Some Foamy Scratch-Build Links

Here's some starting points for scratch-building cheap foamies.  By "cheap", I mean:

• Less than $30 for electronics, receiver included
• $1 - $15 for the airframe
• Planes are somewhat "disposable" -- if you crash one or if one does not work well, you can pull out the electronics and have a new model ready to go in a couple of days

That's cheap enough that you can get a nice Turnigy 9x and still be able to get started for not much more than $100, everything included.

There's tons of information in the RCGroups Scratchbuilt Foamies Forum. Many of the world's foremost foamy designers put their designs here. Here's some models which I think are pretty good.

EzFly -- a great little flyer and trainer from EPP.  I love mine!  

EPPYak55 -- another model by leadfeather, who did the EzFly.  I'll make one of these soon!

F22 -- this is a sweet-flying plane that can turn on a dime. Andreas built a pair for us.  I love flying mine, and it looks like it's going to be the gateway drug for Mark VandeWettering over at Brainwagon!

BluBaby -- one of the most famous scratch-built foamies.  This is one of the first planes I built.  The first one was so terrible I recycled it for parts without trying to get it to fly.  I've got two built now (I learned a lot by building in pairs).  Ironically I got busy on other things so they've never been maidened.  I promise I'll do that soon!

Dollar Tree Delta -- I just saw this one on RCG -- very tempted to try it out, since it fits on one piece of dollar tree foam and looks like it can be put together in an hour.

The FliteTest guys have an interesting concept: build a central body frame that hold the electronics, and have that body module swappable with multiple airframes.  I thought it was kind of weird when they did their first model, but now that they've got a couple of different models it's easier to see what they were getting at.

FT Flyer -- based on the classic Blu Dart.

Nutball -- of course, based on the classic Nutball, but uses the central body frame.

Delta Wing