Ep 111: Fly RC Nation, and Listener Questions

[00:00:10] Okay all right then dave ready welcome to another.

[00:00:20] It’s not as easy as it seems he makes it look welcome to another episode of RC Plane Lab I’m.

[00:00:26] Dave, I’m Ron and I’m Tom. See, it wasn’t that bad. Good job, dave. That was only a second try. Yeah, he did that like successfully on his second try and we’re gonna leave the first one in too, for grins.

[00:00:38] And giggles. I do it to myself, dave, that’s what he does. So, hi guys, we’re gonna sit down and talk about some listener questions and answer some stuff and go over some stuff. So, yeah, no guest.

[00:00:50] Episode this week. No, we fail normal rotation for guests. We just didn’t get them scheduled. Not a big deal. We have plenty that we’re going to. Yes, we just have to reach out and do it to reach out.

[00:01:00] Which will be in the next couple weeks, because we need to well, you need to well, we have to set a time where we can do it before we can schedule it. Well, that’s true pretty much any weekend, I mean.

[00:01:13] For me except for the weekends where I’m working which is usually the first weekend of the.

[00:01:18] Month usually okay we’ll figure it out maybe we’ll figure it out no it’d have to be whatever just know.

[00:01:23] That if you want to be a guest, we are still going to do the guest episodes. We just have to get them scheduled. And if you want to be a guest, get on our website rcplanelab.com- good job, very much first time- and click the be a guest form and fill that out and send that to us and we’ll get you.

[00:01:40] Scheduled eventually don’t rush us yeah we promise we will get them scheduled and we have.

[00:01:47] Some that we still need to contact, and if you’ve sent one in, you will be contacted by Ron shortly. Don’t say shortly, sometime, sometime in the near future, that you’re open to interpretation, right, I guess shortly for some grand scheme of things. Long leave for someone else. Shortly and longly. That works right.

[00:02:07] Anyway, sure, let’s move on. All right. Before we get into questions, though, did anybody else receive the email from Horizon Hobby today about their new rc nation website? I have not checked my email today, but

[00:02:22] I, it might be in there, okay, here. Well, I got it. Yeah, I was at work and I was bored. Can I say that I was at work, I was bored? I mean, people get bored at work. Sometimes it happens, and I saw the email come.

[00:02:33] Through. I was like: what’s this? So it’s. It seems like it’s going to be a cross between, like facebook and a forum, like I’m not exactly sure how it’s going to work yet- interesting, but it’s called the rc nation and since we’re on the flying side, like the airplane side, yeah, it’s called fly rc nation and if you’re on the car side or whatever else, it’s called drive rc nation. So at least there’s a delineation between the two airplanes and land. However, I signed up. I’m not sure really what it is going to be like, but they

[00:03:13] Have a referral code. So, since I signed up and if I get people to sign up through me kind of sounds like a pyramid scheme, but apparently there you don’t pay anything. So I don’t know what kind of prizes you can get or what they give out if you have people sign up through your referral code. But I’m going to go ahead and link that referral code down below this episode and, if you’re curious, it’s 879-318, is my referral code and I’m going to say that again. Everybody, I’m going to wait for you to get a piece of paper and a pen. Did you get one? Good, 879-318. So, like I said, I don’t know if that

[00:03:50] Gets me anything, but I’ll let you guys know that is a shameless plea for free stuff. Well, I want to know what it is like. What’s the point of having people sign up through which, by the way, no, it didn’t say. It just says, like you sign up through somebody, maybe sometime eventually. So I want to know what that means. So you guys should sign up through me too, by the way. Okay, like I said, I don’t know what it means. I want a piece of whatever you get, just saying it’ll probably be a sticker that I’ll get a quarter of the.

[00:04:18] Two years I was gonna say the last time I got an offer free offer from them it was for a sticker you.

[00:04:23] Know what. And that reminds me I, after I bought one of my airplanes from them- I think it was the night radiant- had that little card in there: sign up for free stuff. I never got anything.

[00:04:33] It’s been a couple months. You should probably talk to somebody about that. I want my sticker. Yeah, where are you gonna stick it? I’ll tell you where. Where on your airplane: flight box or flight back. Sit on an airplane. Why would you do that? Well, if the airplane came from horizon anyway.

[00:04:52] Listener questions. Are we ready to get into that or does anybody else have something else they want to say? Let’s go for it, you guys are good. So first off, chad sent us a message through our website. He said: I’ve been using Futaba radios for a long time, but I’ve been thinking about trying out some of the new inexpensive radios that I’ve been seeing. I know you guys use spectrum. What keeps you using them? And have you thought about switching to something open source? So I’ll go first. I fly spectrum because that’s how I started. Like I know you guys didn’t start in spectrum, but my first airplane came.

[00:05:27] With the dx4 and I progressed from a dx4 to a five, to a dx6. I skipped the seven, went to an eight, which is what I flew with for years. That was like my main radio, and then I got until recently- yeah, yeah, within.

[00:05:41] The last year ish or so less than a year wasn’t it was the spring was it the spring yeah it’s the.

[00:05:46] Swatman, I couldn’t remember if it was this spring or last fall. It was the caterer. Yeah, it was fall, you’re right. So almost a year. I have no reason to switch, like I am so deep in spectrum stuff it would be stupid expensive to switch on anything else. Like all of my radio gear is spectrum, yeah, so I mean, I’ve heard good things about some of these other ones. We actually I don’t know what it was. You’re gonna steal my thunder? No, you’re gonna totally steal my thunder? No, we actually talked about trying.

[00:06:18] Something different we did yeah so go on take some thunder time well yeah so I’ve used pretty.

[00:06:27] Much all of them. I think dave has as well. Yeah, with the exception of- I think we were talking a little bit jetty- and some of the higher end groppner stuff. I’ve never tried it was really interested me.

[00:06:38] If I were to start over yeah well what did you start with by the way so my first radio was a.

