anybody by the Yellow Bee from Harbor Freight ?

I've seen a couple of them, and it does actually fly. There is no elevator control, so you basically need to trim it like a free-flight, i.e., shim the vee-tail with some matchbook cover stock to get it to fly with moderate climb under power. On the examples I've seen, down trim was needed, i.e., raise the LE of the V-tail a bit. Yaw control is via differential thrust, like a tracked land vehicle. It works, but isn't all that positive so your best bet is to strive to keep it upwind. The differential thrust means it's going to lose altitude while turning as one of the motors is shut down (the one you are turning in to) - not a good thing while you are trying to get it back upwind. A different kind of flying challenge - kinda fun for a while.

Abel

| it was about $30 .. has 2 tiny motors and i think 4 " props with 30deg pitch | ... it's a push design.

I saw one and was impressed, so I bought one.

It flies. For what it is, it flies pretty good, but there's no comparison to more serious R/C gear.

| kinda .. on the flimsy side but i havent actually flown yet .. will require | tweaking of trim on controller as well as tail "V " ... i didnt like how | the motor mounts arent very perfect and neither is the holes in the wing .. | weell u get what u pay for ..

They don't need to be perfect.

| I guess considering the 'turn key ' solution aspect of it all .. its not a | bad deal ? and a good beginnner thing as a stepping stone...

No, it's not really good for a beginner. You have rather little control, so you need to stay a few seconds ahead of it, which is hard for a beginner to do. A beginner should spend some more money and get a better plane, but for $30 it's not bad.

| supposed to fly for 20 minutes on full charge

It does.

| and have like a 1600 foot range from transmitter ..

Note that even 1000 feet would be a LONG way away ...

| although for the other planess they list climb in meters / second -- | some are 2 , 3 , even 5 m/s ...this one has none..

Without elevator control, it's not a good climber. You'll be looking for a happy medium where it goes up and doesn't stall.

| ( i guess it must not climb too fast with those tiny little motors | and props)...

It does remarkably good for what it's got.

| probably dosnt handle a heavy wind too well either being that its | kind light ... ) about a pound i think) ...

No, wind would be a bad thing.

| i saw several things i could do .. get a 4 AA bat pack instead of the 4 AAA

Won't fit. And would screw up the center of gravity.

| ... get bigger props ..

Why? It works as-is.

Really, if you want to hop up a plane, this is not the one.

Just be glad it flies for $30. And it won't last long, because you have very limited control, and so you'll crash it often.

The only problem I have seen people have with the yellow bee is because the motors are mounted in wing cutouts, it weakens the wing at that point. If you want to do something before you fly it, look at reenforcing this area. It can be repaired fairly easily with tooth picks and Araldite if you do end up crashing it.

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"Don't call me a mindless philosopher" Max Gaming and Brown Paper kite site

It sure does and that's where it breaks , for me on the 1st and definitely second flight.. course i was stupid to fly with a hurricane on the way ... so winds were kicking up.

I will try the tooth picks and Araldite..(what ever that is ) some kinda modeling epoxy ....

$10 for new wings and rudder...

mabye a new plane with more controls is the way to reduce crashes because u can manuever when winds carry the thing ...

I guess that would be a 3 channel rig ?

Sorry about the confusion, using a brand name for the glue. It is a two part epoxy glue that does a good job from what I have seen.

If your looking at buying another plane in the same park flyer type and 3 channel, which will give more control (especially fighting a loosing battle upwind), there are a few now in the market which you will be happier with. The only thing with these type of park flyers is, they all come with a controller, so if you buy alot you end up with a room full of controllers. :-)

It helps being able to reduce altitude with an elevator rather than waiting for the YellowBee to drop from the sky, which doesn't always happen when the wind blows up.

More air under the plane rather than above it reduces crashing :-)

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"Don't call me a mindless philosopher" Max Gaming and Brown Paper kite site

yeah thats what i heard , toothpics, epoxy and even cello tape ? and of course the balancing act of doing to the other side what u do to one side.

The yellowBee(chinese _cheapo_ special?) has a 27MHz ctrl which says 6 .. as it say has up to 12 frequencies.

I have another ctrl (more channels) but how could i recycle tho ctrl for another plane ? do you have to change a crystal here and there ? is it

68MHz that's the next higher up range ?

I'm not into spening a month building balsa and doing the whole heat on the poly-screening finish... I guess buying a plane without the controller would be good but am not familiar enuf with this (guess i should spend time reading archives at rcgroups.com) to know how to change servor compatabilities.

Yeah , u guys were absolutely correct, u need t o be an expert to fly the cheapo , hardly controllable yellow bee.. either that or they should throw that simulator SW and cable so u can get some hourrs at your computer with the controller and be comfortable with the rig !!! and boy it sure doesnt take long for the plane to go out of site and you dont know whats going on !

Hey guys,

A co-worker stopped by HarborFreight yesterday and picked up a Yellow Bee. I've been looking into RC planes for awhile but have always been afraid to drop the $$$ because I know I would end up smashing it. Since the thing was $30 I picked up one yesterday as well.

