The Fastest, Lightest, Most Maneuverable R/C Jet Plane

The fastest RC planes to date have been the non powered ones, look up Dynamic Soaring:

468mph Kinetic100DP flight video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=iv&v=rfoxjNg-eg0

Great, now lets scale it up to human realistic scale and see what we have!

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Science sees no further than what it can sense, i.e. facts.
Religion sees beyond the senses, i.e. faith.
Open your mind and see!

Shame on the author of this article for not doing her research.

This is NOT a "jet". This is an electric ducted fan, or EDF model. Basically an electric motor turning a fan inside a duct, as opposed to a propeller.

When I hear "jet" I expect to read about real turbine engines for R/C models - the kind that run on jet fuel and cost around $5000 for the engine alone (yes, they exist - they've been around for decades).

A quick search on youtube will also reveal that normal EDF planes do not suffer from "a lack of power" or "sluggish performance".

In short, this article reads like nothing more than an advertisement for Great Planes. I am seriously contemplating whether my popsci live bookmark still deserves its place on my browser's bookmark bar.

Is this a paid ad placement? Unless I'm missing something there's nothing remarkable here and I've been able to buy things very similar to this at toy stores for years.

And I have to agree with LMF5000, it is extremely annoying to see this called a jet. Just because the body shape mimics a jet does not mean it is a jet. It has just a "propeller in a tube". A jet is quite different!

not a jet but still pretty cool.

Even though I agree with both Zentastic and LMF5000, I don't think the lack of actual content in this article really pushes me to want to not come back to Popular Science. Never really been all to into RC cars or planes so I can't feel the level of annoyance you guys feel. Give Lizzie a break!

first off, I have this plane and it does NOT fly well. Second, you are absolutely wrong about RC jets being poor performers. Yes they are less efficient than their prop spinning counter parts, but that doesn't mean they cant be incredibly maneuverable and extremely fast. Yes it is an EDF, but the vast majority of rc "jets" are. In fact its extremely rare to see a turbine powered Rc.

The aforementioned plane is a huge POS. You have to use a bigger cell count battery than is recommended to get it to fly even decently, and because its so light the wind tosses it around like a kite. It crashes well, but crashes often (even for an experienced pilot).

Note: I fly all types of RC planes, and I am not a (EDF) Jet fan even though I have had several, but I can say that the most maneuverable plane I have ever flown was an EDF F-35. The fastest plane I have is not a jet, but Jets are pretty damn close.

BTW I agree LMF5000. I have been a long time reader of popsci, but lately I only check it once a week due to the poor quality of articles. makezine and instructables have been much more interesting as of late.

u mad, bro?

By making such unsubstantiated claims this link bait does, Popsci is begging for a lawsuit. This is not even close to the fastest jet RC plane, and it isn't even a jet. Once upon a time journalists used words to protect themselves such as "allegedly", "according to" etc.

Yeah, this is garbage. And it's definitely a paid ad placement. This is nowhere near the "The Fastest, Lightest, Most Maneuverable R/C Jet Plane." Google r/c airplanes and see how many other ones come up that can vastly outperform this one.

Makes you wonder why they chose the F-86 Sabre its an unstable aircraft to begin with lol

I'm a little late to the party here, but I had to add my two-cents worth when I read this article. I see that some of my fellow RC pilots have already chimed in about this as well. This article could not be more inaccurate. First off, Electric Ducted Fan planes (lighten up turbine-boys, we can share the term "jet") do not use lithium-ion bateries, they use lithium-polymer batteries. This has been the standard powerplant for electric RC planes of all types for several years now. Li-Io batteries are entirely too heavy, take too long to charge, and cannot handle the discharge rates to give the performance that we electric flyers demand. Second, a top speed of 43MPH is practically crawling for an EDF jet. I have an inexpensive Chinese-manufactured "foamie" FA-18 with a single 64mm 14L 5-blade EDF unit that does 70MPH wide-open on a 3-cell 11.1v 40c Li-Po pack, and my Phase3 EF-16 has been clocked at over 85MPH with a similar setup. Third, they are called "control surfaces", not "wing and tail flaps." Flaps are a completely different thing. While I've not flown the Great Planes version of the F-86, I have flown another manufacturer's model, and can testify that this and all the other scale models of early jet fighters do not scale down well and tend to be tail-heavy and terribly unstable, especially at speeds as low as 30-40MPH. EDF jets have advanced by leaps and bounds in the last several years, and this jet that is lauded so highly by Ms. Schiffman is nothing special.

a 1/4th scale RC plane is a good idea. I’m serious, one of these RC planes is big enough that a kindergartener could go for a ride in it.
http://airsoc.com/articles/view/id/4f5537e6c6f8fa1157000002/some-big-rc-fun-movie-monday?ev=10&evp=tl