[00:06:44] Craft. It was a craft am4 channel that I started with way back when, way, way, way back when, okay, but yeah, so craft. And then I think the next one that I owned was a cirrus, which was actually a jr marketing, marketing thing, and then from there I think it was Futaba, and then I, from there it was whatever I could find that worked, that I could afford as a, as a high school student and then college student, whatever that was. So, yeah, and just recently, yeah, spectrum.

[00:07:21] Well, when I say recently, I mean what? 2008? I think I got my first spectrum radio and I jumped right in. Really, yeah, I think. So I think it was 2007 or eight- it was in that time frame- and I jumped right in to a dx8 that I got used and that’s how I got into spectrum. Actually, I take that back. I got into spectrum with the cars actually, so I was racing cars with spectrum equipment before I actually jumped into the air side. But yeah, my first spectrum air radio was the dxa, the same one you have, which I still

[00:07:54] Have. Oh yeah, it still flies fine, and the reason I stick with it is because I’m accustomed to how the programming works in the transmitters. Even the ix12, which is the, the newest one, the, the features and the and everything is where I expect it to be: in the, in the, in the menus, what I’m saying, but it has so much more well, yeah, the ix12 does, but I think that’s why I’ve stuck with spectrum and haven’t really tried anything open source or cheaper, just because I like the way.

[00:08:28] It works and I it. My mind is that’s how my brain is used to looking at a transmitter menu. Now I it’s. Everything is where I expect it to be. Not that I’m saying that, the futabas and the what other, what else is there, I guess? The open source stuff? Not that they’re not good, I’m sure they’re great. It’s just that’s why I’ve stuck with spectrum. Yeah, but we have tried the cheaper stuff. We, in fact you and I- gave away a fly sky gosh. It just is a little six channel spread spectrum, type radio 2.4 And it.

[00:09:05] Worked great. It really did for the price especially, especially for the price. It was very inexpensive. It’s not what I would. I don’t think it’s what I would consider an open source, because it had fixed programming correct, but it worked great. But what I didn’t like about it is that the programming was wonky, in my opinion, because I just wasn’t used to it, yeah, and the transmitter did. Let’s be honest, it felt kind of cheap and toyish, yeah, in my hands. So to me, but to somebody who’s just getting started, who may be not accustomed to the stuff that we’re used to, it would be fine. There’s

[00:09:37] Nothing, absolutely nothing, yeah, exactly nothing with it. And dave and I are both really kind of intrigued about the whole open source, or open tx, I think, is the european stuff. Yeah, yeah, so looks.

[00:09:49] Interesting. Yeah, what about you? Did I kind of I just went from fataba to jr to spectrum. I’m stuck with spectrum at this point just because I have so much invested in 40 receivers, yeah, so yeah, it’s not financially viable for me to start over with one of the newer transmitters. Yeah, I did, however, do that in the cars. I was looking for a newer. Well, I was using some boats and I didn’t want to use my good spectrum transmitter in a boat that’s going to get wet.

[00:10:20] And I needed seven channels. I had a five channel spectrum car thing and it worked fine, but I needed a few more channels and I just wasn’t real crazy about taking that expensive transmitter to the lake, yeah, so I looked around and I found one of the off-brand ones- it wasn’t fly sky, but it was another one very similar to the fly sky- and I bought that transmitter- seven channel transmitter that had built-in gyros in the receivers- wow, and two receivers- for less money that I could have bought a five channel spectrum receiver- yeah, just receiver, an entire new system, in fact. I liked it so much I

[00:10:56] Bought two of them, nice, yeah, and that probably works perfect and they work beautifully. I’ve not had a problem. They’ve got cruise control in them, which is really nice for the crawlers. I’ll explain that one to you later. Yeah, yeah, there’s nice, nice transmitters and the receivers are like seven dollars a pop, so it’s and then fail proof, no problems. Now I think I might be mistaken. I mean,

[00:11:19] You touched on the, the reinvestment it would take to switch brands at this point, the fact that 40 receivers and I’m- I don’t know where mine’s at, but it’s probably 30 at least and I know you’ve got at least that many, I think some, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I think some of this open source stuff I think is compatible. Yeah, yeah, like you could use your spectrum receivers. I think so you could. Maybe it wouldn’t be as much of a of a reinvestment, but, like I said, for me learning

[00:11:52] Something new is the is the challenge for me and I like my dx9 yeah well and see I’m to the point.

[00:11:59] Where I don’t, I don’t need to find something different because what I have works. Yeah, I mean, like I, I one day might be kind of cool to kind of see what all this other stuff is about, but I don’t have that time or interest at this point. No, I get it, but for what I’ve heard about, like the different brands, I’ve never really heard anything bad about any of the mainstream ones that you hear about right me either. So I mean I don’t see a reason now like to stay away from I’ve heard bad about.

[00:12:28] Orange yeah but that’s receipt well I guess that’s true they didn’t make trans right yeah.

[00:12:33] But that was a knockoff but that was a yeah that was a copy that was not like their own copy of a.

[00:12:39] Copy yeah I mean it was orange I mean spectrum’s color is orange anyway oh my I never got that.

[00:12:46] Are you serious, is that? Wow, you’re both like shaking your head at me like I’m an idiot and I get that look a lot, but I, okay, I never realized that. Yeah, so I mean, and their transmitter this:

[00:13:01] The orange transmitter is actually the translucent orange plastic, I mean it’s. It’s blatant that it’s okay, but anyway, weird. Chad, I appreciate the question and if you decide to go open source, let us know, like send us an email, get on the discord server, contact us in any number of the ways that you can use the way you did, yeah, and let us know if you decide to do that and what that’s like, because I’m interested in kind of understanding more so that we can help other.

[00:13:31] Folks that maybe have questions about it later. So, dave, you said you switched from blank to jr to spectrum, Futaba, was it Futaba to jr to spectrum? So what made you switch between those like, was that?

