Most electric RTF fun for $50-75 USD?

Ted shuffled out of his cave and grunted these great (and sometimes not so great) words of knowledge:

ANY RTF that is actually going to fly without A LOT OF USER EXPERIENCE is going to cost in the $175 - $200 range.

I would suggest something like the following. These planes will actually fly and can easily be flown by a beginner with a minimum of difficulty.

Of the 3 suggested planes, I FEEL that the Easy Star is probably your best bet. The plane is going to be extremely hard to destroy. Some 5 minute epoxy, toothpick and packing tape are all you are going to need to repair 99% of damage.

Two "Rookies" from Hobby People?

Ken

I actually agree with both Ted's and Ken's suggestions. You will be well served by investing extra up front in a high quality plane that will last longer, like Ted suggested. If you truly don't mind a "disposable" R/C plane, you can get them well under your $50 to $75 budget range.

Harbor Freight, a national tool store chain, just had a weekly circular mailed out that featured a $29.99 r/c airplane package that was ready to fly, for example. Below are links to a number of reputable online resellers. You will likely find many of these same products available at your local hobby store as well. You might want to purchase locally from a store that stocks spare wings, tails, and propellers as these are the parts you will be breaking:

Actually, it looks like has literally dozens of options in your ideal price range. Happy shopping, and good luck.

| > What would you kind folks suggest in an electric RTF RC kit for around $50- | > 75 USD range for the kids and I to have fun with at the park? Any | > recommendations for online shops with low prices? | | ANY RTF that is actually going to fly without A LOT OF USER EXPERIENCE | is going to cost in the $175 - $200 range.

Ultimately, to have a plane that flies well, you must have elevator control, and you must have either aileron or rudder control. If it's a glider, you can do well with just those two, but if it's powered, you'll also want throttle control, though you can have fun with a plane that has no throttle control and just elevator+rudder or elevator+ailerons.

If your plane has only two motors and no control surfaces, it's not going to fly well, and this covers most of the < $100 planes. If it has throttle and rudder control like the Firebird, it'll still fly poorly. You need all three channels for a `real' plane, and you're generally looking at paying at least $120 for that.

When your plane lacks an elevator and gives you throttle instead, you have no way of quickly adjusting your pitch. If your plane is headed straight down, you need to increase power (when you should be decreasing it) and hope you can pull out in time. Getting the plane trimmed properly becomes much more important and much more problematic, and this causes lots of crashes -- especially with people who don't know how to do this. These planes are much *harder* to fly than a three channel plane -- you have to stay too far ahead of them, especially for a newbie.

Fortunately, the planes are usually made of foam and so they survive crashes somewhat well, but when every 30 second flight ends in a crash, even foam tends to die after around 10 minutes.

If you want two channels, either get a glider, or get a R/C car. If you're getting a powered plane, spend some extra money and get something with at least three channels.

Ed I stopped at Harbor Freight to pick up a few things, and they do have a all foam 3ch " Harbor Cub" RTF for $119.00

Mike

Air Hogs Aero Ace ready to fly with transmitter, $30 at Target or Kmart

you do need six AA batteries for the transmitter, the plane has a buil in lipo battery that charges off the transmitter

-- Solca

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