R/C Beginner's FAQ

This is a simple guide to starting in Radio Controlled Aircraft Modelling. There is a lot of good information out here on the Web but much of it is American. So I have written this from a British perspective because it can sometimes be difficult to tell how much of the US-based information is still relevant over here. I have also provided a simple glossary of terms including a number of US/UK differences in terminology which can be confusing.

Let me give you the highlights up front.

Many of the same planes, engines and other equipment are available in the UK but of course we also have a lot of excellent home-grown stuff which you aren't so likely to see mentioned.
The UK (and Europe) use quite different radio frequencies so the radio equipment cannot be swapped directly, though many of the same basic types are available.
The basics of flight and aerodynamics don't change but there are many people on both sides of the Atlantic who don't understand them verry well. It doesn't stop them (or should that be us) from talking about the subject :-)

Before you read my comments check out Howard Sullivan's 'Beginner's Guide to R/C Flight' on the R/C Flight Unlimited website. It is first class and I am not going to try to cover all of the same ground, I'd never do it as well. It will explain the basics of flight and what all the equipment looks like and does. Come back here when you've read that and I'll give you a few more pointers, particularly where things are different in the UK.

O.K. you're back !

Getting Started

It may sound a little strange now you're all fired up and ready to go, but the first step is NOT to dash out and buy a plane, engine and radio. This is the order of things to do, at least in my opinion.

Join a local club
Talk to the club members and particularly instructors
Now get a plane and other equipment
Build, set up and get your plane checked over
Start flying

Joining a club

By far the easiest, safest and least expensive way of learning to fly is to join a club and get some instruction. Instruction is always free but in most cases would be worth paying for. The ideal training situation is using a "buddy box" lead linking your radio with the instructor's radio. The instructor has a switch which he presses to allow you to control the plane so he can take over any time you get in trouble (and you will !) just by releasing the switch. Since not all radios have this facility and different manufacturers do it differently this is a good reason for selecting your club first and checking what equipment they use for training before buying your first set.

So the first step is to find a local club. If there is a model shop local to you they will be able to help so go and see them first (but don't be tempted into buying a plane they just happen to have in stock. Check with club memebers and your soon to be instructors first). In many areas this will be all you need to do.

If there is no local model shop then the best thing to do is to get in contact with the BMFA (British Model Flying Association, more on them later) either via their Web site www.bmfa.org.uk or by phone on (0116) 244 0028. More and more clubs, like my own club Reading MAC, have a presence on the Web. The BMFA site has pointers to most of them. In addition the BMFA folks will send you a list of the model clubs near you together with a contact name and phone number for each. When phoning the club contacts please chose a sensible time of day, most people work and do not appreciate phone calls at times like midnight or 6 a.m. The most important questions to ask are probably:

Do they fly the type of model you want to fly ?: If your eventual aim is towards powered aerobatics, a club which specialises in soaring may not be much help to you.
Does the club provide instruction ?: If you can find a club which has a formal instruction program i.e. set hours and a rota of instructors that is probably best otherwise you are relying on finding someone willing to help when you are around. This can often work very well but a more formal approach can help at least to start.
Where do they fly and what are the days and times ?: Some clubs can have very restricted flying hours. One club I know of only flies for a total of 6 hours a week. This may be fine if the hours match yours but it's worth checking. Also many clubs have flying fields which are some way from their "home town" so check. Just because the name sounds local it doesn't follow that the field is.

Obviously it's a good idea to go and see the club and it's flying field and chat to some of the members if you can. Most people are happy to talk about modelling if you approach them while they're not too busy but in many areas they are used to ignoring idle spectators staring at them so you may well have to make the first move.

Choosing your equipment

Having joined a club it is now worth checking what sort of plane and particularly radio equipment your instructor recommends. The radio gear is important because you want something that can be used with a "buddy box" and it is also helpful to have the same "Mode" as your instructor and/or most people in the club. Most modern equipment has 'Buddy box' capability built-in, you just need a lead to connect the 2 transmitters. The club may well have the lead you need, if not it won't be very expensive or, if you can handle a soldering iron you can build one yourself. As you've seen on R/C Flight Unlimited, Mode means basically how are the controls placed on the radio 'sticks'. In the UK you will find that Mode 2 (throttle/rudder left, elevator/aileron on the right) is most common in the South. The further north you go the more likely it becomes that everyone will be flying Mode 1.

Which plane

GET A TRAINER. However tempting it is to start with a scale Spitfire or a really aerobatic Fun Fly or something like that, it is not a good idea. Get a simple to fly, easy-to-repair plane designed to learn on. If you are as good as you think, you can soon move up to your ideal plane though many people (like me for example) find their trainers last them for ages.