[00:13:44] All with airplane stuff, or that was all airplane side. I actually started with cars, with high tech. Oh yeah, you remember those gold high techs. Yeah, well, they sometimes worked. They. Yeah, what high tech has come a long way. What brought on the? The change, though, Futaba to jr switch was due to me working in the hobby shop and just seeing the nice quality of the jr radios coming in. And then they came in with that real low priced 622 programmable radio and that was the first reasonably priced for a.

[00:14:17] Programmable radio. So I made the jump okay, unfortunately that one had a glitch. I kept losing airplanes with it. So then I went on to the 642 and then finally I broke down and spent the big bucks on the 8103, and I love the 8103. In fact I flew the 8103 three weeks ago. Yeah, I still have mine too. Well, what, what took you to spectrum then took me to spectrum, was the 2.4 And the fact that the programming on jr and spectrum were very similar. It wasn’t much of a learning curve.

[00:14:48] To switch from the jr FM stuff to the 2.4 Yep and that’s what exactly the same because.

[00:14:57] Spectrum came onto the scene first with the whole spread spectrum technology, the 2.4 Gigahertz, I didn’t realize that, yeah, they preceded well all the other brands. And then, shortly thereafter, Futaba is right there behind him. Yeah, and that’s really what prompted me to jump into it too, was that whole spread spectrum, and I had been using it in cars already, with fantastic results.

[00:15:21] Like fantastic results. I was. I was the opposite. It’s weird. I was the opposite when I was doing cars, because I wasn’t racing, I wasn’t trying to win money, I wasn’t doing anything, it was just racing cars around. Money racing cars, I don’t think you spend a lot, I don’t think I ever. Well, I wasn’t competitive, let’s put it that way. It was more fun just with my neighbor racing stuff around here. I didn’t care what radio I used, I wanted cheap, and so I don’t even know what I had for cars here and that was like I always went as cheap as I could on that kind of stuff. But when it

[00:15:51] Comes to airplanes that can fall out of the sky and potentially hurt somebody. I didn’t think of that. Yeah, I would prefer to have something that’s got a history to it that I know I can trust. Yeah, and that’s kind of why and I never thought of anything different- just based on timing, based on what I bought, and it was just kind of one of those this is what I fly with, because this is what came with.

[00:16:14] It when you when you got into the hobby spread spectrum was the standard it was like yeah.

[00:16:21] It was like the new standard yeah so FM was not even there wasn’t really anything else to choose from.

[00:16:26] I mean yeah you could choose Futaba electronics jr whatever but spectrum was it I don’t.

[00:16:33] Know if they had the different transmitters at the hobby shop at that time.

[00:16:38] Yeah, we didn’t carry futabas. We only really fell out of favor in this area, for I don’t know why, I mean, I don’t know good quality stuff, it just fell out of favor. Yeah, yeah, it has anything to do with.

[00:16:48] Probably, because yeah, right, that’s what I think too, but I can see that. But, yeah, so, chad, thanks for the question. Hopefully that clouds the subject further. So make the difficult, or make the decision even more difficult for you, but let us know what you decide to do, because, yeah, I would really be interested in hearing someone’s hands-on experience with the open source stuff seems like. Seems like.

[00:17:12] That’s kind of the next thing, me too. Are we ready? Yeah, we are taking a long time on these. Like I thought this was going to be a short episode. Well, we’ve got. I mean, I know we’ve only got a few more questions to go through, but yeah, anyway, let’s see how this goes. So next, michael sent us an email. He says: hey guys, I’m a nitro guy, but I like him already. How did I know? How did I know I’m gonna start over? Sorry, michael.

[00:17:42] Says: hey guys, I’m a nitro guy but my current point in time I’m limited on space and time to fly. I have four kids under seven and I’m trying to have somewhat of a hobby at the same time. Kudos, ouch, yeah, good, good on you. I can’t even fathom. Yeah, just to give you a little background. I have been flying on and off since I was a kid. I have a couple nitro planes that I fly, a contender and a cavalier, both nitro. Yeah, between the two of us we have one of each of those. I know it’s awesome.

[00:18:09] Contender as well yeah that’s well that’s right there’s three of them right here nice cavalier is a.

[00:18:14] Lot better. Anyway, I’m I’m getting the looks again. I’m currently building an amco aeromaster 2 and I’m planning on making that nitro as well. Now I don’t know what that is, so amco is a kit.

[00:18:27] Manufacturer from the 70s and 80s and aeromaster 2 is a biplane it’s a biplane kit oh that’s okay.

[00:18:36] Nitro biplane boy. It’s exciting: two wins right there. I mean, I love this guy. He says the place that I’m hoping I can fly is a little tight for space to take off and land. And though I feel confident in my flying, I don’t think I would consistently be able to land with my contender, a cavalier. I could always go somewhere else, but it would be too easy just to walk across the street and fly in this place. I’m considering: okay, here we go. I’m considering dipping into the realm of electric to make it a little quicker to be able to go fly for a little bit and come back without all.

[00:19:07] The extra work that nitro can take. I’ve listened to all of your episodes, but have gone back and listened to your electric episode to try and figure out what all I need. I know nothing about electric and I’m trying to figure out what size plane I would want, but also what brand of motor, esc and LiPos to buy.

[00:19:23] I have a spectrum dx8 transmitter so I was wondering how much nicer it would be to get to get a spectrum esc and LiPos for the smart technology. It seems like it is going to take a chunk of money to go electric for the first time. Yeah, I have heard your horror stories about LiPo batteries and I’m a little paranoid of wanting something good to make sure I can take care of them correctly. Also, if you have any recommendations of a sporty airplane that is smaller than a contender, that would be good to go out or to go in and out of tighter spaces. I’ve never had a plane.

[00:19:53] Smaller than my contender so any advice you would give would be helpful thanks michael well michael I.

