Build Your Next Model from Electric RC Plane Plans
Electric RC plane plans add variety to your aircraft fleet
The Robin can be built in a weekend
High quality almost and ready to fly RC model aircraft have fueled a boom with practical and affordable indoor electric model flight. You can readily find a fun two channel remote control airplane or helicopter for under $50, with every thing - aircraft, transmitter and charger - included. For a not much more money, the ParkZone line of RTF foam indoor micro three and four channel RC airplanes has achieved a high point in modeling excellence.
Fly something different
However, as you spend time with your friends flying these great indoor RC models, there is a certain repetitiveness to everyone flying the same version of the various RC aircraft available. A great way to provide something new and different to your indoor flying experience is to build an electric RC model from plans. With today’s wide range of indoor RC models, this is certainly an achievable goal.
The Yard Ace is an attractive park flyer from plans
In the past, when everyone had to fly heavier, gas powered RC models outdoors, building a model from RC plane plans was a serious undertaking. The planes were simply bigger, to support the large radio control gear available at the time. Plus, you needed added aircraft structure to mount and support a gas motor.
All this changes when you construct a model from electric RC plane plans. Smaller micro aircraft simply build quicker than larger models. You will use less material, thus the cost to build a typical small RC model from plans is much lower than a larger sized model. These time and cost savings permit you to experiment more with aircraft built from electric RC plans. You may wish to try out a longer or wider wing, or change the shape of the tail surfaces. You can also experiment with substituting foam for balsa as Evert did with his Blackburn. These tasks are easy when building a series of models, such as the Blackburn, from electric design plans.
Get full size Robin construction plans via e-mail here
Download free plans for the Finch
CAD plans for electric models
In the recent past, electric RC plane plans were easily discerned, as the entire design was aimed to provide the minimum structure to save weight anywhere possible. Today’s micro RC gear, lightweight lipo batteries and powerful brushless motors permit a much greater variety of indoor electric powered model aircraft to be successfully built from plane plans. Light weight is still crucial for successful indoor electric flight. The advantages of CAD drawn plans combined with very accurate laser cutting of the balsa and plywood parts produce innovative interlocking model aircraft structures that provide a surprising amount of strength with efficient use of material.
Example of an original biplane from plans
There are a lot of older plans for free flight models that lend themselves nicely for modification to electric RC plane plans. These early free flight models just about always used rubber bands for power. Thus there is little structure incorporated in the model for an electric motor. Modifications to mount an electric motor, add a battery tray and incorporate the RC electronics are easy to accomplish. These adaptations of the original aircraft layout provide a good foundation for later work preparing your own original design and model construction plans.
Plantraco MicroScout foam plane
Foam model airplane construction
Foam is a very common building material for indoor electric RC models, and there are a wide variety of RC plane plans that use foam as the main building material. Foam allows the modeler to construct shapes that would be much more challenging to build from balsa, such as round wing shapes and complex curved structures that can be carved directly from the foam. A model made from foam does not need covering material, and there are a wide variety of light weight and foam safe paints to complete the aircraft.
In summary, there are a wide variety of electric RC plane plans that can add variety and fun to your fleet of indoor RC model aircraft. Many of these plans are free, either as inserts with the modeling magazine press, or available on line - see the Snapper model airplane plane here, as well as the Finch.
Building a model airplane from plans is easy and a lot of fun. Do give it a try, and you will add another dimension to your enjoyment of the radio control model airplane hobby.