Ep 178: Dan Landis from Boomerang RC Jets

[00:00:05] Hello everyone and welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I’m Ron, I’m Tom, I’m dave and I’m dan. It’s a and I’m dan, this time not- and I’m dave. Yeah, I already had to work, not to say, and I know I was waiting to see if you’re gonna do it. So today we’re joined by dan landis of boomerang rc jets. We are actually recording on site in his impressive doesn’t go far, that doesn’t, that doesn’t cover it, but we’ll leave it with impressive shop. Yeah, thank you for the.

[00:00:43] Invite my pleasure. Thanks for letting us crash your one man airplane party. For lack of a like this, I’m like, I’m still in awe, like everywhere you look, there’s something cool to see. I know, yeah, I’ve.

[00:00:56] Looked around and I still haven’t seen everything, because your, your eyes can’t like- yeah, it’s too much to take in. There’s probably a few times we’ll be talking and I’ll forget what I’m talking about, probably sensory over my eye. Yes, oh, absolutely, and everything’s got a story that I love, the and that’s the best part, I think. So, thanks, dan. Yeah, absolutely, speaking of stories, start tell us your.

[00:01:18] Story, my story. Who is dan? Yeah, aviation’s been in my blood forever and I just passionate about airplanes, flying, everything to do with it started. I guess we’ll start at the beginning story that some have heard. But when I was born, the first question that my father asked the doctor not how is my son, how old until he can go in the front seat of our family airplane, that was the first question. That was the first question: when can I stick my kid in the airplane?

[00:01:50] And at six months old, my baby seat was in the co-pilot seat of our 182. That’s awesome and off we went and never looked back. Having an airplane for me and in my family was a normal thing. Like I just growing up, we had an airplane and we either went and flew models during the weekend or we’d fly the full scale all the way up through- and you guys will like this story- kindergarten. My parents get a phone call and when they call dad it’s going to be bad. I’m sent to the office and they call my parents and dad has to come in and

[00:02:24] Not like. Well, what? What’s going on? Well, your son was caught lying, lying. Well, what’s he lying about? Well, he’s telling all his friends that we can go fly in the airplane and go places. And well, his imagination is great, but you can’t go around. And that was the wrong thing to go and tell, because I was at no point lying about going and flying in the airplane and the rule was: as long as my friends parents were okay with it, anybody was welcome to go. That’s awesome, and so we so naturally they thought you were lying. Yeah, because who owns an airplane like that’s just not a normal thing.

[00:02:58] It’s not common yeah what kindergartner is going to be offering airplane rides all of his buddies yeah.

[00:03:02] He’s got to be lying would have been my best friend in kindergarten. Well yeah, but it was, I mean. So we got an apology and on our way and continued flying and did the models and we flew. My grandfather flew in world war ii, so models were on the weekend. He got out of full scale after the war but models all three of us would do on the weekends and we’d go and have a great time and we’d go fly the full scale airplane. And as I started getting older, I took lessons with dad’s airplane and went all the way through and on my 16th birthday on the day, went and soloed that same airplane that I flew at six months old with dad and the following year, 17th- the youngest you can.

[00:03:38] Be to get your license. I took my check ride, passed it and got the license in that same airplane. Nice, so continued on and in high school, got called to the office again. This time it wasn’t, wasn’t me being in trouble, maker. No, no, no, this was not me being in trouble. But of course you’re like, well, what did I get caught for? Sort of thing. But no, I wasn’t in trouble. This was because for senior video, they wanted to have video of all the seniors out from the air, on the field at school. Yeah, so I’m like, well, that’s great, but that’s.

[00:04:10] Before we had cell phones with cameras that were super light and I could do this. So I’m like, well, I need to ask my friend and I have to have a friend go with me so that they can take video. And yeah, and so we went and the two of us went down and picked up the airplane, called the school ahead of time- we’ll be there in half an hour, and off we went and the entire high school got to look up and go: hey, there’s dan that’s circling overhead. And we got the video and it turned.

[00:04:35] Out pretty cool yeah so you weren’t in the video though that’s I was not in the video but what can.

[00:04:39] You do that’s before photoshop so they couldn’t like photoshop his face into cutting the face I.

[00:04:44] Mean we were still at 1500 feet so I’m not sure that you were going to see faces so you can just.

[00:04:48] Go with I was there yeah you were not to interrupt but which did you have first your flying your.

[00:04:54] Pilot license or your driver’s license. Well, so in new york, you well, in new york you can’t get your. You can get your license at 16 and a half or something. So technically I guess I had my driver’s license first, yeah, but not long after, but not on the as soon as I could get my pilot’s license. But I had been flying at that point forever and probably soloing. Oh yeah, I soloed at 16 and so, yeah, I was constantly flying. That was never a problem and there was kind of that little.

[00:05:25] Bit of. Well, we live in new york, the airplane is in jersey, my junior license is really for new york, but you’re going to fly the airplane and if you can fly the airplane safely, I’m not going to give you a hard time. But don’t get caught or you will lose all privileges. So, yeah, so dad was very good with that and I could drive to the airplane so that I could go and fly. Yeah, that’s so cool. I mean it would

[00:05:49] Be cool to say I had my pilot license before I had my driver’s license you were pretty close.

[00:05:54] As close as you could get. I mean senior year we could. We’d fly out to the beach and go and hang out and do all go to montauk point with everybody, and we did it as a family too. But I could take my friends at that point and we could go and do whatever. That’s cool. So new york then, born and raised. Born and raised in new york, grew up basically my whole life till I moved out to illinois. Well so, but we’re jumping ahead a little bit here, but so we do that. Following from the whole high school and everything my mind was that I wanted to be, at that point, an airline pilot. So

[00:06:27] Started heading towards flight school and school to do all that and did it, did all the stuff to do that and I’m a full-scale cfi flight instructor: commercial rated seaplane, multi-engine- all of the stuff that you needed. But got a phone call to go and fly large-scale uavs. So I ended up with a turn in the career path and deployed to afghanistan and iraq flying a 35 foot wingspan, 1500 pound airplane uav and do the launches and recoveries off of an

[00:06:59] Active runway with f-16s and c5s and apaches and all sorts of stuff. So q9s- nope, those were. They were in theater but not on the same base that we were on cool. So I did that for quite a few years and I had already been flying models my whole life and flying pattern and was sponsored by multiple different companies. And towards the end, towards this point now, I was flying for fataba and had been speaking to frank and don anderson and, oh, I’d love to come back and not have to.