[00:20:00] Don’t hold it against you that you want to go electric, because I totally get the convenience of it, totally, especially there I go again with the totally the convenience of it and being able to charge something in the garage and just take it across the street and fly it. I mean that’s.

[00:20:14] That’s pretty appealing. Electric is great for that. It’s just to have it ready, plug a battery and go, and I understand like the ease of being able to fly in smaller spots, smaller places, and really there’s a lot of options, I think, for him, based on what his goal is. I’d highly like to

[00:20:33] Recommend. Like one of the tundra, like airplanes- yes, I was just gonna something big wheeled, high wing bush plane and they’re not boring. No, big white sporty- yeah, I was gonna say I can fly his very sporty. What do you have and where is it from? I have a grand tundra from hobby king. Okay, and it’s a good flyer. They also make a much smaller version. That’s a lot more economical, uses the smaller batteries and can still fly from those wild areas. The performance is very, very nice. Yeah, I.

[00:21:07] Tell you one of my favorite things to do is inverted flat spins man that thing spins like a frisbee if.

[00:21:12] I get it going. Yeah, nice, I can vouch for it, dave, that it does fly. It does fly. Well, I’ve watched you fly it many times and it would be the perfect. And you can fly it pretty much anywhere because you can.

[00:21:23] Yank it off the ground in six foot and it can land in 20. Yeah now depending he says he’s got a dx8 he.

[00:21:29] Doesn’t say which generation, if it’s a generation one or two. I know the generation one is not compatible with the smart stuff from spectrum, but the generation two might be, but I’m not sure. So you’ll want to. You’ll want to get on the spectrum website and double check that you don’t even need to have the smart stuff. It’s nice, it’s convenient and nice. But well, I think, if he’s wanting to,

[00:21:51] Get into the smart stuff. He might also just be talking about batteries and safety, which is like, yeah, the safe and that kind of stuff. So if that’s kind of what you’re wanting to get into and you want something that will, which, if you want something, it’ll help you fire. Maybe if he’s trying to get his kids into it, then I, what is it? The hobby zone aero scout? Have you seen those before? Yeah, those fly, really good they’re. They have the safe built in, they have the AS3X. But what I will say?

[00:22:19] Is that, if he’s, if he’s accustomed to flying a contender or a lesser quality cavalier, he’s probably going to get bored with an aero scout. Well, maybe, but getting the kids into it.

[00:22:31] Absolutely, it depends on the goal. Yeah, yeah, for sure, if you want something that’s smaller and electric too. By the way, any of the umx planes would be awesome, our ultraxes, I love them. Oh, and you, you.

[00:22:42] Yeah michael you could totally fly the ultrax like Ron and I each have the small one and he just.

[00:22:48] Recently I just figured out the bigger one we’ll talk about that next week but the big one is awesome.

[00:22:53] What a what a blast these things are and you can fly these things in your yard, absolutely like from your yard. I should say, maybe not in your yard, but like you could take off like in your yard, go fly over the pasture and then bring it back and hover it back into your yard and for a two-foot, like I mean it. Yeah, they’re super, super, super fun to fly and easy to fly really, especially with the different.

[00:23:15] Levels of safe anyway when you can turn it off yeah and figure out how to actually do that yeah.

[00:23:20] Makes a huge difference. And, by the way, those are all the planes that we just talked about- are all smaller than your contender. Well, well, the contender, yeah, well, the big grand tundra is bigger than the big tundra, yeah, but the small tundra, small tundra is much smaller. Yeah, and apply, it probably flies.

[00:23:36] Almost as good as, oh yeah, they do, yeah, so, and they are very similar to the which one the e-flights got. What’s the name of their bush plane? Oh, the timber, timber, oh yeah, and they got about 15 different.

[00:23:46] Versions of that yeah turbo timber umx timber night timber x timber yeah.

[00:23:52] They’ve got quite a few versions of that turbo timber but the grand tundra is flies very similar.

[00:23:56] Yeah, they’re all going to fly very similar. They’re probably all about the same price. Maybe, I don’t know, you were going to say something that was a while ago. I don’t remember what I was going to say now. It’s okay, no big deal. So that’s the airplane, that kind of we would say, which, oddly enough, I think everything we suggested was foam. Yeah, that’s weird. Like I just caught that, I know.

[00:24:16] There’s not a lot. But with foam comes inexpensive. I mean to set up a balsa plane of the same caliber and flight qualities and electric. Let’s be honest, it’s going to be a fair amount more. Yeah, because it’s just more expensive to pay somebody to assemble up a balsa air.

[00:24:35] Frame than it is to mold a piece of foam in a machine. That’s true, and these are all come as package deals, so you don’t have to go farm out a motor and speed control and figure out what prop to use. It’s all package deals, so it takes all the guesswork out of it, which is a good way if you’re.

[00:24:46] Just getting into electric to have something all done and you can figure it out. Plane, yeah, exactly, exactly, since that’s the airplanes now. Now let’s talk about what is it going to take to get into the electric side of the hobby. Right, like, what do you need that you don’t need with nitro? Yep, you.

[00:25:03] Want to take it? Oh sure. So you’re going to need a LiPo compatible charger if you don’t already have one. Preferably one that has a balancer built in which I’m not even sure you can buy a charger without that these days. You can, oh, can you? Okay, it’s important to keep the cells balanced as much as possible, and most chargers will do that automatically without any input from you. So look for

[00:25:30] Well, hold on there, I’m yes, most chargers will, as long as you’re in the right settings. Right, so you have to balance charge. There are different settings, like on one of my chargers, to where you can just charge it, balance charge it. I think that might be the only two, so you can just charge them to where it’s not going to go and balance each week. Yeah, my defaults to balance and

[00:25:49] I have to turn balance off if I just want to zap it to go yeah me too and it does take a little bit.

[00:25:55] Longer to balance charge as opposed to just charging them but well it’s like topping off the tank.

