[LandQuail]

All the electronic bits and motor/battery/speed control came to about $250, give or take. The good news is that all the really expensive stuff (receiver, servos, speed control) should be damn near indestructible.

The airframe itself is from Herr Engineering (Herr Engineering Main Menu)
and cost about $25 (£1.05).

Of course, the freeflight kit is supposed to be powered by a windup rubber band, and how do you explain to your friends that That's not a toy? Converting the airframe to full four-channel RC was a huge undertaking. Building movable control surfaces int the wings and tail surfaces took a lot of work, but it's not the impossible task you'd think it is by reading through RC airplane forums (not nearly as hearty a crowd as we've got here at UCP).

It's covered with Japanese tissue (Esaki, the good stuff) sealed with Krylon clear spray enamel and, of course, black and white spray enamel for the skulls.

Sure, I could have gone and got one of those styrofoam RC kits, but where's the sense of adventure in that? Also, since these balsa kits are so cheap, I'm really only out about $30 if it does auger in.

Now that the airplane's basically done and I'm just waiting for decent weather to fly it, I've turned my energies toward experimenting to see how much Jack Daniels you can bake into a from-scratch Southern pecan pie before it just doesn't cook up right. I'm up to two shots and so far so good...