[00:07:33] Be deploying to the, the sandbox, and on one of my return trips home they offered me a position out at habico. So came back, interviewed, talked with everybody and time frame- about when was that, would you say roughly 07, 08, 2007, 2008 time- interviewed with them, moved on out here, worked there until they sort of went out of business and were bought by horizon. Worked there for a little bit and did some other uav jobs and some training and some stuff like that for some companies and then

[00:08:07] Ended up here at boomerang and having a great time when did you for my own edification when did.

[00:08:13] You start with boomerang roughly about two years ago, okay, so it’s yeah. Well, we were having a discussion on the way here and I couldn’t remember. I know we’ve talked before about your involvement with boomerang and but I had it in my head that it’s been six or seven years and Ron, so prior, prior to.

[00:08:28] Working for them directly. I’ve always been good friends with greg, greg alderman and done a lot of flight videos and I had been doing some builds for them on the side- okay, and that’s worked. So I did do that for a couple years ahead of time, but actually working for them about two.

[00:08:45] Years yeah and what would you say your position would be called would it be a product development.

[00:08:52] I mean I guess product development a little bit of tech support for the customer service in my case.

[00:08:58] Yeah a little bit of that helping out with what with stuff when I can and helping.

[00:09:03] All the, all the guys I mean, like any of you guys and whoever, and it doesn’t whatever time, day, night, shoot me an email and give me a phone call and usually I’ll get back to you. If it’s not the same day, it’ll be within 24 hours. My experience has been pretty.

[00:09:16] Quick and I’ve a lot of experience just a couple questions I’ve yeah I’ve bent dan’s ear on.

[00:09:24] Multiple occasions, but anyway, never, never a problem, cool. So he says he looks at fun. He’s like: oh, tommy, again come on. No, no, no, not that number. Yeah, I’m dan’s Reggie. Oh, you should never compare.

[00:09:41] Yourself to him Reggie is one of our friends and you’ll meet Reggie eventually I’m sure so gotcha and.

[00:09:47] He will ask you a ton of questions and that’s okay but then never follow through well I mean.

[00:09:54] They’re those guys and that’s fine. Yeah, you can’t do anything about it. So I’ve got another buddy who’s a good customer but a very good friend as well, and he’s got me in his phone as drug dealer, because every time he calls I get that he’s getting a whole nother airplane, I get that and he’s an.

[00:10:11] Awesome dude. Yeah, in fact, my wife lori, when I told her what we’re doing today, she’s like, oh, you’re gonna go talk to your dealer, that’s what we’re doing. I mean that’s true, that’s yeah, it could be worse, it could be so much, totally could be. Yeah, we could be like I don’t know- not to offend anybody out there, but like a bass fisherman, right, how much are their boats? 80 Grand, whatever it is. I’m not asking for 80 000 for a boat right now, but airplane, I mean we’re working up to it, yeah, I mean, my other hobby still is the full-scale stuff, yeah, which are not cheap.

[00:10:46] By the way, yeah, I long, long, long time ago I had my private, okay, and yeah, I haven’t flown in probably 20 plus years. It’s expensive hobby, so I get it, it is, it is, but dan was gracious enough to look over my boomerang ranger before we started recording, and these are his words, it’s not mine. He said it was perfect, so I don’t recall that at all. As a matter of fact, I think.

[00:11:11] He gave you a laundry list but it looks very nice thank you should have seen his face when he’s.

[00:11:18] Looking at he’s like why did you hear that? I don’t know. He said very good job. He just said that those words right for a toddler, for a toddler, oh, you did good enough, right, right. So let’s talk. I want to go back to hobbyco, sure. So what did you do for hobbyco? Or great planes? So the technical.

[00:11:41] Term, the name that they gave the position was the outreach marketing manager, which so I did a lot of events and I traveled around and I did demos and talks and went to some schools and did that whole sort of thing and that was great. But in the office stuff, unfortunately I was working on the car side of things which didn’t really have a whole lot of interest, but bringing in some of the thunder tiger stuff. So I did some of their helis and stuff, but it just wasn’t necessarily what was my peaked interest, but it was overall still in the hobby and

[00:12:14] Doing all that sort of stuff and going to all the flying events and I’d work with fataba on some stuff.

[00:12:20] So all that was good maybe not quite as fulfilling as it not quite what I had been.

[00:12:26] Looking for or what I was told originally and kept being told: oh, you’re gonna move to the airplane team, you’re gonna move to the airplane team. And that never quite happened, but I mean it wasn’t bad. I still went to all the airplane events and did all that. So it was, it was okay. More fun working for boomerang, a lot more fun working for boomerang. The end of the time, though, with hobbyco the last year or so, I actually did get to be the, the manager of team fataba. So that was fun, getting to work with all the guys and do all that. So it was. It was actually very good. They were not bad guys at all. It was easy to work with them, cool.

[00:13:01] Yeah I was sorry to see hobbyco go under or cease operations however you.

[00:13:08] Want to put it, upper management had zero modeling, wouldn’t take any advice from the modelers on what new products, new ideas, new things. I mean, I came to them with the idea of, well, let’s do something with jets six or seven years ago. No, no, no, nobody’s going to get into that. And now look, the jet market is the growing market. Yeah, yeah, I don’t know. Yeah, so that’s one thing I was. I was wondering too, you’ve

[00:13:35] Been in rc we’ll kind of keep this question to that since you were yeah the picture of you holding.

[00:13:43] Was that an old craft radio that is an old craft radio and it looks like my shirt is from the los.

[00:13:48] Angeles olympics in 90 in 84 is what that shirt says 1980 that’s before Ron was born no it’s not.

[00:13:57] Wait, no, it’s not. That’s sad. Hold on, no. So obviously, with that and other things, you’ve seen changes throughout the years. You’ve seen just one or two, what? What do you think of like where the hobby is going as opposed to where it’s been? What do you think of how much things have progressed, like jets now, or I mean I, I’d say it, but it’s more of a common thing than, oh, it is absolutely. I mean it has been any time in the history of the hobby. It’s the same with radios. Radios are a lot different.

