definitely going to need to tweak the differential mixes very carefully. I think it'll be difficult to get power balanced equally with two ESC's and two lipos, but in parallel using just one of those 1s 's it isn't man enough to run all 4 motors. I could maybe connect all 4 to just one esc and use a bigger 1s? One of them claims to be 10A? I thought about testing the current draw on each side, but that'll only be good at that moment in time! The lipos are a good couple of years old too and I doubt their power output will be equal? It'll be fun messing about with it anyway! 😉 Apart from fitting the elevator it's almost ready for a maiden but it'' need a very calm day.

A heads up on my latest Lidl cheap foamie glider rc build, my no. 20 conversion and a bit different. 😊 A Mini-Lidl with 4 brushed motors and differential thrust steering. Full video coming soon! Watch this space. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EpUcRICtaAQ

A while back I built a lightweight Lidl foamie conversion, my no.14, (now converted to my first Lidl pusher,) with the intention of using it as a slow fly FPV plane. I've flown my biggest drone FPV, but that has GPS and RTH, I wanted a slow plane for 1st attempts at aircraft FPV but haven't got the budget for £300 - £400 for Walksnail digital and nav computers, so it's simple analogue VTX. Problem I've had is very poor range and interference, finally last week while making another test I had a brainwave revelation as to what the issue might be! Gales here so no chance to try it yet, but what's opinion here folks? Have I cracked it?

Another very cheap foamie, but I must say I was pretty impressed with this. Flew ok straight from my hand, though a little bit too much wind for an 86g plane! At that price you're not too worried if you crash it, though that kind of rubberised foam is more durable than depron.

A while back I posted a series of 3 videos showing my return to balsa building after 12 years of messing with foamboard and foamies. Model I built was a cheap Chinese kit, Real Hawk Mini Stick, which I later discovered has been around for years under various names. Anyhow, someone on YouTube said they were looking forward to the maiden and I remembered I'd maidened it a few weeks back but hadn't finished the video, SO FINALLY HERE IT IS! Made a silly mistake again. Put on a small u/c but didn't recheck CG. Doh. Flew OK though considering! It'll be even better next time!

My latest little cheap foamie kit build. Good fun and easy to put together. I came up with an interesting way to mount the tiny little 1104 motor after discovering I didn't have any mounting screws small enough. 😋 With luck maiden will be tomorrow 🙂. Watch this space!

After its rather spicy maiden, my FX707 Albatross cheapo foamie rc build had a few tweaks and later some new test flights . Rates and expo were set properly this time and more down thrust, but the BIG QUESTION was, was the Centre of Gravity wrong? The original CG before converting this great chuck glider to a power model was 50% of the chord and didn't look right to me, but I went with it and some people online thought it looked ok on those first test flights? ANYHOW, I MADE A BIG CHANGE from 67 mm to 45 mm, more like a third. Was it an improvement? Check out the flight tests. What do you think?

How many crashes can a small foamie survive? The warts and all maiden flight of the very cheap Dancing Wings Hobby, or Black Hawk, EEP Dolphin. Perseverance pays off. Prop on back to front at one point didn't help either, but we all make mistakes right?

And cheap fun too!

Treated myself to a couple of very cheap foamies at Xmas! Keep me busy during all this rubbish winter weather in the UK. 😔 One was the FX707 Albatross chuck glider. 1.2m span, which has converted to a lovely RC plane, build and maiden on my channel. But also 2 others, also very cheap! Thought the EPP Dolphin might make an ok small FPV plane cos I'm still trying to get that to work, but without spending loads of money on Walksnail gear! This is the build blog of that and a taster of the maiden. Good fun for the money and durable.