Having said that the choice is huge. There seem to be hundreds of trainers and more appearing every day. Talk to the folks at the club and see what they recommend. Talk to the people at the model shop. As well as the planes mentioned in Howard's guide (you did read it didn't you ?) here are few of the more popular UK-specific trainers :

Unowot (Chris Foss): Kit - available in 3 or 4 channel. Only needs a .25 engine despite the 60" span this is a very efficient plane. When you get better you can build another flat (no dihedral) wing and it will then do most aerobatics you can think of.
Hi-Boy (Precedent): Kit - 3 or 4 channel. Can be a bit heavy so don't put too small an engine in it. Not the simplest of kits to build but very popular.
Trainer 40 (Kyosho): ARF - 4 channel. Needs a reasonable engine (mine flies very nicely indeed on a GMS .47). The covering is very, very pink and rather brittle so it tends to suffer from "hangar rash" and odd tears e.g. if you land in long grass.

3 or 4 channels

A 3 channel trainer will have controls for the rudder, elevator and throttle. It will also have quite a lot of dihedral and so be quite stable. A 3 channel trainer will probably be a bit easier to fly initially. If you have not taken the rest of my advice and are determined to learn without an instructor than I would go for one of these. It will be a bit more forgiving of some of the mistakes you will make.

A 4 channel trainer will have ailerons in addition to the rudder, elevator and throttle of the 3 channel model. If you have a club and an instructor then I would suggest a 4 channel trainer. Although it is not quite so easy to fly it is perfectly possible to learn on and will probably last you rather longer. A good 4ch trainer is remarkably lively when you have learnt to fly and many will perform most of the aerobatic manoeuvres you can think of.

What power/size

For most people the .40 size trainer is about right. That is a plane designed for a standard 2-stroke Glow Engine, about .40 size (that's .40 cubic inches or about 6 cc). You can get others bigger or smaller and obviously the models they fly are also bigger or smaller. Pros and cons are :

Bigger planes are easier to see in the sky and generally fly slower
Small planes are cheaper to buy and run and a lot easier to carry about.

But what about electric power ? It is possible to get a number of trainers now which "Fly electric". They are generally on the small side and you will need some flight batteries which are not cheap. They do have some advantages though. They are not noisy, smelly or oily so are much better if you just want to nip out at lunchtime for a quick flight. Electrics are also usually classed as silent flight and many clubs have unlimited or at least extended hours for silent flight. I.e. time restrictions only apply to I/C powered planes. The main downside is that flight times tend to be rather shorter (6-8 minutes for electric against up to 15 minutes for glow powered). This may not be a problem initially, you'll find that even 5 minutes is quite hard work. For more information on this exanding area of model flying check out my Electric Flight pages.

I now intend to fly mainly electric for those reasons but one of the things which put me off electric for my initial trainer was that my instructors didn't know much about or particularly like electrics. If you can find an instructor who is keen on electric flight then go for it. But in most cases it is probably better to save them for later.

Building and setting up

As you've seen the choice is whether to build a kit or assemble an ARF/ARTF model. There are pros and cons to either approach.

A kit will take you longer, but you will havea real sense of achievement and learn more about how models go together. This could be very useful if you have the bad luck to crash (and most people do at some time) as you will have a far greater understanding of how to repair your plane. Most of the instructions for beginners kits are very good these days and will provide very detailed step-by-step instruction to help you through your first model.

On the other hand an ARF model will get you flying faster. Personally I chose one of these specifically so I would not have so much effort "invested" in my first trainer in the hope that I wouldn't feel so bad when it inevitably got a bit bashed about.

Whichever you choose, you probably need to do a little gluing and you will need to fit the radio equipment and adjust a few things. So let's get some of the associated terminology out of the way.

The most commonly used glues these days are CA (cyanoacrylate "instant glue"), epoxy and aliphatic. Standard PVA wood glue is sometimes used but aliphatic is very similar bit dries much faster.

CA glues come in several viscosities, thin, medium and thick. The setting times for these range from 5 to 30 seconds. They all work best for wood to wood with fairly well fitting joints. They eat plastic foam (as in foam wings) almost instantly. Since you use very little of them they are very light.

But beware, the fumes given off by CA as it sets are fairly unpleasant and some people become quite allergic to them. The symptoms are usually tightness in the chest, inability to breathe properly and various flue-like effects, runny nose, itchy eyes etc. Use in a well ventilated area and if you get any of these symptoms be careful.

Epoxy. There are 2 sorts of epoxy, the normal adhesive and the epoxy used for skinning models which is much thinner. They are all fuel-proof and very strong. They are also very heavy. Epoxy is useful with foams, where not much else works well, and for many materials other than wood (e.g. gluing plastic snakes).

The adhesives are specified by time (5 minute, 30 minute etc). There isn't very much difference in the strength (the longer time is slightly stronger). You need to be aware that the time given is the setting time. You have considerably less real working time than that. 5 min epoxy will give you about 2 minutes to get all the glue you have mixed onto the parts and everything accurately in place. After that it will be too sticky to use.