[00:14:27] Than the craft radio from 1984.. 100, I mean it’s, it’s been phenomenal. The improvements are just incredible. The, the new models, what we can do, what we can make fly it- just stuff that we couldn’t do years and years and years ago. It’s, it’s awesome. I mean we’re at the leading edge of all of it and it’s it’s super exciting to see the. The jets are the new thing, but they’re price wise. It’s not that they’re inexpensive, but everybody’s now done 40 percenters, 35 percenters and

[00:14:58] You can get into a jet for the same price as that. So instead of getting your third 40 percenter and people are looking at, oh well, let’s go and try this next part of the hobby, and it’s no more expensive than what you’ve already been, what you’ve been used to. Yeah so would you say costs have come down. Oh, certainly costs have come down. The amount of equipment that you need for a jet has come down. I mean, back in the day you needed a scuba tank to get it started and all sorts of other stuff, right, I mean now they’re as easy, basically, as an electric.

[00:15:32] Yeah, I mean, it’s not wrong. Clicks on my throttle, trim and move the stick up and down and it starts itself. If it doesn’t start, it’s a problem and you send it back to the manufacturer. Yeah, it’s like you’re electric. If it doesn’t go, there’s something wrong. Yeah, you’re not sitting there with needles and getting. Is it the plugs? Is it the needles? Is it my fuel? Is there a block here? Is the diaphragm bad? It’s that simple. Go and play. Yeah, yeah, it’s impressive and ease of.

[00:16:00] Access, yeah, and something that we as outsiders, modelers, not involved in the development of the hobby, that in the day by day, yeah, that I think we take for granted sometimes is the amount of work it has taken to get to where we’re at now. Like it has, like, how long did they develop brushless motors? Like brushless motors revolutionized the hobby, and LiPos and LiPos and all that stuff. We don’t think about like the years of development and work it took to get to that point. So, like the exponential growth that we’ve seen in the hobby industry has been due to guys like you, dan, and

[00:16:36] And everyone else that has done the work and put in the years of r&d to make that happen, and for that I’m thankful. I mean, could you imagine where we’d be if we were still rebuilding?

[00:16:48] Brushed electric motors or doing nitro stuff still and oh actually that might be kind of cool.

[00:16:54] Every once in a while nitro is fun keyword is once in a while yeah kind of as a nod to the past.

[00:17:01] But not a daily thing you want to do. Right here we exactly in the snow. I don’t miss nitro at all. Yeah, even in the warm weather, I don’t miss nitro. You can’t miss what you never had.

[00:17:15] Oh that’s true you didn’t have much nitro Ron I did though not a lot but I’ve had enough to know I didn’t like it.

[00:17:25] So, okay, the newest thing is boomerang. You were with boomerang, you’re working with them, you’re doing a bunch of exciting airplanes and stuff. Oh, absolutely, can you tell us the history boomerang? How did it come to be, how did you come to be a part of it and what’s what’s next for you?

[00:17:42] Guys. Sure so boomerang was started in the uk- rough numbers- about 20 years ago. A gentleman that wanted a sport jet that was simple to fly and started with basically a twin boom like the elan and the sprints that you see currently, which I like- the elan, by the way, a lot- absolutely great flying airplane and, and that’s where it started, was something those designs over there and he took the company as about as far as he could go with it for about 15 or 16 years. A gentleman in the united

[00:18:16] States was very interested in the airplanes and liked them, but it was hard to get them over here, so he started talking with them and figuring out things. And next thing, larry went and bought the company and moved it over here and he was still a one-man operation. So it was still. He grew it as best he could for a one-person job, as a part-time job- yeah, that was a side gig, correct. And he- he did a phenomenal job and he would go and visit the factories and did everything right, but it was still one person, was hard to do everything that you need to do, so he

[00:18:49] Took it where he could and we found out that it was for sale. Or sam, the owner of heli direct, found out that it was for sale and they started talking and worked out a good number and, lo and behold, sam bought boomerang and now it’s one of the companies that heli direct owns and that’s the portion of heli direct that I work for, and so we’re doing all sorts of new designs and we’re still keeping with the twin boom. We still have the elan and the sprint and they fly phenomenal. Yeah, I’m so happy those are still part of the product catalog. Oh, absolutely, and they’re not going anywhere. I forgot how good they.

[00:19:23] Really do fly. I’ve been working on a new motor or a new turbine and testing that out and put it in a sprint because it was an easy airframe to put together and fly it everywhere and fly a lot.

[00:19:35] It’s just a blast, absolutely a great flying airplane, not just a trainer, but truly a sport airplane and you guys can go and I posted some videos of playing with it down to my parents house over thanksgiving and christmas and I truly forgot how much fun that airframe could be. So it’s, it’s just a great airplane- not going anywhere but playing with that stuff, and so that’s kind of where boomerang had gone to and now we’re getting into the high-end composite airplanes that are all

[00:20:05] The fancy painting in the live skin hinges and just you name it, it’s gonna have it. We’ve got lights and stuff. We’ve got the gear doors now on the f16 and, working with ftl- we’re the us distributor for the ftl models- any of the custom paint jobs that you want- and reach out to us directly and we can do what you want and figure out how to get it to you and how quickly you need it. Yeah, so how?

[00:20:27] Did that? Not to interrupt. I do that a lot, by the way, because I have to say things. If I don’t write them down, I forget them. But how did that? Collaboration with ftl? Well, what is ftl? Ftl is a manufacturer.

[00:20:40] And they’re overseas, do phenomenal work. And it was a sam and the owner of ftl were friends and they said, hey, you want to check out one of our airplanes? And they sent over the original atom and a j10 last year late december and got them. Saw the quality immediately was just incredible and something that we definitely wanted to pursue and work with them. And it just blew up from there and we did phenomenal with atoms and j10s over the summer and couldn’t, couldn’t keep them in.

[00:21:14] Stock. So come october we had some big meetings and became the us distributor for that product and they’re just for their products and that’s where it’s where it’s gone and cool. They’ve got some incredible stuff on the on the market. Now that we have more coming, they’re also doing design work for us. We’ve got airplanes that we’ve designed and that they’re they’re putting together or doing all the molds and that stuff in the future. So it’s it’s not a short-term thing.

