Let’s make some Airplanes

So I recently came across an amazing Youtube channel name FliteTest , these guys makes foam airplanes powered by brushless motors that can actually fly, they have an awesome begineer video series explaining everything about flight dynamics, control surfaces, selecting components and the best part about this is they have made their designs available for free to use and Build your own planes which caught my eyes ;).

The material they use is Dollar Tree foam board which is light weight foam good for making these models. I tried to find out if I can source it locally here in India but couldn’t find it anywhere. I tried asking people in same hobby on RCIndia forums and came to know that only close candidate I can get is Depron or Bio Foam available in delhi unlaminated(sigh), 5mm thickness. Ask me where I get that from ;)

It is comparatively heavy but I still decided to go with it as I had no other option :( . The heavy design changes Centre Of Gravity of plane making it unbalanced and difficult to fly. I made multiple models, FT-Mustang, FT-BabyBlender, FT-Spitfire but all last max 2 flights. For electronics the components was sourced locally - A brushless DC motor, Electronics Speed Controller and Li-Po Batteries. Since I’ve worked on microcontrollers and RF radios before I decided to save some bucks and make my own DIY Remote Controller using Arduino and NRF24L01 modules. This was an overall Great learning experience for me, and for those who’d like to make their own RC controller, I’ve documented it and other related stuff on Instructables and source code is available on my Github

Disclaimer: RC hobby is damn addictive, once you’re in there’s no going back ;)

####Edit 1: My instructable reached more than 20k views, thanks everyone :)