[00:25:59] Perfectly right and you want to make sure it’s done correctly because that way your power is being.

[00:26:04] Pulled out the same from each cell, right. So look for a charger that has that capability, that’ll take better care of your batteries, which relates to safety, and you’re not gonna need a super high-end charger, no, just a basic one’s gonna get the job done. Yeah, exactly, and just a note about batteries: we, I think we, we may over drama, ties, the, the, the volatility, like. I haven’t seen a LiPo go off until ever, until your experience. That was my first experience and we’ve been doing LiPos a long time.

[00:26:35] Long time so and we, generally speaking, we know how to take care of our batteries and we have chargers that help us out in that regard. So I mean the likelihood- if you’re using all the right equipment, the likelihood of a battery going off is really, really small. But it is there. It is there, but I mean you have the same. I mean I don’t know what the odds are, but you got a gallon of nitro fuel sitting in your garage. I mean, if your garage catches on fire, there you go, you’ve got an oxidizer and all this other stuff. Yeah, so I mean there’s risks inherent to the hobby. It shouldn’t be.

[00:27:07] Enough to scare you away from it. That’s kind of what I was trying to get at like: don’t, don’t let the- don’t let the fact that the LiPos can do that scare you off because a nitro motor or a gas motor that’s not restrained properly- I mean, look at the damage that can do to somebody’s hand. Yeah, there are risks and we accept them as part of the hobby. So get yourself a LiPo bag. Yeah, LiPo bag. That was, yeah, that was gonna be. My next recommendation was to get a box or a bag that’s designed to contain

[00:27:35] That fire should, and we’ve talked about that before. It was a tool of the week, I don’t know- three, four or five, six weeks ago, something like that. Time goes together. It does. Yeah, and, like I said, I think the one I bought for storing my batteries in now it’s like 13 bucks on amazon, so there’s no reason.

[00:27:52] Not. Yeah, they’re really not very expensive and it’s cheap insurance, especially if you store them in your house. Like, I still store my batteries in the fridge- yep, me too, but they’re before, but they are in a bag. Yeah, I actually keep them in my LiPo bag. I do now in the fridge, yeah, so anyway. So you’re gonna need a charger and obviously you’re gonna need some batteries. They don’t have to be the smart stuff you can. They don’t have to be the expensive you can get away with. Yeah, you can absolutely get away with amazon batteries. Ron and I are both flying amazon batteries with great luck.

[00:28:22] Yeah, the higher the c rating, the better performing you’re gonna get. So you can buy some really cheap batteries out there, but they’re like 10c. You don’t want those. Yeah, you want something much higher c and.

[00:28:34] I’m gonna be honest too. Like on the amazon batteries, I will always double the c rating on what it suggests, because I don’t necessarily trust they are being honest on what their c ratings- yeah, actually.

[00:28:46] Is yeah so if I’m looking for a battery that needs 50c I’ll try to shop on amazon for 100 c and what that.

[00:28:53] Means is. It means the how many times the capacity you can pull the power out of that. So if it’s a 2.2 Or a 2200 milliamp hour battery and you’re running on a less for ease of numbers, you’re running to where you need to pull 10 amps out of it. Hold on, how did I? I just mess that one up? Scratch everything I just said. So let’s say you have a- we’re going to really go easy on this- a one amp hour battery.

[00:29:23] So 1000 mah battery and you’re pulling a 10 amp load out of it, then you would need one that’s rated for 10c. But you’re going to want to have enough overhead just to make sure that you have some safety built in. So if it says, whatever plane you buy, if it says you need a 10c battery for that, I would buy a 20.. Does that make sense? Like you said, the 50 to 100 and they get the

[00:29:46] Higher c rating by reducing the internal resistance, which is like opening the valve right, so you actually get a little bit more power also quicker, more performance. Yeah, higher c is going to give you a more sporty feel. Yes, exactly, it’s not going to be so, doggy. I mean they don’t seem to be any less durable. That I found in lower c rating. So why not spend a little extra money to get a little?

[00:30:07] Extra I use a 20c in my flight box but I don’t fly anything with a battery right yeah yep yeah I get.

[00:30:13] It. So there’s, that made sense. Yeah, there’s one cell, two cell, three cell batteries. I mean, like I said, when you look at the airplane that you’re wanting to get and when you’ve made that decision, they will tell you what battery it takes and most of the time they’ll have links to the battery they recommend. You don’t necessarily have to buy that brand, just make sure your connector is right. That’s the other thing. You’re going to have different connectors: xt60, dean’s, ec3, ec5. There’s a bunch of different ones, ic3 now from, I see, yeah, my newest ones have that and there

[00:30:44] You go, when you charge at 1c. For most, most batteries will take 1c charge, so you charge at one capacity and you just kind of go from there. So a 5 000 milliamp pack, you charge at 5 amps. Yeah.

[00:30:57] And just a quick note that reminds me. On the charger: preferably an ac dc charger for convenience. Oh yeah, I forgot about that, but as I found out just recently, my charger I have a dual port so I can charge two batteries at once. In ac mode my charger divides the output in half. I can.

[00:31:18] Program it like it’s a 10 amp charger that only puts out 5 amp if you’re doing well that’s done in.

[00:31:22] Wattage on my charger. But yeah, so it’ll take 100 watt ac input and divide it in half and send 50 per channel, unless I tell it to go 101 channel, which then there’s the other channel useless. But so that’s something to note like, if you’re going to get higher capacity, the big 5 000 milliamp packs, three cell packs, they, they can. They can take quite a bit of wattage, 100 watts easily to charge one of those. So if you have an ac dc charger that limits the wattage, like mine does,

[00:31:53] Might be something you want to make a note of and use it on a dc only, because dc mine doesn’t do that. It has 200 watts and I can divide. I can use 200 watts on both channels and the power supplies are so

[00:32:04] Cheap on amazon anyway. Well, and that’s honestly because you’re charging dc, so it’s not converting anything over where it has to take the ac and convert it to dc. Yeah, so exactly. And then if you go- because he said something about the, the smart stuff- if you go with, like the gen 2 smart batteries, there’s no balance, lead, there’s nothing. You don’t even start them, you just plug the battery in and then the charger takes care of everything. Like I’m actually a smart charger. Yeah, sorry, you have to have the gen 2 smart charger, gen 2 batteries- they have to actually talk to each other and that kind of stuff. But I’m actually kind of a fan of those if it wasn’t for the price of.