[00:21:45] We’ve got a whole long-term plan here. Oh, that’s awesome. So more cool stuff. Oh, yes, yes, things, things that you’ve never seen before, exciting, exciting. I don’t know, I just, I just think it’s really exciting. I.

[00:21:57] Know, I know you do. I mean that. What they can do, the custom painting, it’s just whatever you can think of we can do. It seems like as a modeler right now. As a modeler, like, if you want a certain jet and a certain color in a certain size, you can just call up boomerang, say, yeah, I want this, and like we’re not far away from being able to make stuff like that just happen. It’s crazy to me. Yeah, it’s, I don’t know. It’s so awesome to be in the hobby right now and not just with jets by the

[00:22:32] Way. I mean there’s like a whole everything, yeah, everything, everything speaking. Oh, go ahead, no, go on. No, I was gonna say, speaking of everything, is there anything in the hobby that you haven’t done?

[00:22:42] Dan, I’ve flown control line. I’ve flown helicopters. I’ve raced cars on road. I’ve raced cars off road. I’ve done pattern. I’ve done imac. I haven’t pylon raced. That would be kind of fun to do.

[00:22:56] Okay, I don’t know, I’ve done a lot, yeah, flown lots of different things right. So I met dan. Well, I met you- not joe noll last year, but the noll previous- for the first time and in that first meeting I was like, oh, this guy’s pretty cool. Nice, he seems like a cool dude. Yeah, he’s in a jets who had no idea that you were an accomplished pattern competitor, like placed like in some very, very high profile events, multiple times top 10 national finalist. I had no clue who I was talking.

[00:23:31] To. I mean, you’re quite an accomplished pilot. I’m just gonna say thank you and I- and you don’t come across that way- like that was not my impression when I first met you, but I first met you’re like: hey, he’s a jet salesman, okay, cool, but there’s so much more. And so the first time you

[00:23:49] Met tommy what your impression of him was like I don’t want to know god don’t tell me I don’t know.

[00:23:53] Not at all, not at all. This guy, no, yeah, I, I really do enjoy. I mean, part of the cool thing at boomerang is we have a lot of the new. The new jet guys do come to us and you see the excitement and the wanting to learn and it’s a hobby, right, this isn’t schoolwork. You’re here because you want to get into a jet, you want to have the fun of flying a jet, you want to ask the questions, you want to learn. I love to share. I mean that’s part of why I keep my full-scale flight instructor rating current is so that I can go and share that experience of flying with people like I. I enjoy that.

[00:24:27] That’s super cool to me yeah Ron you should get your license you’ve talked about I would love to but.

[00:24:34] I don’t have the money now. Somebody who instructs there. You go right across the table from you. I know Ron. This is dan. Dan, this is. You’ve taken my thoughts away. Yeah, because I’ve said it once now, apparently that’s what I have to do. Well, yeah, I mean it’s fun. I bet it would be like I, I can.

[00:24:55] Only imagine oh there’s all sorts of cool airplanes to fly I know yeah I know that’s for sure no it’s not.

[00:25:01] Going to work. So, speaking of flying full size, since you’re experienced in both full size and model, would you say that experiences from one benefit the other? Oh, absolutely how. So please elaborate.

[00:25:17] Just initially. Either one in enables you to understand what the parts are of the airplane and how they work and what they’re supposed to do. So you’ve got just the simple understanding of the parts on the airplane, but then you understand how they work. So all of that, and if you have more, more times you have failures in the model, but it kind of does sort of carry over. I mean, not exactly, but if something goes wrong here you can troubleshoot back and forth between full scale and what in your mind.

[00:25:47] From how you would do things one way to another. But even the flying, you understand, sort of the lefts and the rights and up and down. Now full scale pilots always do get confused. When the airplane’s now coming at you- because that’s the biggest change, right like when it’s going away, it’s just like you’re in the airplane. But when it’s coming at you and you’ve got 100 hours of actual pilot time, you’re like: wait, what do I do now? Which? Which way do I roll? And

[00:26:13] Yeah so would you say that’s more difficult to overcome if you are also yes if you’re if you’re a full.

[00:26:18] Scale pilot starting into models it’s a little bit more difficult not bad but it just you have.

[00:26:23] To think about it, to overcome that. Yeah, yeah, and you mentioned like learning what each part of the airplane does like. I don’t know if it’s still that way, but in ground school, prior to getting my license, they teach you a base, kind of a basic understanding of aerodynamics. Absolutely, this is how a wing generates lift and how a flap works and what it does. So you have that understanding. I can definitely see how that would benefit. Moving into models, but I didn’t know if models benefited going the other way. Well, for aerobatics, for example, you.

[00:26:53] Understand how the aerobatics work in the model. It’s definitely different full scale, but you understand the concept of what you’re doing. I mean, take a roll. A roll is more than just aileron. As you go through a roll, you’re adding a throttle, you’re adding a rudder. There’s down elevator, there’s opposite rudder coming back to upright and just adjusting everything. It’s not just bang the stick over and then you go and do it full scale it’s. It’s a lot more work because you’re physically there and you’re, you’re fighting all the forces actually with your arm and going upside down and having zero g, depending.

[00:27:26] On what you’re doing and all of that you’re, but you understand the concept of what the maneuver should look like and, roughly, how to do it. Yeah, cool, what? Why are you staring at me? I was just

[00:27:38] Looking because I thought you’re going on to something else I don’t I didn’t know no I was just asking.

[00:27:42] If the two benefited each other it sounds like they do absolutely in my experience full-scale.

[00:27:46] Pilots are my hardest students yeah well I agree but they understand the concepts yes they.

[00:27:52] Understand how it worked, but they’re not getting that seat of the pants feedback and they just get. They’re not feeling those g’s through the yeah, through the seat of their pants. Yeah, I get it.

[00:27:59] Yep sweet so switching back to rc okay sponsored pilot by jr correct and so.

[00:28:11] You’ve obviously had experience in all the different brands of radios, right you? You understand jr, you obviously understand fitaba, because you used to fly with them. Also, jr and spectrum were together at one point. Now they’re- now they’re separate, the protocols, completely different protocols, and all that. So, drawing from all that experience of all the different radio brands, is there, is there anything that? So if somebody was on the fence they were going to make the plunge and.