Here are how the events unfolded:

Took it home, put it together, flew it for about 10 secs and crashed it and lost the canopy that covers the battery.

Decided to try agian, flew it about a minute, crashed it and broke the main wing.

Went inside to try and fix the wing

Went back outside, flew it for about 20-30 secs and the damaged wing folded and I crashed it again.

Now I had the main wing broke on both sides.

I managed to fix the main wing but had a hard time controlling the plane, crashed it yet again and broke the tail wing.

Repaired it, got it stuck in a pecan tree but managed to get it down and then I went inside.

All told, I flew it for maybe 6 or 7 minutes and now it looks pretty sad. I was going to go back to HF and buy new wings but I think its a losing battle and will only serve to seperate me from $10. Oh well.

That's my complaint as well. I see lots of interesting park flyers in the hobby shop, online and in magazine ads but sooo many of them are complete packages with transmitters, chargers, etc that I just don't need more of. Especially the low end stuff that typically comes in those packages.

| A co-worker stopped by HarborFreight yesterday and picked up a Yellow | Bee. I've been looking into RC planes for awhile but have always been | afraid to drop the $$$ because I know I would end up smashing it. | Since the thing was $30 I picked up one yesterday as well.

I don't know how skilled you are at R/C, but I bought one and didn't have any serious crashes.

It's not likely to last long in the hands of a beginner, who probably won't even know how to trim it, but if you know what you're doing, you can make it fly well enough to crash only occasionally. But it's no replacement for a true 3 channel plane.

Alas, if you know R/C well enough to make it work, you're probably not going to be interested in it for long, though it's fun to pull out just as a novelty.

On the bright side, the 4 cell AAA pack would work nicely as a receiver pack in a better plane (with an appropriate plug, of course.) Also, the R/C gear could be used to make a nice little R/C boat with little effort.

(They could be used to fly a $3 foam plane from Wal-Mart too, but you'd still have the same lack of control issues.)

You have discoverd the black hole rule of aviation... . . . . . .

The is a black hole in aviation and you throw money down it.

You have to be careful what that controller is for. If it uses car frequencies it shouldn't be used, it is more likely that someone else will show up with the same freq. Aircaft have their own frequency range, because they are more dangerous if the signal is scrambled. Even operating on 27MHz worries me, with interferance.

As to what frequency it depends on what country you're in. Changing crystals is alright if your only chaning a few channels away, but if it's further a retune by qualified personal is recommended. Going to 68 from 27 would need a whole new circuit.

It depends on how much you want to get into the hobby. I bought a micro receiver and since have use it in a litestick, and plans to use it in an lighter indoor model and even a Mustang or Spitfire.

the rcgroups is a good web site and should tell you alot, as well as reading the reviews at ezonemag.com

Best thing to do even if you want to just fly ARF is go to a club, I haven't met a club member yet that isn't helpfull.

The 2 channel plane I bought was the Firebird Outlaw, it's a little more robust than the Bee, I have also been told it is easier to fly for the beginner. It isn't easy to fly without some knowledge. I have seen guys who claim to have r/c car skills not keep a plane in the air for more than

5 seconds, so don't be put off by bad experiences.

Also the guy that had the YellowBee did a test glide in his backyard and it crashed and broke. Probably didn't give it enough speed.

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"Don't call me a mindless philosopher" Max Gaming and Brown Paper kite site

I started this whole RC thing 8 months ago -- bought a firebird outlaw for my 8-year-old kid. 2-channel, but cheap, and fairly repairable with some clear packing tape. We had a bunch of hours of fun with it, though probably not even a half-hour total of flying. Still, it was a good way for him to learn about control.

Next thing I did was get interested in the Wally Wing, but others convinced me that I should try "Jerbear's Simple Wing". It's built from fanfold-foam insulation, barbecuing skewers, some hot-melt glue, etc. The downside, from a cost point of view, is that you need a real transmitter, a real receiver, a couple of servos, and a battery, and a lithium-polymer model works best. Oh...a speed controller too. And the transmitter needs to have 'mixing' and 'trim'. Fortunately, used xmitters are available on ebay and elsewhere, and if you get fed up with the hobby, you can re-sell your xmitter for not much less than you paid -- so although it costs you something, you recover most of it. The wing, after some slight modifications, has proved to be fun and very fault-tolerant. We've done lots of "one-point landings" along the way. After the first build, subsequent builds (I've made 3 so far, all using the same electronics) take a little over an hour. Longer if the kids help :-)

But if I were going to suggest something to do with the same electronics, I'd say "first build "gpw's Trainer-1" and THEN the simple-wing." The T-1 has been great. Yeah, I've rebuilt once, using up almost a dollar's worth of fanfold. At that price, you don't mind when you nose in. And the thing is amazingly stable and forgiving, and we've all learned a lot with it.

While you're waiting for your parts-order to arrive from whatever place you buy from, you should download FMS (a free flight-sim) and play with it. THere's even a model of the T-1 available.

