Common Terminologies.

Some common terms used in RC areas 

RC-Radio controlled(not remote controlled)
ESC-Electronic speed controller
BLDC-Brushless DC Motors
Control horns-Arms on the control surfaces
Push rod-any strong, stiff, sleek material like cycle spoke to transfer the action of servo to the control horn
Clevices-linkage between pushrod and control horn
TX-RC radio transmitter that converts the stick movements into signals .
Radio module-a RF equipment that converts the signal from TX and convert them into RF signals and send them in air through an antenna(Some have inbuilt modules and some has external modules that can be switchables)
RX-Receiver, receives the signal from the TX module and decode it and convert it into servo movement      proportional to the stick position.
Tail dragger-A plane that has two wheels in the front and a single wheel in the tail. commonly used to denote the type of landing gear used in the plane Eg: piper cub
Trike, Tricycle landing gear: Exact opposite of Tail dragger, has one nose wheel and two wheel in the rear. Eg:Cessna
Fuel Pump: a Small hand crank rotary pump used to transfer fuel from a lot to the fuel tank of the RC plane.
Fuel Tank: a small, Leak-proof Plastic tank with rubber stopper and two/three holes to supply continuous fuel to the engine regardless of the orientation of the plane like inverted, banking etc.

Electronics-Control surfaces

Control surfaces
Servos are mini brushed motors with gears and some sort of positional control system to make precision movements corresponding to the input signal given.

Control horns are connected to the stem of the motors and in turn connected to control surfaces to transfer the movement.

Electronics Part 2

This part two of this section talks about Electric propulsion system for RC planes.

It consist mainly of three parts,

Electric motor
ESC-Electronic speed controller
Battery AKA Lipo

Electric Motor(BLDC):
These are nothing but small sized three phase induction motor and they runs on three phase AC supply.
Simple enough right? but they really aren''t. there is some complex theory like RPM, KV, wattage, amps, cell type information needed to choose the right type for the right application. more on those complex stuffs later.
From now on we will start calling them as BLDC-Brushless DC motors

ESC:
This magic electronic thingy is responsible for converting the DC supply from a battery to three phase AC supply to run the BLDC. it controls the speed by varying the time difference between each signals and thereby slowing down or speeding up the magnetization and de-magnetization process for the motor.
this process is exclusively controlled by the input signal from receiver.

Battery:
No explanation needed for Mr.Battery. there are many types of battery depending on their chemistry like Lead acid, NiCad, NiMh, Li-ion, Lipo and so on. Lipo-short form for Lithium Polymer battery is widely used since it drawbacks out-weight their advantages.
Fast charging compared with NiMh, Lighter than Lead acid batteries, High discharge capacity(100Amps!!!) High charge density(2Ah battery for less than 250gms!!!) Surprisingly a quick search on our great grand father google throws out more number of fire accident videos than any good things that happened with Lipos. so better be careful with this stuff and always observe the most precaution while charging and storing Lipos.
investigate a lipo thoroughly  and after a crash and do not use it if it Puffed or gets hot while charging.
more on Lipo safety later.

with this said, the above three devices are enough to make your plane move forward. lets look for the control system.

Electronics part 1

The life and soul of modern Aeromodelling.

There are two main parts of RC planes.

1.Propulsion: to drive the plane forward
2.Control system: to control the movement of the plane during flight.

Lets see about each of them in detail

Propulsion:
Gasoline engines/Glow engines were primarily used in olden days to propel the planes.
They are Fast, costly, dangerous, noisy, messy, little difficult stuff to work with but gives the real thrill of a model airplane. a Real plane runs on engine an a model plane should run on engine. Flying place are more and more getting crowded and there are less places left that are suitable to fly nitros.

Electric motors are a good alternatives for fuel run engines. Cheaper and available and no tuning and expertise requires makes the glow engines obsolete. Motors have their downsides too,
Flight Time is very less for a given size and speed. pound to pound, apple to apple the power, efficiency, speed is very less when compared with fuel counterparts.
But they are more suitable for beginners who want to have a gentle and mind soothing flight on a Sunday morning. they are more suitable for certain applications like multirotors, FPV, aerial filming where more electronics involved which dont like 'vibration and fuel gunk.

Control system:
Can be called the nervous system or muscular system of RC planes.
They control the movement of control surface like elevator, rudder, ailerons, flaps, landing gears et all.
Servos are used traditionally as control systems. they have only seen a few good advancements like metal gear servos, Slim servos for wings, micros servos for foam planes, High voltage servos for heavy purpose like landing gears etc.

Foam Building-Part 1

This material called foam never ceases to amaze me,
you can use it virtually for all the types of planes, Gliders, Free-flight, and 3D models especially.
But there are certain drawbacks for foam too,

1.Useless for nitro models as Nitro fuel will eat foam.
2.CA can neither be used for foam building not for minor repairs.
3.Foam will Chip away or weaken sooner or later,
4.Sanding or cutting foam could cause lot of dust and its hazardous to health.
5. Availability of certain types like EPP is hard in certain parts of the world being there is no other practical usage of those materials in those areas

With all these being said, lets address those areas and speak about the advantages.

About me and this blog.

Hi all,

This blog aims to give tips, tricks about aero modelling at the cheapest price using stuffs lying around.

I''m a simple RC plane enthusiast with a TX stick in hand. Im no expert flyer and not a veteran but 'have experimented with almost all the methods for building and know a lot about materials. 

Keep reading this blog for more info.

The blogger.