[00:28:43] Buy a high-end let’s say radio system is there is there certain features that people should look for.

[00:28:50] Or is it all marketing? It’s what’s comfortable, to be honest, with you, I mean what feels good in your hands. What? What do you like? The, the programming, what makes sense to you there? There are certain protocols that I like better than others. Sure, there are fields that I like. I like to have a little bit of weight in my radio. I don’t want it to have this toy sort of feeling. What can you do with the radios, the programming, for what your specific need is it’s? It’s hard to give you one per se, but for me, being a pattern,

[00:29:25] Guy, the gimbals on my jr. There’s nothing on the market that I have felt that has gimbals that are as smooth and crisp and clean as my elite or my matrix. Okay, so, and what kind of gimbals are those? They’re machined aluminum and they’re just. They’re ball bearing, they’re just.

[00:29:41] Smooth. They’re just right where you want to have a hall effect pickup. Well, the reason I ask is: dave is getting ready to switch. Okay, he’s. He’s abandoning the long held spectrum. I’m leaving the protocol and he’s going to make the jump to fr sky, free sky. I’m not sure how that’s pronounced. I don’t either. I don’t know. I’m not sure either. So he’s getting ready to try something different. Yep, and I didn’t know if maybe you had some insight as to what sort of things to

[00:30:11] To look for or maybe to I mean the purchase is already made but I have not used.

[00:30:16] That radio. So I, I couldn’t, unfortunately, be any help. I mean most of the others I can. I can stumble my way through a spectrum, a jetty, a fataba jr, I can. I can help you out. I would certainly try, I, but I

[00:30:29] Have no background in that radio it’s going to be a wide open learning experience yeah only thing I.

[00:30:35] Know is jr fataba and spectrum. So I’m excited for you, like you’ve had your issues with spectrum and all of your spectrum stuff is dated. It’s not fresh, I’m dated, so it was, it was time. I’m I’m more dated than you, so I think, or we’re within a few months, whatever, but it was time to refresh anyway. So, yeah, it’s time to upgrade and it’s time for a change and let’s try something different for a change. Excellent, and it’s red, and it’s red, red, red. Okay, it’s an.

[00:31:09] Anodized aluminum red yeah it’s got 10 ball bearings it’s machined all cnc yeah hall effect so I’m.

[00:31:17] Hoping it’s going to have some very nice, smooth gimbals. Excellent. Yeah, yours, Ron, on your ix20 there, with the aluminum also on the se. Yeah, yeah, so I’ll be the only one at the table with plastic.

[00:31:29] Gimbals sorry I mean you might be able to change that I don’t know so having never really flown.

[00:31:35] A lot with the aluminum gimbals I don’t know what I’m missing so I’m happily it’s it’s hard to quantify.

[00:31:41] But I like them I mean it they feel stronger they feel more precise whatever but at the end of the.

[00:31:48] Day it just feels better. Yeah, that they agree, totally agree. Random thought. So being sponsored by jr, what does that mean? Like you, you buy stuff at cost, or they give you stuff, or is it all of that?

[00:32:02] It all depends- I mean it’s it depends on what you’ve done and all or all of that. But the biggest thing is that I’m a representative and you got a question. You can come and ask me anything and, being a jr guy, yet jr is my primary radio that I fly. But I’m someone that you can come and ask. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the radio question. You look for any of the team guys and across the board, pretty much any of them are going to be willing to help you out with whatever you’ve got: brand wise, airplane wise- we’re all just normal guys and I’ve won a couple

[00:32:36] Of national championships. So that helps. I’m out in the public and talk to people and go to events. So it’s it’s a phase to go with the company and that you can go to that person or come to me and ask a jr question and if I don’t have the answer I will get it for you or we’ll figure it out. But I’ll also help you. You need help tuning your gas engine. That’s somebody, that’s an outgoing person happy to help you come and I’m happy to help you work on that stuff too, so it’s not just finite to one spot here. So I don’t know much about jr radios.

[00:33:09] I. So the way it happened for me is the first airplane I bought- I mean it’s funny how we, I guess, choose what we go with right- first airplane I bought, without even a thought, came with a dx4 spectrum. Dx4 you, just without constant or without making the decision in your mind, I just stuck with that without knowing there was other things, without knowing what else was out there. So I’m big into the, the spectrum radio thing and all that kind of stuff, without knowing jr what like price.

[00:33:43] Wise comparable to what you can get with spectrum like you can get entry-level spectrum for.

[00:33:50] I want to say four or five hundred bucks all the way up to the nx8 would be, would be about that price range which I consider a full right, not just like a full spectrum kind of thing. Oh yeah, all the way up.

[00:34:04] To like the ix20 se which is what 1800 bucks yeah 700 bucks something like that so what does jr have.

[00:34:10] We’ve got two different 14 channel radios and pricing depends on which one you go with. But you can get the one, that’s the. The four to five hundred is price range. You can bump up a little bit more changes, some of the internal programming and some of the gimbals, and that one’s I don’t know six to eight hundred again. I don’t remember all the numbers off the top of my head, so please forgive me there. Then you jump up from there to like the matrix, which is a full 20 plus endless number with x bus channel radio and you can do whatever you want and

[00:34:43] I want to say roughly 1800, and from there we can go up to the elite, which 25 ish hundred, which again is completely open-ended. Do whatever you can imagine, and there’s no end to what you can.

[00:34:55] Program and what you can do with the radio nice and it comes with a novel for a manual.

[00:35:03] Actually it’s really thin it’s an sd card I was gonna say it should come online with as much.

[00:35:09] As much as things change, it should just be a link to: here’s our: our newest and most updated. My 8103 came and the book was a good three words. Financial, yeah, yep, yeah, yeah, but there’s no changing on those. There’s no updates. There’s no, no, yeah, that was a one and done. Yeah, what you get is what you.

[00:35:26] Get is what you get, and you don’t throw a fit. Some people do. Well, I loved my 8103. I still have my 8103. I still have mine too. I haven’t turned. I flew an airplane with it a year ago. Yeah, I have one.

[00:35:39] Of my original 10x’s haven’t turned it on in forever right that’s that’s how long ago yeah man.

