RC Air...A New Level...

Well, I'm on vacation camping, and it's becoming routine that I build an airplane or something. As you know, it's a hobby I enjoy, and I love the satisfaction of putting many hours into an airplane and taking it to flight for the first time.

This summer, I built the Reactor Bi-plane (or Bipe for short), pictured here. It's my first plane that isn't a trainer, isn't a glider, and isn't a foam of some sort. This is the real deal, has scale aerodynamic surfaces, and really is meant to fly like a real plane.

It took me about a week and a half to assemble, and this morning, I took it on it's maiden flight. Out in the Shuswaps here, I found a full size grass airstrip that doesn't see much action from real aircraft, so I chose it to fly my Bipe here. This am, wind socks were telling me about 10-15 knots of wind, which is a little on the heavy side for a first test flight of the Bipe....but what the hell.

This plane flies SO much nicer than all the others I've flown so far (I've got 6 others...most of them still flyable). It's a very striking plane on the ground, and even more so in the air. It's much more stable than my other aircraft, as it's a bit bigger, and with two wings, it floats a lot nicer. Rolls are precise. Loops are accurate, nice and round. Landings are easy as you can bring it in so nice and slow .... lots of lift.

Stay posted. I'm going to get Dianne to try and get some video. Not real easy trying to track this all over the sky...but we'll give it a shot.

I truly enjoy building and flying RC. I keep saying to myself, I enjoy it because I'm fortunate to not have had too many written off aircraft....My goal is to keep it that way.... ;-)