[00:32:36] The batteries? Yeah, if, like, if I was in his shoes, I would. I would probably look at jumping in. That cool, yeah, because of the. Yeah, the convenience and the and the technology. It’s the ease of use. You, like you said, you plug absolutely and the charger just does everything. There’s no figuring.

[00:32:55] It out. Yeah, and then that one also like the plug-in things that we use. The gen 2 chargers have the built-in storage charge after a certain amount of time, which you change that on the charger and then it programs it to the battery. That’s pretty cool. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, are we ready to move on to?

[00:33:11] The next one so yeah hopefully that hopefully that helped if you have any more questions.

[00:33:15] Let us know. Like them. Okay, right on, ready. Yes, right on, solid dude william. William’s up next and he sent us a note. He said: hi, Ron and Tom will hear from australia. Love your podcast. Well, good day, mate. How did I know you’re gonna do that? Because you can’t not. He says he’s no shrimp on the barbie. I can’t deal with it. He said: I listen to it religiously and love the tips. I have a question slash suggestion for a topic: warbirds. This is one I’m not going to talk much on. We all want one when we’re starting out.

[00:33:51] But quickly find out. These may look great in the air but require a lot of skill, not suited for a beginner. I made the mistake and trained myself on a schwomi warbird and after a steep learning curve I’m proficient enough to fly them. But as electrics bore me, oh yes, and I’ve taken up nitro advanced trainers, the air flight hustler at a boy piper, j3 cub, blah, blah, blah. What sort of airframe would you suggest as a good introduction in the nitro balsa scale warbirds for someone intermediate of skill?

[00:34:20] Kind regards. Love the show, william, william. I’m just going to start by saying the j3 cub could be considered a warbird, jesse, can I mean really they flew them around in vietnam as observation planes? No, no, no, that’s world war ii. Oh, world war ii, that’s right. Yeah, they were the l4s. L4s, yeah, yeah.

[00:34:38] And actually the first ones delivered to the army air corps were actually production civilian j3s in yellow paint that they whitewashed real quick with green paint and sent them out into the field and I think they tried them out in georgia, if I remember right, but they were off the factory civilian j3s.

[00:34:57] So if you don’t want to start with the j3, hanger 9 makes a. They make a plethora of p51s, but they make one. Yeah, I think they still make the one that has the safe built in, I don’t know. Yeah, they got a p47 too. It’s the sport. Yeah, scale stuff, those actually fly pretty good. I mean they’re. They’re fairly easy. Now they are semi-scale, right. They kind of look like a p47 and they kind of look like a p51 and so on. So if you want a, a high fidelity to scale warbird, they’re just not going.

[00:35:34] To fly like a trainer now you got all that extra weight and all the complexity goes along with it.

[00:35:38] Yeah, even with flaps and all the other devices, they still they. You cannot make them fly like a trainer, but they. These options from hanger 9 are not a not a bad option, and there’s like he’s not.

[00:35:51] Saying make him fly like a trainer intermediate no I know intermediate skill there’s a lot of.

[00:35:55] Sport scale warbirds out there that don’t fly like a heavy metal warbird right but they’re more of a.

[00:36:02] Sport advanced trainer type situation. My p, my p40 is a perfect example of that. The hanger 9, the 50 size p40, which they don’t make I mean anymore, of course, but they. There are other airplanes just like what you’re talking about. They’re a sport scale and in the air it looks, it looks really.

[00:36:20] Convincing and it does actually fly pretty good. Oh yeah, and do you remember? A few years back they had a trainer p51. Remember that thing? Yeah, the little gas one, yeah, yeah, that’s the one, that’s one it had. Reggie has one of those little add-on. Oh, clear things on the front of wings. This is before the gas. This is for literally, oh, your first gas trainer. I remember that glute train was that.

[00:36:44] Yeah, they had an evolution on them and yeah, but they had these clear. Was that meg? No, meg is the gas one like mine. What am I thinking of them? I don’t know what that one was called- they call those things- but I remember, yes, a perfect trainer system. Yeah, I think a pts p51. I think the gear was really right.

[00:36:59] Forward, so it was almost impossible to knock it over. Yep, yep, so fixed gear, I’m sure. Yes, yeah, it actually had these drag things too to keep you from going too fast. Yeah, I didn’t understand. I never used any.

[00:37:10] Of those. But yeah, it had these, these clear, molded plastic things that you actually taped onto the leading edge of the wing to make, essentially to make the cord longer and work kind of like a slap. Yeah, and they, they helped prevent stalls and things like that and they actually flew okay. They were ugly as soon, I thought, because they did look like a mustang from 50 feet out, yeah. So there’s lots of different ways to go about warbirds. But if you really got to have a warbird, do your research and try to find one of those kind of semi-scale and they fly like a pattern, like

[00:37:44] Kind of like a pattern plane. Go with the t-28s. Oh, there you go, that’s a really good option, yeah, and those are good looking airplanes too, I think, and you can get them in foam. He wanted away from fine, he wanted nitro and he wanted balsa. Well, there you go. You can get the. Who makes a balsa t-28 other than pika or dave platt? I can’t think of scratch build off, there you go, build your own. But yeah, just know that warbirds are going to be a little more difficult to fly than a than a standard sport type plane. But I he says he’s already flown foam warbirds and he admitted a steep learning curve.

[00:38:21] But he can fly them professionally now he can probably fly up a sport scales yeah so don’t.