[00:35:45] That was a in its day. That was a awesome radio it was. I had the predecessor to that. I had the x347, which in its day was pretty amazing. It’s crazy, what day would that have been? I mean like 90s? 90S, that didn’t seem that long ago. Yeah, it’s 25 years ago. I mean I get it, but plus, when you’re.

[00:36:08] Talking about these huge changes oh yeah radios and all that kind of stuff it’s no time at all it.

[00:36:12] Doesn’t seem like it’s just a blank, and it went from 72 megahertz to mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, seemed like it happened overnight. It was quick. Yeah, I still got a wideband. Am fataba, you let me know when you’re.

[00:36:26] Going to fly that and I won’t be in the field yeah I will be watching from the safety of my.

[00:36:31] Vehicle from afar. Yeah, yeah, I can’t imagine in today’s radio environment what that thing’s going to act like. Yeah, exactly, it’s in a goldberg. It’s in my goldberg electric, which I never fly. Yeah, the amount of. Oh no, I take that back. I narrow-banded the receiver so it’s a wideband transmitter, but so.

[00:36:47] It’s a gold sticker then nice you remember those days gold stickers yeah vaguely that was a little.

[00:36:52] But before I was old enough to remember dang it there I go showing my age again yeah that’s what.

[00:36:59] We do- that’s funny- make fun of you because he’s really young. I’m not really young, but comparatively, oh. So one thing you said earlier that I wanted to kind of circle back to was the custom color schemes. How exactly does that work? Because, like, if somebody draws, like did somebody just draw something up and say I want it to look like this, and then you have to so you make it fit, you reach out to no, yeah, yeah.

[00:37:26] Like there’s curves and stuff. You reach out to us or to me and you give me your rough design or ask for a three view and I’ll get you a three view of whatever the model that you. If you want to do an atom, I’ll get you a three view of an atom. You sketch what you want on there, I’ll send it over to my team. You’re sketching and we’ll put it onto an actual computer. Unless you did it, all computer generated we’ll, we’ll play with that and get that right and we’ll get your approval. Once we get your approval on our rendering, then we’ll go ahead and have it painted and we’ll send you.

[00:37:56] Pictures from the factory and make sure it’s what you were wanting and hoping and then we’ll get it.

[00:38:00] Sent over nice that is crazy that is it is nuts anymore that you can just yeah oh it’s like I was.

[00:38:06] Saying earlier, like you can almost, we’re almost- to the point where you can call dan, say: dan, I want an f18 in this scale, at this particular power level, and I want it to look like this one. Go make it and then six months later you’ve got one. It’s, it’s crazy, like we’re getting- we’re like almost there- pretty much nuts. Oh yeah, to me it’s. It’s just what. Like I said earlier, what a great time to be in the

[00:38:33] Hobby. I mean, all it takes is money. That’s it, that’s the hard part, that’s it absolutely so boomerang, most popular model right now. What are you guys seeing? Right now, it’s the atom hands down and the

[00:38:47] Atom is just flying out the shelves, and when would that have been released, by the way? So we released it. We showed it at. Jonah was the initial show of the airplane, and then, just before jets over kentucky, we got them in. So we had them at jets over kentucky for sale. Sorry, jonah, 23 or.

[00:39:04] Four, four, 24. Okay, last year I couldn’t remember which one it was. I knew that’s where we saw it in person first, but I couldn’t remember where. That was it last year? The yellow one that I had.

[00:39:14] There was the original prototype, which has now been sold to a buddy of mine. I built the pink one that was flew for most of the year. Yep, love the pink one, and it was great, loved it. We were at georgia jets. A buddy of ours saw it, our customer, and was like I have to have that airplane, I have to have it right now. And off it went. So now we’ve got the red, white and blue one sitting behind me here that I put together, and this one we did the more I look at that. That grows on me too. And this one was cool, though, because I went the complete opposite end of the spectrum: the, the pink.

[00:39:46] One we did with a 180 and thrust vectoring and all the cool stuff like that. I wanted to see what I could do light wise and built it stock but as light as I could with no thrust vectoring and a 102 in there and it’s 21 pounds add fuel lighter than my ranger. Yep yeah, which, for the size, is amazing.

[00:40:02] It’s awesome yeah what’s the wingspan difference between the two I don’t remember the numbers off.

[00:40:08] The top of my head but it’s probably about 10 inches it’s a good size wing area yeah especially.

[00:40:15] For three or four pounds lighter. Yeah you, sorry, you talked about thrust vectoring and this was something I wanted to ask you, but I’ll go ahead and ask you on the podcast. So the thrust, the nozzle, right it’s, it’s mounted to the pipe, to the pipe. Is there any worry with the lengthening of the pipe when it gets hot? Changing the trim? No, nothing, that, nothing that I’ve seen. No, okay, do you have to set it up hot or you just set it up on the bench cold? And I set it up here in the workshop, went and

[00:40:43] Flew and didn’t have any problems never thought twice about it I don’t know it was a random thought I.

[00:40:48] Had because you’re overthinking things. Yeah, I tend to do that. He does that a lot. Yeah, can’t help it detail oriented. That’s what I prefer. There you go. I like it that way. There you go. Yeah, that sounds all right. So boomerang new stuff. You’ve already touched on what’s new that you can talk about. So we’ve got the f-16. That we’ve shown. It’s on the website, which is sitting right over.

[00:41:13] There, yep, there’s the one sitting right here that was their prototype and flies phenomenal, really enjoying that. One really sets it off. Yeah, I like that, yeah. And then we’ve got the two color schemes that we’re actually going to carry in stock so you’ll be able to get them and parts whenever you want them. We can certainly, again, like we said, do custom, but we chose two color schemes that are going to be a stock scheme, and one of them is your, the 2024 viper demo team, so the red, white and blue demo team scheme, which is super sharp, and the other is a- I don’t want to say, standard gray.

[00:41:45] Because it’s your gray military but it’s not your standard. We’ve never seen another f-16 like this kind of very bright, with a bright vertical fin, bright yellow vertical fin and a neat little character on there. But then the horizontal stabs are black, with yellow diamonds on them as well, something that we had never seen that sort of color scheme done or even a custom one of that done anywhere, so we went with something a little bit different. There they both look really.

