Back in May, Episode #4, Frank and Brian at RCFlightcast did a fantastic interview with Dave Powers from RCPowers.com. Since it's been a while since I've visited his site, I decided to pop over and see what he's got for sale. Dave is known for having some very unique aircraft and the "buzz" is that the plans he has for sale are top-notch and very well designed.
After reviewing his line-up and seeing the vids of his models in action, I decided that I just had to build his X-20 Delta Wing! It seems that this wing has a fairly wide flight envelope and looks like a lot of fun to fly, so I decided to purchase his plans. The ordering process was very easy and PayPal is the medium for which you send the funds. After the transaction was complete, I was immediately able to download the plans.
Let me digress a bit to explain to you how I feel about paying for plans. Forums like RCGroups.com have proven to be a wonderful collaboration venue for sharing plans, and I have pulled off many, many designs that I have built or intend to build. If you're like me and don't really possess much creativity, you will tend to build from others' concepts rather than waste time coming up with your own. The problem with the free plans that are available, is that anyone can post something, but not all designs are "proven", or are great fliers. Don't get me wrong; there are some truly great model designers out there, but I seem to have pretty good luck picking out things that don't really perform as well as expected.
I happen to feel that designers that come up with truly great aircraft that have been proven deserve to have some compensation for their efforts. RCPowers offers a free design that you can download to familiarize yourself with their work (an Extra 300 profile foamie), and after checking this out, I could see that these folks put together very nice designs. When I perused the rest of their line-up, I could see that they are asking a fair price for their plans - not too much dough to spend at all for nicely designed aircraft! The plans I bought for $9.99 for the x-20 look very clean and are very accurate. It would cost me much more money and frustration to mimic this design and get something this nice, so I feel that the money I spent was quite a bargain!
Anyway, to get back on target here, I printed the plans, taped them all together, and then trimmed out the templates. I just happened to have some 6mm Depron (as the plans call out for) so I got busy last night cutting the parts out. I am very excited to get this thing built as it looks like something that will be very fun to fly. At a later date, I will post some photos of the build along with a complete review of this plane with the specs and equipment used.
Thanks to Dave Powers and Jason Forsythe (designer of this plane) for what looks to be a great design!
Please note that the photo I have included in this post is the property of RCPowers.com - I "borrowed" it from their website to show you what the finished product will look like.
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