[00:38:27] Be afraid of it and the looks. Just jump right in, john, you’ll be fine. They’re not super detailed, you’re not going to win the nats with them, but yeah, yeah. But if you want an airplane that looks,

[00:38:35] Like an airplane those aren’t a bad way to go okay moving on like our t-34s yeah those actually fly.

[00:38:43] Really good that you can’t get anymore you guys there’s a lot of there’s a pattern right yeah they.

[00:38:47] Make great airplanes for a while, and then they stop producing them and jump onto some other great airplane, making us buy new ones all the time. Well, that’s our strategy, isn’t it? Well, it must be.

[00:38:58] Because it’s working. We’ve got a lot okay. So next up, ross emailed us and he says: hey, gents, just gents. I like that, that’s fun. Just discovered your podcast and heard you mention that you’re using the bad air plugins. I also think they’re a great idea, but I’ve had a crazy bit or a crazy busy year with work and this has been the first week I’ve had a chance to fly. Yeah, I know what that’s like. -Huh, I just dusted off a couple of models and started to prep my packs and discovered that the bad air plugins have trashed several packs. That’s not good. I had them fitted to the to five.

[00:39:32] 6S 1550 milliamp hour nanotech packs. Two of those are barely registering two volts across the entire pack and the best two packs were at three to three point three volts per cell. My power lab registered them at zero percent and two percent remaining power and has been able to restore them to storage charge. But I doubt they’ll be any good for my helis anymore. My two s 2200 milliamp hour packs have had or have fared better- sorry, I only had bat air modules on two of those- after hitting a software.

[00:40:03] Bug last year and those are at 3.7 To 3.75 Volts per cell, compared to 3.75 To 3.85 Volts for the packs without the bat air. So those look okay, but the 6s ones are trashed better, just trashed- 190 worth of packs and I’m not happy. Yeah, I wouldn’t be happy either, and that so when we first started, or when we first started talking about those, that was one of the questions I had, like whether or not it has like a low voltage cutoff to where it stops checking, discharging, stops doing whatever it does, to where it.

[00:40:39] Stops using power if it gets to a certain point apparently it does not yeah I think these are.

[00:40:45] Set up so you should charge them at least once a month regardless oh a month yeah I definitely won’t.

[00:40:50] Be doing that? I mean, I could see charge them every several months for ones that I don’t use very often. But I mean, like I don’t need every pack I have every month. You’re looking at me, I, I don’t have any of those things because I don’t know. You don’t have any of them. No, why did I think you had something? I?

[00:41:10] Have none I don’t have enough batteries to warrant like I can keep track of the batteries I have.

[00:41:15] Because I have so few of them. Well, okay, I just let them set for extended, extended periods of time. It looks like at least a year in this case. They’re always going to have a little bit of draw on.

[00:41:26] Them well even without a bad air plug-in they’re going to eat themselves over time yeah but you should be.

[00:41:33] Storm for a year without issues I mean like I understand like that was my concern was how much.

[00:41:40] Draw those plugins use well according, according to his, his two cells, the 2200s in the year. I’m assuming those have been sitting about the same amount of time they’ve only used it looks like about a tenth of a volt, not even per, as opposed to not having the battery, so that’s not like a lot.

[00:42:02] No, it’s not, but the success ones, yeah, that’s unacceptable. Yeah, I agree. So my warning to everybody then, based on what he said: keep an eye on them. Yeah, doesn’t hurt to throw a little.

[00:42:16] Charge on them every now and then yeah like yeah we’ll see well I will check what I’m what I guess.

[00:42:23] What I’m getting at is like LiPos eat themselves, like all batteries eat themselves. Over time, they self-discharge, no matter what the chemistry. They all do to some degree, yes. So bad air plug-in or no.

[00:42:38] They’re going to require some voltage eventually- a year, two years, whatever the time is. So it would make sense to me, like for the bad air plug-in, like you said, for it to at least shut itself off or stop its sampling or whatever it does when it reaches a certain voltage, to at least give you maybe a little more time right to put a charge in it or whatever. That seems like a foul on.

[00:43:05] And maybe that’s something they can update in future- updates with stuff. I don’t know like how all that works on that end, but without the over discharge that he had, I still love him. Yeah, like until I lose a bunch of packs to him, I would like to keep using them and see how they.

[00:43:24] Work well ross thanks for thanks for making us aware of that very true next last one last one.

[00:43:32] So slade writes in and he said: I have a couple questions. He said my first question is how do you get two engines to create the same amount of thrust? And I will read the second: enter the second question now. And my second question is: do you have a tip on starting a gasoline powered engine? I have a dle 30. There you go. Gentlemen, that’s you again. I like how Ron is just handing this off to us. I’m handing it off to the gas guys. You guys got gas. Well, so I’ll hit the first one: how do you get?

[00:44:06] Two engines to create the same amount of thrust. Well, first you have to start with two identical engines, right? So preferably they would be two os 46s or two dle 30s or two, two of anything. And the only the only way to do it with any kind of in fidelity is to use a tachometer. I mean, if a propeller is turning 13 000 rpm, it doesn’t matter how much power the engine is producing- 13 000 rpm on that particular

[00:44:39] Propeller is going to produce only so much amount of thrust and if you have two engines producing that rpm with those props they’re making the same amount of power, which are very close. So you need a tachometer, close enough. Yeah, yeah, you need a tachometer and you can actually hear when, when engines are not in tune, if they’re not turning the same rpm. It’s just like listening to an out of tune piano. I mean, you can hear that kind of oscillating wah sound. It’s very pronounced, especially when you’re

[00:45:09] Turning a larger propeller yeah when they’re synced up it’ll be a harmonic sound yeah.

[00:45:14] Exactly so. But a tachometer is your best friend. That’s how, that’s how I do it, that’s how I think a lot of folks the only time I use a tachometer. Well, there you go. So a tachometer is the tool of

[00:45:25] Choice tune the stronger engine to the performance of the weaker exactly yeah you maximize the detune the.

