RC-Journey

How to NOT get started

jet start

Buy a turbine jet that goes more than 300 km/h and cost more than your car - because you will destroy it!!!

How to get started

Do not start with a cool fighter jet - you will destroy it!!!

  1. Get something simple to fly
    1. Tiny indoor drone (with prop protection)
      Eachine e010
    2. Stabilized camera drone (with prop protection)
    3. A Trainer airplane (with recovery function or dihedral)
  2. Get a simulator and use it for some time

Areas of the hobby

  1. Planes
    1. Glider (with or without motor) glider
    2. High wing (trainer / STOL) high high2
    3. Mid wing (3d) mid
    4. Low wing (warbirds)
    5. Wing wing
  2. Helicopters
    1. Scale scale Heli scaleheli2
    2. 3D 3dheli
  3. Drones
    1. Camera (typical DJI) video
    2. Cinematic (mix off freestyle and camera)
    3. Freestyle / Racing freestyle
  4. FPV (First Person View) Race / Freestyle / Long range / Mission fpv me
  5. Building your own
    1. Foamboard / Depron foamboard plane
    2. Balsawood balsa build
    3. Tech Challenge tech overview

Is this something you can imagine to get into?

You probably tried now lots of different things in the sim and had lots of fun with huge helicopters or extreme jets or maybe even with a 1/3 scale piper cub. Don’t by anything like that yet!!!

Find a local club

Good your town name and combine it with rc/model airplane and the changes are pretty good that you find something. Types of clubs

  1. Just for fun - small crappy airfield and you can fly what you want - no matter how old or cheap it was.
  2. Normal Clubs - medium airfield - wide variety of mentality
  3. Bigger Clubs - professional airfield, clubhouse, youth group - sometimes expect that everyone has to fly a 3000$ or more model to call it rc-flying,

If the club in your town feels not right for you, have a look at a club in the surrounding. There will be one that meet your style.

What all clubs have in common that is that you need to have an insurance (~50€ a year in Germany)

License? / Legal?

Learn about the rules from your club. Or checkout the Kenntnisnachweis from the dmfv

Hardware

What else do I need?

  1. Remote Control There are tons of different brands and styles out there - but ask the people at your local club on with systems they can help you with
    1. if you just want something that works and works with lots of stuff - use Spektrum
    2. if you are a developer - get a radiomaster tx16s or pocket and get into openTX/edgeTX
    3. if you want to fly a jet - get a Jeti system

Just make sure you get something you can connect to the pc / simulator

remote

  1. Charger

Start with a simple “4 button” charger and later when you know what you want, get a 2-4 port charger

(that hopfully still work)