There are some people who are allergic to epoxies. The symptoms are sometimes similar to those for CA but more commonly involve painful skin rashes. An allergy usually only occurs after considerable exposure but once it starts it never goes away. Once allergic even very small amounts of epoxy can cause quite severe symptoms.

Aliphatics. Look and act much like PVA white wood glue but set faster (2 hours against overnight). Compared with the other glues they are still slow and therefore require you to plan your work a bit better e.g. sort out lots of bits, glue and pin a whole bunch of parts then go for lunch or to bed. They are at least as strong as CA and can be much stronger where the joints are not a very good fit since they have some gap filling properties.

On the plus side, I have not yet heard of anyone having any medical problems at all with these glues. I use aliphatics whenever I don't need the specific properties of the other glues i.e. much of the time, though for electrics the weight saved using good joints and thin CA sometimes tempts me away. There is now a glue related to these called Superphatic which has many of the characteristics of CA. It's thin so will work into joints which means you can assemble the joint then apply the glue. It dries reasonably quickly but still takes minutes rather than seconds. I use it a lot.

R/C terminology

Airtronics (US): This is the name used in the US for Sanwa equipment.
AMA (US): American equivalent of the BMFA i.e. main modelling organisation
ARF or ARTF: Almost Ready to Fly. A model which should only take a few hours to put together. Generally the main parts are built and you just have to glue a few bits together and add the engine, tank and radio equipment. However if you are new to modelling this can still take quite a while. Not so much doing it as puzzling out what the instructions are trying to tell you.
BEC (Electric flight): Battery Elimination Circuit. This is a feature of many speed controllers which allows you to run the reciever from the main motor battery. Those built for electric flight (as opposed to the car ones) usually have circuitry incorporated which switches the motor off before the battery is completely drained so that you still have control to get the plane back to earth safely.
BMFA: British Model Flying Association. Main body controlling model flying (not just Radio Control) in the UK. Also run an insurance scheme covering modellers against accidental damage etc. Check out the website at www.bmfa.org
Brushless motor: Modern very efficient electric motor. They are also currently very expensive and use special controllers which are even more expensive.
Crystal: The electronic component that determines which Channel your radio is transmitting and receiving on. In the UK we have 25 channels (60 to 84) around 35MHz for air use. We are allowed to change crystals, and thus channels, whenever we feel like. The crystal in the transmitter and receiver must obviously be matched i.e.on the same channel. It is best to use the manufacturer's approved crystals in all cases. In the US they fly on a different frequency, 72MHz, and until recently it was not permitted to change channels unless you were a qualified technician. I'm not sure if they had less accidents than we do or just more bureaucracy.
Cycle (US) as in 2 cycle, 4 cycle: Equivalent to stroke. I.e. a 4 cycle engine is a 4-stroke.
ESC (Electric Flight): Electronic speed controller. This is the device which acts as the throttle for electric motors. Those built specifically for plane use (as opposed to R/C cars and boats) may have other features such as brake (to allow the prop to fold) and BEC (qv) with auto shutoff so that you still have control when your batteries are getting low.
I/C: Internal combustion. I.e. conventional type of engine, glow, diesel or petrol. Usually contrasted with electric.
Mode: The association of the aircraft controls with the controls on the transmitter. Mode 1 has the elevator and rudder on the left and throttle and ailerons on the right. Mode 2 has throttle and rudder on the left and elevator and ailerons on the right. It is said that Mode 1 is most common in Europe and Mode 2 in the US. But my club in the UK almost all fly Mode 2, so check with the club you intend to join. I'm told that in the UK the further north you go the more likely it is that everyone will be flying Mode 1 (throttle right).
Muffler (US): American for silencer. Muffler is probably more accurate since an I/C engine with one fitted is still far from silent
Music wire (US): Known in the UK as Piano wire. Very hard, springy steel wire used for undercarriages, pushrods etc.
NiCad: Rechargeable battery (short for Nickel Cadmium, the materials it's mafe of). These are at the moment the best batteries to use for most modelling purposes. Some of the newer battery types like NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) and some of the Lithium-based ones are starting to be suitable for some purposes e.g. NiMH make good transmitter battires and power packs for Electric flight at fairly low currents.
Scratch build: Not built from a kit. There is some debate over whether the term scratch building should only be used when you are both DESIGNING and building but most people seem to use it for anything which does not involve buying a kit of parts e.g. building from a plan.
Simulator: Computer progam which allows you to "fly" on a PC. There are a number of specialised R/C flight simulators which give an excellent representation of what it's like to to fly a radio controlled aircraft (or helicopter). Some of them allow you to use your actual R/C transmitter to control the simulator which can be very valuable to help you get used to the feel of the controls. See my CSM pages for some details of my favourite simulator.
Stick or Stick built (US): What we would call a balsa or spruce strip our friends across the pond call a stick. Hence stick-built refers to a "traditional" built-up model with a framework of balsa strips.
Wrench (US): Spanner or possibly socket spanner.