I'll probably be outside detailing the pickup so I can get it sold. Wasnt invited to watch it anywhere, and I'll be dropping Thuy at the airport about the time it comes on.

This is fun, a good friend of mine in SC is looking to build a nasty little blown small block for a old school Mopar, he is bouncing ideas off of me and I have to admit, I am dusting off brain cells I haven't used in a very long time. I think this is gonna be fun

Well. The RC is just waiting on the motor to get back tomorrow. All bearings replaced, everything regreased, new outdrive spindles and new spur/pinion gears....the old spur was 87t and so big it rubbed the new driveshafts. Had a 20t pinion with it for a 4.35:1.....new spur is 80t, clears the driveshaft easily and with a 16t pinion is 5:1....gonna grab a 3s battery for when I want more speed. The dude that makes the motors said that my rig will handle 3s without a problem.

Local cop just clocked the new RC my son is playing with at over 70. Not bad for an electric car. Belt drive and very easy to control. It is a rather spendy hobby

e39 fan shrowd and expansion tank R/R went easy peasy....now to determine where the new oil spot on the garage floor came from....

BMW stands for Brakes Motor oil and Water, you buy the car and spend money on the rest of it. :)

Electric is where IT is at these days.
The Traxxas XO-1 is electric and will top 100mph right out of the box.....some people have tweaked them up to hitting almost 150mph.....I saw a video of one that hit a bump at ~125mph......it was spectacular....pieces everywhere...

As far as I know the fastest RC is still a glider.

pretty sure you're right Richard, but powered stuff is catching up fast. There are quite a few 400+mph alcohol turbine planes out there.

I play with one scale stuff

My first exposure to RC Planes was a RC Formula 1 plane race. Pretty impressive. Those guys were going upwards of 210 mph. They raced around pylons. The pilots stood between two pylons that were 50 ft apart then flew out and around a single pylon 700 ft out. There were turn guys for each plane at the 700ft pylon to flag when the plane passed the pylon so they could turn. There was also a lap counter for each plane that had to concentrate on only that one plane to not lose which plan they were watching.

Got into RC because of it though much more mundane speeds. The only racing I got involved in was our club put together a racing class that was a very cheap (and slow) plane and the cheapest Fox .40 engine. No modification were allowed to the kit or engine. It was fantastically fun. The planes were very well matched, it was anybodys guess who would win. We had 30 participants. By the end of the season the planes were pretty trashed and patched up. The last event of the year was all the racers went at once and the one that crashed closest to inside a trash can got a new plane and motor for the next season.

We also tried doing air combat with streamers, but no-one was able to clip another's streamer. Just too difficult in 3D space.

After 3 years they changed to rules to allow people to build anything they wanted, but had to use the same motor and were limited to 500sq inch wings. We lost about half the participants including me.

Then they went to Quikie 500 RC racing rules for 500sq planes and lost participants down to 3. The idea was following the regular rules you go race at the many events around the country, but keeping up with motor and plane speed ups were very expensive.

I often thought and suggested we go back to the cheap plane formula because of the huge participation, but never happened, sad.

I'm really digging surface RC.......even brutal crashes seem to be easily rebuildable.......I think I'm gonna go back to square one on the airboat and go with a brushless RC setup.

I enjoyed aerobatics. Typically, when I crashed, the plane was lost. Easier to build another than repair.

I've still got a plane about 50ft up a tree in the neighborhood.......it's amazing how fast a tuned .46 engine can move

Like Charlie Browns' kite eating tree?

Or like the idiot controlling it forgot that the controls were on high rate and slammed it into the tree at about 60....

Every now and then pieces will fall.....I'm waiting for the engine, I can rebuild that sucker.

Climb up and get it

If you want to do flying RC I think your best bet these days for cheap is some of the foam board planes. Can rebuild the whole thing in a few hours with a few bucks with of foam. Check out what the boys at flitetest are doing with foam board. Hell they have a foam board edf you can be in for under $100.

For $100 why waste a few hours trying to rebuild? Especially when it will not be as light and balanced after repairs. That's why everyone participated in the end of season trash can crash contest.

I alway built my planes super light, liked to say I built them to fly, not to crash.
First step was to sand all the wood down to 1/2 thickness.
Then applied ultrathin CA into the grain ends. It would wick all the way through the wood. I made composite pieces stronger and lighter than the original wood. My 5 lb plane kits typical only weighed 4 lbs. and flew fantastically better.

Took me much longer to learn to fly helicopters because they were battery powered. Used 3 batteries so basically got 3 flights, then had to wait for the batteries to recharge. And you HAVE to put LiPo batteries on a charger and keep them charged up or they die.

I only have 2 batteries for the truck, but they last a good but longer than batteries in something airborne last. I get about 25 minutes out of each when I really hammer on it....about 45 if I'm just screwing around