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This winter I revamped my oldest indoor RC equipment, a few BitCar receivers and a hacked transmitter, to experience some lo-tech indoor fun. If you think about it, this equipment is not so different from the early equipment used at the dawn of the RC flying hobby. Most early RC planes flew rudder only, with a fixed amount of motor time, basically until the fuel ran out. I found some great vintage footage on the web that illustrates all the fun you can get from flying early day RC planes More »

Inspired by some local guys who fly paramotors on quiet evenings I decided to build myself an indoor paramotor. After some research I came up with a rather simple design for a motor powered paraglider which has a sail of 36cm span and a chord of 12cm.
For the carriage I went for a recycled robocopter guy - this is a helicopter toy that has a robot like body instead of a conventional helicopter fuselage. After some surgery like letting a stake protrude from its chest he seems happy after all beneath the small sail.
A light weight grocery bag is used for the sail, which is semi self supporting because of  depron ribs and a carbon rod spar.
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Here’s my new indoor plane. A 6″ infrared controlled F18 Hornet in the blue angels color scheme. Total weight is 5.5 grams. You can read more in my rcgroups post.

The BitESC is a small electronic speed controller for those little RC cars like the MicroSizer / BitChar-G. It can be used in a small RC plane to have some control over the speed of the motor. The speed of the motor ramps up or down, depending on which of the buttons on the transmitter you press. If no button is pressed, the ESC will ramp the throttle down to a stop after a few seconds. This safety net comes in handy when the plane flies out of transmitter reach.

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