Here are some pics of what I am talking about.
IR LED (long bent lead positive)
9V battery (small terminal positive)
LED connected (pos to pos, neg to neg)
LED connected (pos to neg, neg to pos)
And for those interested... here's a pic of the receiver that would mount to the plane. Motor, actuator, and battery leads get soldered to the various edges of copper pcb. Not very pretty but solding this small is very hard and I have no experience. Had to make my own soldering iron tip out of a copper wire. This thing is smaller than a penny.
