The lack of natural flight in human beings is one of the greatest oversights in the history of the world. It kills thousands every year (or rather the ground does) and it all could have been avoided with a decent set of wings or some sort of mind levitation. On some planets this is a common discussion at any skyscraper window washer convention.
Since this terrible mistake was discovered we've been doing our very best to overcome our shortcomings with various inventions. Some have worked out better then others and some haven't worked at all, but they all seem to lend a bit of adrenaline and excitement to the tester. Though the difficulty of actually getting a human to "try and hit the ground but miss" have been conquered pretty well, it's still relatively expensive when considering the training, equipment, equipment maintenance, fuel and all the headphones you have to give away when something takes a little longer then normally required.
One solution for those too underprivileged, or down-and-out to enter a flight training program is remote controlled flight. Though still flinging a large mass through the air in a (hopefully) controlled manner, the pilot is blessed with the option of being detached from said vessel and theoreticly much safer. Since even a catastrophic crash wouldn't harm anyone, so long as you've chosen a good place to fly, the training can go right to hell. The equipment is also a thousandth the cost, so getting a flight fix through this method seems a practice idea.
Though cheaper then buying a 747 with a bathroom and a drink bar RC flight has still been quite expensive compared to lesser hobbies like stamp collecting or burning ants. Fragile planes and a steep learning curve have made getting started a serious investment, that only a small percentage of those who might be interested in such an experience were willing to make. Cheap aerial RC toys have been available for a good decade or so now, taking an investment of a few hundred dollars to a few tens of dollars at the expense of all fun whatsoever. They generally never fly any better then a toaster thrown out the window of a fourth story hotel. I did my testing.
Enter the AeroAce Bi-Plane, or as Europens might know it the X-Twin. There are several different aspects of this device that completely separate it from any other "toy" grade RC plane available, and since I brought it up, I obviously mean to explain just that.
- It's $30.00 USD.
- The equipment that goes into each one. It has a lithium battery, which is a huge deal. Most toy RC planes have nickle batteries that are good for about 3 or 4 minutes between trips to the charger. The lithium battery is good for 10 - 15 minutes. The motors are powerful and much sturdier than typical. The radio equipment is rated up to 300 feet, which is further than you'd ever be able to see the thing.
- Everyone else has one. That sounds sort of cliche, I know, but within serious RC hobbyist circles it's almost assumed that you should have an AeroAce or 5 and you should have done some serious tinkering to them, which brings me to my next point.
- They're so easily modified. After getting the hang of it removing the bottom wings doubles its speed. Tilting the engines to point outward and re gluing them gives you more control. There's over 2000 posts regarding modifications to the AA-Bipe at RCGroups.com, as well as a website that offers to do them for you, aptly named aeroacemods.com.
- They take abuse. EPP foam is amazing. I'd build a house out of the stuff if it weren't for the wind. You can actually bend the wings of the AeroAce completely folding them over and they'll simply pop back into place. The placement of the propellers makes it really difficult to knick anything both on hand launching, landing, or crashing (depending on your flight style.)
- Nearly proportional vector steering. There's no messy rudders to get screwed up on this plane. It uses two electric motors that move at variable speeds to turn. This makes learning to fly a 1/2 hour ordeal instead of a three day, broken plane, screaming frustration.
The AeroAce is available at most department stores (Wal*Mart, Target) as well as Toys R Us.
