Sweet RC airplane

[MattR]

Check out this B52 Rc plane,...Landing looks tough.

http://www.break.com/articles/modelb52.html

[MikeK]

That is awesome! And I thought we had an expensive hobby

[MattR]

That landing get's a 9.5 though.

[sperry]

At the field I used to go to back when I was a kid, there was a guy w/ a B-17 replica about the same scale as that B-52. It had four 4-stroke .30 motors, and he limited himself to about 20% throttle for scale power output. That thing sounded awesome making low passes of the runway with all for motors rumbling at partial throttle!

Also, there was an RC airshow out there one weekend. Some guy had a beautiful 1/4 scale F-4 Phantom. He was making an inverted pass of the field and it lost radio comms and went into fail-safe. Normally that's a gentle upwards spiral, but when you're inverted, it's a quick lawn dart into the ground... the crash looked very similar to that B52 crash. Poor planes!

[MattR]

What would you estimate the cost of that B52 to be? Or time to build? Damn that thing is sweet.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by MattR

What would you estimate the cost of that B52 to be? Or time to build? Damn that thing is sweet.

I'd guess the plane probably cost around $10,000.... but the time would have been astronomical... 10-20,000 hours maybe? Probably like 5 years of nights and weekends. I'm sure there's a website about the build out there somewhere.

People don't build planes like that w/o being nearly certifiable. And I bet the owner(s) will salvage what they can (motors & radio equipment tend to survive wrecks surprisingly well) and will start rebuilding it the weekend after the crash.

One thing to note about the crash... it looked FAR too windy to be flying that thing... Since it's a scale airframe, it's not going to perform too much better than the real-deal. Sure the real B52 is a great stable platform, but a 1/6 scale plane means a 40 mph wind gust is like a 240 mph gust for the real plane! I'm pretty sure a real B52 making a high bank turn near stall speed getting hit by a 240 mph tail wind would skid into the ground as well.

[Vwflat4driver]

kickass landing the first time. ive seen the second landing happen all to many times when i ran a hobbyshop!!!! love the fire afterwards

[Vwflat4driver]

the turbine engines run about $2500 each he must have had atleast 4 possibly eight judging by the enging pod size. $10,000 is low balling materials alone would have cost over $1000 plus his radio if you wanna include it would have been $6-700 easy!!! just all a guess for me and what i used to sell anyways..

[sperry]

Originally Posted by Vwflat4driver

kickass landing the first time. ive seen the second landing happen all to many times when i ran a hobbyshop!!!! love the fire afterwards

I don't think I've ever seen a jet RC crash w/o burning. For some reason, they just seem to like to burn. I guess kerosene, balsa wood, and a hot motor pretty much guartentee's a fire.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by Vwflat4driver

the turbine engines run about $2500 each he must have had atleast 4 possibly eight judging by the enging pod size. $10,000 is low balling materials alone would have cost over $1000 plus his radio if you wanna include it would have been $6-700 easy!!! just all a guess for me and what i used to sell anyways..

Wow, I had no idea the turbines are so expensive!! I figured $2000-$3000 would get you 4 engines. Plus $1000-$2000 for the radio equipment, and $1000 for materials. That left about $4000 for all the odds and ends needed, like wheels and fuel tanks, etc.

But if the motor's are as expensive as you say... that guy could have been racing a WRX for cheaper than that plane!

[Ezdno]

Damn that was awesome, after my wife watches that she will never complain about my 3500 hotwheels again!