I suppose that since I bought TWO sets of servos, two receivers, etc., plus the $60 transmitter, I've got about $150 in the hobby so far. Considering the hours of fun I've had building the things with my kids, it's money well-spentThe wing, after some slight modifications, has proved to be fun and very fault-tolerant. We've done lots of "one-point landings" along the way. After the first build, subsequent builds (I've made 3 so far, all using the same electronics) take a little over an hour. Longer if the kids help :-)

But if I were going to suggest something to do with the same electronics, I'd say "first build "gpw's Trainer-1" and THEN the simple-wing." The T-1 has been great. Yeah, I've rebuilt once, using up almost a dollar's worth of fanfold. At that price, you don't mind when you nose in. And the thing is amazingly stable and forgiving, and we've all learned a lot with it.

While you're waiting for your parts-order to arrive from whatever place you buy from, you should download FMS (a free flight-sim) and play with it. THere's even a model of the T-1 available.

I suppose that since I bought TWO sets of servos, two receivers, etc., plus the $60 transmitter, I've got about $150 in the hobby so far. Considering the hours of fun I've had building the things with my kids, it's money well-spent. Cheaper by far than a family dinner at a nice restaurant followed by a movie.

Why build?

First, the parts are re-usable -- all the electronics from my first JSW are now in the T-1, while the other JSW may get canabalized to build a 36" model of the JSW. The low-end RTFs usually don't have that property (like the Firebird Outlaw, for instance).

Second, when you crash you'll be ready to rebuild and start over in no time.

Third, the building itself happens to be easy and fun.

Fourth, the time between starting to build and finishing installing everything is a great time to play with the simulator so that you'll be less likely to crash on the first flight.

Why NOT build? Because you want to fly TODAY, or are confident that you won't crash, or think that the low-price of some RTF kits make it worthwhile: you can buy two or three of them for what I paid, for instance. Of course, I can build a great many models from my one batch of fanfold, as long as I keep re-using the electronics.

Others here will tell you that you HAVE to get an instructor. I'm here to tell you that you don't. It'd probably be a lot easier to learn with one, and if you're the social sort, it might be a Good Thing. For me, the "figuring it out myself" part is part of the fun, and I'm definitely not a "belong to clubs" sort of person, so I went my own way. It's worked out pretty well.

For info about the JSW and the T-1, go to rcgroups.com, and look under Electronic Flight ... Foamies.

--John

Thanks for the respone you guys !!! I have thoroughly enjoyed it and thank Harbor Freight for taking the fear out of dropping $30 for something i knew would crash and become next to useless, but am now hooked !

I would like to post the videos and pics of my yellow bee experience.. it is quite amusing that first time out in the parking lot with my brother on the digital cam. Huricane Rita was just passing due south of us probably 220-350 miles ? so the wind was kicking up .. that was the 1st mistake -- the 2nd was with the YB, u need to take off into the wind and land into the wind ...

I dont know about throwing it or taking off from the parking lot but if i would have thrown it , i wouldnt have done it in to the stupid tree curbs in the middle of the vacant lot of the gone out of business Kash-N-Karry !!!

Anyway .. I should post this stuff for you guys to laugh at and learn from .. Because of the fun of that short 20 minutes in the parking lot for a total of probably less than 50 seconds of flight time I have since won a 3 channel Cessna model from ebay for about $90 +$15 shipping and am asking the seller what he would need to upgrade me to the 4 channel package .. ..

Please check out the blast we had ( this was after waiting from Sunday to charge the thing and put it together, Monday had to go to work until I finally got home and we got to the parking lot by 7pm)....

I think the directory ran out of space so .. 2 videos and 1 image of where the plane landed after that first flight ( so lucky) dindt make the upload

>

SNIP

John, You have discovered the truth about the hobby.

Has anyone tried putting in 350 motors on the BEE? Just modify things

bit and put a bigger 2cell lipo in it. Think it would fly ? Jaso

-- jasonm1

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I bought a Yellow Bee to teach a few of my friends how to fly; however

I am an experienced R/C pilot myself. From the first toss it's flow great. Allot more responsive than the Sky Zap I learned with a fe years ago. Now I have three other friends buying them to learn with. For the $29 I don't see a better plane out there, especially with al the cheap replacement parts available. The big secret to flying th Yellow Bee? Hand toss , let it gain altitude before trying to make turn and easy on the controls! Getting an experineced person to hel would probably be the best advice

-- Steve

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Sounds like the Yellowbee isn't for a total novice. I've flown R

planes for years and recently I bought an Air Hog Aero Ace for fun. You can get them at Walmart, Toys R Us, and Target for $30. Anyone ca fly one and they are practically indestructable. You can nose dive fro

20' or run into walls or trees or whatever and it won't hurt the plane. They fly for around 10 minutes on a 20-30 minute charge. Control i pretty good. I can fly in a 50x50 area continuously with no wind. Th Aero Ace won't take winds over 2-3 mph. Its a lot of fun. Sounds lik its a better choice than the Yellowbee for folks with no RC experienc or with small flying areas

-- Silver Bulle

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