[00:42:09] Good some high viz yes very important when you’re and they’ve got all the lights and the gear.

[00:42:14] Doors and all the fun stuff and you’ve got some time on the f-16 and how would you describe the way.

[00:42:20] It flies. I think it flies great. It’s it’s a point and shoot and it goes where you want it. It’s easy, it I have yet to find bad characteristics for it- and it just it goes. It’ll fly anything from an 85 to a 190. So I mean, if you want to do vectoring, we will have the kit for a kit available to add on to your pipe for that. But I’ve got a 130. It’s a monster on a 130. A 100 would probably be the ideal engine for if you’re just wanting to fly the airplane and whatnot, a 100 would be great. Also keep it light.

[00:42:51] All right, so that’s the f-16. What else got the new mini viper? It’s a little bit bigger than the 90 size e-flight red viper and I love the color on this one and that’s one of the production colors. So it’s: it’s a neon, bright pink, black and yellow trim. It’s all composite, composite live skin hinged. It’s going to come with the edf setup and when I say that so it’ll have a composite thrust tube, we will have the turbine conversion which will have your aluminum thrust tube and your fuel tank available.

[00:43:24] You buy everything together, you save a couple bucks. That way, great airplane, nice airplane, small size- yeah, it’s a great which is great, so it can fit in the back of your car, even in one piece. I do have to take it apart, but it’ll fit in the back of the corvette so I can take the little car to the field too, sometimes nice, and actually fly a little car. I say fun car, but yeah.

[00:43:44] Little car fun car all the same thing here yeah exactly no it’s a great size and I love the.

[00:43:49] Fluorescent pink like it stands out. I knew I liked it. I wasn’t sure I flew it and was like that’s pretty cool. It looks really sharp in the sky. Yeah, when the sun hits, that I can imagine. Yeah, and I’ve flown that one on everything from a 35 to a 70 and it’s phenomenal. I went back to a 55 as just an average normal size turbine and five minute flight time and I still have probably two.

[00:44:13] Minutes left in the tank. Nice, real nice. Thank you, yeah, I think. Yeah, I like that one. All right. Anything else, any other ones that you can talk about? I know there’s stuff you can’t talk about.

[00:44:25] That. That’s kind of what the main stuff we are going to be doing. The atom is a plug and play. We will be cool, so it’ll be the four color schemes that we’ve got, but it’ll have all of our torque servos in it. Landing gear in pipe will be in. Yeah, basically add your batteries, your gyro.

[00:44:42] And your turbine similar setup to the f16 plug and play yep kind of the same idea same.

[00:44:48] Exact concept as that, so that’ll be your end of february with the f16s, cool, yeah. And then there’s a bunch more stuff that’s on the bench that we can’t quite talk about. I’m excited like I’m.

[00:45:00] Excited. The next six to eight months to a year are going to be awesome. Yeah, there’s lots of stuff. The custom painting really stands out to me like now I’m really starting to think about.

[00:45:14] Yeah I’m envisioning getting a crayon drawing here aren’t I it won’t look much nicer this is what I.

[00:45:21] Want. I know, I know my weaknesses. We’ll make it work. So tommy obviously is in the market for a second jet because he rushes into things and just isn’t finished with this first one yet, but it’s okay. Coming upon a second one, I mean it’s finished what? You haven’t flown it so well, but it’s finished. It’s not finished. You haven’t, you haven’t ran the motor, so nothing, stuff’s not hooked up. No, plus, you have a list of things to do to it that you messed up from dan that he pointed out.

[00:45:47] But what would you push him to for a second turbine within the boomerang catalog assuming.

[00:45:53] Honestly, I would. I would, yeah, I would go right for an atom. Yeah, assuming I’m able to fly the ranger, I would go to the atom and in. Realistically, the atom is just a true. The ranger is a great airplane too, but the atom for a sport jet- all composite and everything, yeah, it’s just it’ll cover and do everything that you want it to do and you can stay with it for a while. Your 100 will be great. You want more power. A 130 will just make it a missile. You want to do vectoring. You can keep going bigger. There’s lots of stuff that one airframe can really do and you can stick with.

[00:46:26] The one airframe yep yeah so if you don’t need a trailer right it will fit in the average.

[00:46:31] Suv. Yeah, without a problem, and that will fit, no problem. It’s not that much longer, honestly, than the. If it’s a little bit longer, but it’s not. It’s not much, yeah. So yeah, but the plan would be to build it light first, kind of like what you’ve done with your last one, and then, yeah, if I want to try something a little more power and thrust vectoring, you can add it later, absolutely. So that’s, I think that’s. Yeah, I’m just thinking about custom colors now. I really like that fluorescent pink down there. Oh, I.

[00:47:00] Was thinking you’re going like 70s mauve. No, no, I’ve done that and I know I got enough flack for it. I don’t think I’ll do that again. We hope so, dan. You’ve been involved in a lot of different, obviously, plane types. Do you have a favorite? That has always just kind of been like I need to relax. This is not necessarily my go-to plane, but my go-to type of plane. Or does it change throughout? It changes, but

[00:47:28] I mean it, there’s not just one time. I mean last year I did not fly one of my gasoline airplanes at all, not, and it wasn’t even that I didn’t want to. I just had all the jets and was flying the jets and that was just. But I found them as relaxing as the other stuff and you were doing a lot of development also. Well, absolutely. But I mean I fly other people’s airplanes and like: and I’ve got the world war one airplanes and I’ve got all this and that and flown this and help this guy out and

[00:47:58] Flying is just fun. It doesn’t matter what you’re flying, I mean, and even when I fly a full scale- and I’ve been lucky enough to fly everything from piper cubs to l39s- they’re all fun, it’s. Whatever one I’m flying right now is the fun airplane, it doesn’t matter.

[00:48:13] Yeah, and judging by the number of airplanes which I’m gonna, we’re gonna circle back to that- and the types here, yeah, you don’t seem to have a preference. You like them all, I do. I mean, there was.

