Hobby 2.0

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As a boy, I was hooked into R/C-Models. I was fascinated by ships, planes and helicopters but always thought an R/C-Plane would actually be fun. However, I never had (a.k.a was willing to spend) the necessary money on a half-way realistic and fun R/C-Plane. Nevertheless, I had an itching in my back whenever I saw somebody fly an R/C-Plane.

Not anymore now. After more than 20 years of itching in my back when I saw somebody fly an R/C-Plane, I finally ordered my first R/C-Model ever. The parcel should arrive soon, probably already tomorrow. Because of my newbie-status, I went for a “Ready-To-Fly” model with a brushless electric motor: The Cessna 182 I bought at Conrad will hopefully bring the fun it’s promising.

230185 LB 00 FB

Of course, I wouldn’t be at least half a nerd if I didn’t bring computers and electronics into that hobby too.

First, inspired by the new Flight-Simulator feature of Google Earth, I looked if there was any R/C-Flight simulator out there. And of course, there is. Besides all the very pricey software, I quickly stumbled upon the Flight Model Simulator (or FMS in short). Which is free as in free beer. It wouldn’t be an OpenSource software if it didn’t allow the users to easily extend it in a way or another.

One of these ways is new airplane models which can be built within a simple graphical editor delivered with the software itself. Even better,all the aficionados out there already built tons of different models, including the flying vehivcles from Star Wars. Of course, I also found a model for the Cessna 182.

cessna-182

This allowed me to train myself at least partially over the weekend: One of the trickiest things in R/C-Model flying is that left and right will be inverted from the R/C-Control to the plane if the plane heads towards you. Really, I tell you.1

The other thing I might be looking at is using some electronics within the model, e.g. to make it an DIYDrone or add some other fun stuff like landing lights, a camera or more. I’m very impressed by this onboard video of the Cessna 182. But this is definitely for Hobby 2.1.

Now, wish me luck and not too many crashes.



  1. Luckily, a crash in FMS will not destroy your model at all. ↩︎

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