$5 RC Trainer

Main foam material =$5
a little dollar tree foamboard and thin plywood
$10Blue Wonder Motor + $10 ESC
+Radio System + 2 $5 9gram servos.

Also hot glue and packaging tape and "music wire" (for push rod)

I apologize that the title of the referenced video is misleading as the cost of materials in not $5. When I originally made it, I only had to buy a $5 sheet of foamboard and all the other materials I found laying around my parents house. The name has since sorta sunk in and I'm not sure I can undo it.

I made the "$5 trainer" while on Christmas vacation at my families house home from college. I wanted to do a project with my little brother. I had been doing some rather tedious and complicated projects (chainsaw plane and I put an autopilot on my big flying wing but didn't make a video about that) and I wanted a break and to do a simple project to get back to my roots and demonstrate that you don't need to do a whole lot to make an airplane.

Sorta confession: This plane flew pretty badly! It has come to my attention that many of you see my finished result and are discouraged. At first, this plane, even with my experience, flew pretty funny. But after some tuning, it flew like this. I stretched some layers of tape along the bottom length of the wing to prevent it from bending so much, I also needed to really shove the battery up to the front so that it balanced at 1/4 of the wing chord (distance from front to back of wing from the leading edge). It is my hope that this video inspires people to try and make an airplane themselves.

Please ask questions! This was a fun, cheap, and easy build. To demonstrate the freedom of scratchbuilding RC Planes.

I had my little brother cut out the fuselage and wing because he wants to learn and try stuff.

Wing/foam was cut using my DIY Hotwire Foam Cutter
   • Hot Wire Airfoils  

But an even cheaper way to make a wing is to fold foamboard and use Ed's style from    • ARMIN WING CONSTRUCTION: start-to-fin...  


Building materials =$5
$10Blue Wonder Motor + $10 ESC
+Radio System + 2 $5 9gram servos.