[00:48:23] A year. This is going back. Is it two years ago, I think? At the us scale nationals I flew my big l39, my foker d7 and in team scale I flew a friend super chipmunk and took first across the board with all three different genres of airplanes. So from jet to world war, one biplane to super chipmunk and we just it. Just they’re fun airplanes and an airplane’s an airplane and just fly it. Yeah, which is

[00:48:53] Something, because they don’t all fly the same, not even different, different techniques, not even close so to yeah, to do something like that, that’s a testament to pilot skill, thank you. So something I like to ask our, our guests, oh yeah, and we ask this of our on our surveys too that we send out to our listeners: what’s your number meaning? How many airplanes do you currently?

[00:49:22] Have flyable right now can you even count so when we end this podcast I’m gonna let you go through the.

[00:49:31] House and count them suffice it to say it’s a number that I don’t I really don’t want to count.

[00:49:36] Basically everything in the house with updated batteries is ready to fly nice it’s a lot yeah.

[00:49:44] Yeah it’s a lot cool so yeah we’re not gonna try but it’s in the hundreds I would say it’s triple.

[00:49:51] Digits easily. And whatever didn’t fit here is down at dad’s and they’ve got a whole separate outbuilding- that the entire rafter section of the outbuilding is filled from front to back with more airplanes.

[00:50:02] Do you ever get to a point where you are in one of these outbuildings, you’re like I forgot all about that airplane all the time, and then it brings back a really good memory of whatever and

[00:50:14] Why you’re hanging on to it and that’s why we keep and you don’t ever get resale value so the memory.

[00:50:19] Value to me is more important than trying to sell something like that. Explain that to Ron. He doesn’t understand that like he gets. He gives me a hard time about nostalgia and why I hang on to certain.

[00:50:29] Things. He, he gets it, dan gets it. I mean, if you looked his pulsar right here. Yeah, that was my grandfather’s airplane. See, I have since he passed. We’ve never flown it again, but it’s a great memory. I mean one of the silly memories with that airplane. I remember he would take that to the car store when he would go to buy a new car dealer. A car dealer when he’d go to buy a car. If the airplane didn’t fit in the trunk, the car was not coming home with him. Yeah, yeah, see, Ron would have sold or thrown away.

[00:50:58] That airplane years ago? No, no, if it was his grandpa’s, absolutely not, but I don’t have any airplane that goes back far enough. Oh, my history. Yeah, but since I only started, yeah, but you still have a, for your had a first airplane, yes, but it was, let’s be honest, it was not like an airplane that you’d be like, oh, that’s so cool. That was my first. It was a piece of foam. Yep, that first airplane, though, so nostalgia. Do you keep the first paper airplane you ever made? Well, no, well, I mean, so I get it. I.

[00:51:31] Mean beer. Beer coolers don’t usually stick around, but I mean then their story ones and that millennium master. It’s a foam airplane up there, but you’ll notice all the paint off of the leading edge of the wing. We played airplane bowling. Airplane bowling- you remember the like little kid bowling pins, the, the plastic lightweight ones that you put in the house? Yeah, we put them on the center line of the runway. You couldn’t touch the wheels, knock them over and keep flying. That’s a great idea, I’m not gonna lie. It was just. It was a club like a lot. It was just something that the club guys came up with.

[00:52:03] And so that’s a cool airplane worked out perfectly yeah we need to do more fun fly things like that.

[00:52:08] I agree what else what other ideas do you have never heard of that before that’s awesome.

[00:52:13] Balloons, out balloons. Same thing. How time take off. Loop roll landing. Yeah, we used to do this. As many loops as you could do in groups. Loops climb. Who could go glide the longest? Who could do the most rolls non-stop? Nice, those are things. Spot landing. I mean it doesn’t have to be.

[00:52:33] Anything complicated yeah and those will also develop your skills as a pilot yeah oh absolutely yeah.

[00:52:41] See we’ve never done club things like that before well our club hasn’t really done anything like.

[00:52:48] That. So we haven’t had an opportunity. Yeah, that’s what I said. Yeah, that was what I was trying to get to. Oh okay, sorry, haven’t had the opportunity to rise. You should do like fun, fly kind of thing you should. That’s anyway too much work anyway. Yeah, so cool. Too many to count is the bottom line pretty much. Yeah, and that’s cool. I’m okay with that. So that’s all I got. What do you guys think? I’m still looking around and taking it in, I know, and this is just one room, this is like there’s a

[00:53:20] There’s another room apparently behind us that he hasn’t even shown us yet.

[00:53:25] It keeps going, it does, it does. It’s awesome. Well, thank you, yeah, dan. Thank you very, very much for sitting down with us and letting us- my pleasure- invade your space. Thank you again for looking over anytime. Anytime when you’re ready to fly, let me know. Yeah, we’ll do. You’ll probably be the first one to fly, so my pleasure, you’re okay with that, absolutely happy to help. Very small list of things that I don’t even need to fix. There’s a list. They were suggestions and I’m going to take them. So he looked at it and said: why would you do it like that? That’s, that’s so dumb. Not quite that bad.

[00:54:00] He thought that I could see it on his face I mean maybe.

[00:54:04] Right no but yeah unless you guys have anything I’m I’m done dan is there anything you.

[00:54:10] Would like our five listeners. It’s been a great time, I’ve enjoyed it, and anytime you guys want to chat or whatever, you just let me know and we’ll. We’ll make the time. We’ll make it happen right on.

[00:54:18] Perfect, all right, then you want to take us out? Then no, you can’t, okay. Well, thank you everybody for listening. Thank you, dan, for the invite. Like I said, this has been pretty cool. I’m still looking.

[00:54:27] Around and taking- I know it’s hard to- yeah, makes Ron’s place look pretty pathetic. It really does, and Ron’s place could be impressive too. Very much so, yeah, I’m done. Thanks, guys, that was nice.

[00:54:39] No, actually mine is pathetic. So now I gotta go sulk, stop looking at airplanes and close us out. Thanks everybody for listening. Until next time. I’m Ron, I’m Tom, I’m dave, and then good night, good.

[00:54:54] Night everybody. Good night. If you enjoyed this episode of the RC Plane Lab podcast for topic suggestions, to ask questions or to give any feedback, connect with us at rcplanelab.com or email us direct at either Ron at rcplanelab.com or Tom at rcplanelab.com. You can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Please subscribe, rate and review us on your favorite podcast apps until next time. May your landing be gentle.