[00:45:32] One that’s more powerful, and detune- I’m not sure I would use that term. I would limit the throttle. I don’t want to detune because I still want the engine to run right, and detuning it with the needles or whatever messes with the tune. So me personally, I try to make my strong engine match my weak engine and I do that with limiting the throttle. Okay, if that makes sense. So you have your throttle on. Yeah, I still maximize the tune on both engines. Right, I’ll, I’ll try to get.

[00:46:02] Max rpm and then back it off a little bit on the weak one and do the same on the strong one, and then, once I’ve got them both running really, really well and optimized for whatever the installation is, I’ll limit the throttle on the strong engine. I’ll do basically the same thing. I might go a click.

[00:46:18] Or two on the needle valve, but that’s, that’s about it. I mean, as long as they transition the idle same and they transition the same, yeah, a click or two, but I won’t go any more than a click or two. Then it goes back to setting the throttle differently. There you go, and so obviously,

[00:46:31] Then separate channels for your throttles yeah and then controlling those separately yep gotcha.

[00:46:36] The wonder of the computer well and you don’t have to do it that way you can do it mechanically.

[00:46:39] It’s just a much longer process oh I guess you could yeah you can still we did it back in the day.

[00:46:46] Yeah, you can still y harness two servos or run two push rods from one servo. If you’re really old school, you can still do it that way. You just it’s just a mechanical adjustment on the.

[00:46:55] Clevis at the throttle end. But how does that work then? I guess it doesn’t matter. That would be more difficult. You could do it, but I would think getting idle to be the same and high end to be the same would be tricky. It’s so much better to do it electronically. Yes, yep, okay, and then the last thing starting, and two, or what was it starting? A daily 30.. What’s starting? What is your starting process?

[00:47:18] My starting process that works most engines most of the time is: I will take and make sure to no doubt whatsoever that the ignition is off, have it restrained and make sure that cannot go anywhere.

[00:47:33] Yes give that propeller a tug at yourself to make sure it doesn’t go anywhere before you start it.

[00:47:38] We haven’t said start it yet, so ignition is off. Yeah, turn the choke on, open the throttle wide open. I also at this time will take and set the idle trim all the way up. So full idle trim, full throttle, and if I can access it, I will stick my thumb over the carburetor just to help. I can judge more suction. Yeah, if not, closing choke will work and then you flip it through until you get gasoline at the carburetor, which your thumb over the carburetor. I’ll pull my thumb away if my thumb’s wet.

[00:48:10] I have gasoline at the carburetor if I can’t do that you kind of listen for it you can hear kind.

[00:48:15] Of a squishy noise squishy that’s weird but I know what he means yeah once you get at that point.

[00:48:22] Turn your ignition on, reduce your throttle all the way to idle, but you still have high idle trim. You flip it with the choke closed until you hear it pop, and it’ll pop or gurgle. Sometimes it won’t actually even run, but you can kind of just hear a muffled thump. When you get that thump, then it’s time to take and close the choke or open the choke. Open it, make sure that you’re at idle, high trim and you flip it four or five times and it should kick right over. If not, hit it with a starter. Yep.

[00:48:59] Yeah, yeah, I use exactly the same process, although I’m kind of the black sheep of the of the hobby and I start them at wide open. Yep scares me, but wide open, with the choke closed it will, like I have.

[00:49:15] Never had one take off on me. I have had someone’s sometimes that I’ll take them, bump it up a little bit above idle. It’s yeah in the five percent throttle range. No, I don’t start them at wide open.

[00:49:27] Okay I’m just I’m just looking for that initial pop with the choke closed right yeah so was I with.

[00:49:32] The throttle with the throttle white choke wide open did I say closed I’m sorry if I did.

[00:49:37] Closed and open is hard how about choke on or off how about choked and not choked the same thing yes.

[00:49:42] So, yeah, my process, like I said, is exactly the same, except I do my initial start with a throttle wide open and it choked. And then that first pop is it. It never takes off and runs because the choke is, it’s choked, it can’t go anywhere. Yeah, it’s not going anywhere. And then, and then yeah, once it pops, throttle the high idle just like yours, open the choc or unchoke it, flip it a few times and it’s usually idling nicely. There you go. That’s our process, like it or leave it easy. Yeah, peasy lemon.

[00:50:17] Squeezy. What else we got. That is it? Yay, not a bad episode. Why are you, why are you sounding so excited about being just happy that we got through them all in one episode? Huh, okay, I like the letters. I was afraid we weren’t going to get them all because of how much we took on the first one. Yeah, no, we.

[00:50:34] Went through the lessons very quick so okay good we are all set sweet and I think I’m finished if you.

[00:50:40] Guys are finished. Just I’ll just hit it one more time. If you guys have questions you would like for us to answer on the show, hit us up via email or you can ask on the discord server- we serve that daily- and any of the other number of ways you can contact us. You can also contact us through the website, which is rcplanelab.com. Good for you, dave, anything. Nope, I’m looking forward to maybe playing.

[00:51:06] With some airplanes this weekend if I get away from the craft show me too I think it’ll be a good.

[00:51:12] Weekend. We’re going to brian’s, that’s so. I mean, that’s the start of the weekend, right, we’re doing that friday, leaving work early, yeah, going to brian’s. So I mean, like, how can the weekend get worse after that? I mean, that’s just like the perfect start. I know weekend. So, all right, thanks for writing in everyone. We look forward to the next one, until next time. I’m Ron, I’m Tom and I’m dave. Goodbye, good night. Fine, dave, don’t say yeah. Fine, dave, don’t say goodbye to our get our five listeners. What, what it is. You didn’t say bye. You didn’t say bye. There we go. We hope you enjoyed this episode.

[00:51:46] 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 app until next time. May your landings be gentle.