This is something I was pretty heavily into back in the 1980's and 1990's, before family and career pushed it out of my life. Well, now that I'm well into retirement, I've found time to get back into it. My how things have changed. I first flew back in the glow engine era, when the first four cycle glow engines were becoming available. I still have a number of those airplanes, and will soon fly them again, but in the meantime I've discovered, and am enjoying, all of the advances in the hobby.
I've already posted some pics of my old airplanes, as well as some of the new ones I've acquired in the last couple of years. So far, my new ones have all been of the "ultra-micro" variety, both in size and in cost. Until now. I just got home from the maiden flights on my new "park flyer" size airplane, the next step up from ultra-micro. Boy, what a wonderful flyer - size does, indeed, make a difference. Here is my new 850mm span Pitts S1S, sitting next to my ultra micro version of the same airplane. Tennis ball included for scale:
These both fly on clean, hassle-free electric power, with brushless motors running off of lipo battery packs. The larger one uses the same 11x7 (11" diameter, 7" pitch) prop that my old .40 ci four cycle glow engine uses. It has some serious power, to where it will accelerate vertically out of a tail slide.
These things also have three gyros on board, one for each control axis. The little one would, quite frankly, be quite difficult to fly without these gyros. They are invisible to the pilot, totally non-intrusive, but add a great deal of stability in choppy winds and such. Hell, back when I was first into this hobby, the Pitts itself had a horrible reputation as being difficult to fly when scaled down to R/C size. The "fix" for the R/C versions was to design them with longer tail moments to aid in stability, so they just never looked right. Until now. The gyros do not impair aerobatic capability in any way, so this short-coupled, four aileroned little bipe really tears it up when you want it to, but it's as docile as a Cub when you need it to be. What great good fun.