Darryl Seering's Radio Controlled Airplane Hangar

Welcome to Darryl Seering's Hangar. I have been envolved with Radio Controlled (R/C) model aircraft since 1986. I joined the Belleville R/C Flyers in 1987. I have served as club secretary and club president and have been both an instructor pilot and a contest director for several years. Click here to see information about and a map to our field.

I was most heavily envolved in the sport in the late 1980's and early 1990's until my twins came along in October of 1991. As the girls get older, I am slowly finding more time to become envolved in the sport once again.

Over the years I have built and flown several R/C Aircraft. Below you'll find pictures and comments on each one. The pictures are of my actual models. Perhaps you'll see one that you'd like to build and fly yourself.

The Stick 40, often referred to as the "Swizzle Stick," is an excellant starter aircraft. This was the first R/C aircraft I built. It is easy and quick to build. Its flat bottomed wing allows the plane to fly at very slow speeds, but does make it a little awkward to fly in moderate to stong winds. It can be flown with anything from a good .25 engine to any .40 engine. I still enjoy dusting it off occasionally to do some radical stunts that you shouldn't be able to do with a 3 channel trainer or to fly it off of snow with floats attached.

The Force One is a unique looking plane which makes a good second or third plane for the person who has mastered their trainer. The propeller slicing through the wing makes a neat sound as it flies at full throttle, and it does an interesting side slip/wiggle in full throttle turns. The pusher prop configuration provides some challenges in fuel flow and engine cooling that can be daunting to some. Construction was relatively straight forward with the exception of the curves on the fuselage, which went much better once I learned the trick of wetting the balsa with a mist of water before attempting to bend it.

The Electra is a nice change of pace from the speed, noise and mess of a glow fuel powered plane. It can be purchased with an electric motor which operates on a standard six-cell flat pack that many have in their R/C cars. It can also be "souped up" with a geared motor, folding prop, and electronic speed control to make it quite a competitive electric powered sailplane. The wing can be built with removeable wing tips to allow transportation in even the smallest of cars.

The Aerosport is an excellant second aircraft for anybody. It can even be the first aircraft for someone with a decent instructor. Construction is as straight forward as any stick type aircraft. It flies well on any good .40 to .46 size two stoke engine. The Aerosport makes a good entry for the friendly "fun fly" which many clubs sponsor. Mine has been a faithful entry for several years now.

The Sportster Bipe is an eye catching biplane which requires only moderate construction skills and a little patience to complete. It is a gentle flier which would be a good second or third plane for anyone. My biggest complaint with this kit is how tail heavy it came out. When originally built with the radio installation per the plan, mine balanced at the proper location with no less than six ounces of lead up front. From the other modellers I have spoken with, this seems to be a problem with most of the kits in the Sportster line.

I have since reworked the radio installation to push both the receiver and battery under the tank, the rudder and elevator servos immediatly aft of the tank, and replaced the throttle servo with a micro servo immediately aft of the rudder and elevator servos. I also replaced the original built-up pushrods with Sullivan Precision Pushrods, and I took out the little green Martian pilot you can just barely see in the photo. The CG is now correct with about four ounces of lead under the engine.

The plane is now an awesome flier with an OS SF .46 ABC up front. I wouldn't hesitate to build a second, but I'd do some serious lightening in the tail before covering the model.

The Wild Thing is a .15 powered combat/pylon plane. I bashed my kit ever so slightly by adding rudder control and landing gear. It flies like a miniature stick aircraft in this configuration, although it must be hand launched when flown from our grass field. Performance without the added weight of the rudder servo, pushrod and landing gear should be awesome.

The Stickit V is one of the "competition fun fly" planes which have been popular for the last five years or so. With its incredibly huge control surfaces, it is designed to do radical manuevers in the air while its light wing loading allows it to slow down to very slow speeds for pinpoint accuracy in bomb drops and spot landings close to the ground. Flight performance lives up to every bit of its reputation. Ground handling is a little difficult to get used to at first. This is obviously NOT the aircraft of choice for the inexperienced pilot.

The Stop Sign is definitely the most unique plane I have. It was built from plans available from RCModeler magazine. Being basically a one inch slab of styrofoam with an engine bolted on, it flies on the principle that "anything will fly if given enough power." My version is scaled down to a 30" 'sign span' so that it can be flown using a .40 two-stroke engine. The Stop Sign flies much like any other plane, but slows down quickly when the throttle is pulled back. This plane is definitely not recommended for the inexperienced.

The Uproar is a fun fly type aircraft built from a kit from Tower Hobbies. The Uproar kit was straight forward to build. The only thing that the instructions really failed to mention was to route the throttle control prior to gluing the wing to the fuselage. I ended up drilling a hole through the balsa leading edge using a drill bit twisted by hand. What a job! Otherwise, the Uproar is a fun flier. With the contols set per the plan, it is a joy to fly, and is not as sensitive as the Stick It or similar fun fly planes. This could easily be your second plane.

But...have you ever wondered what might happen if you set up your control throws...thinking you have the dual rate switch set to high rate...but it's really set to low rate...and then you fly it on high rate? It turns really, really fast!!! And you might end up with a plane that looks like the right photo. Yup...I rekitted it.

The Newbee is an interesting plane designed by Adrian Page and built from plans available from RCModeler magazine. As Adrian described it in the construction article in the January 2000 issue of RCM, the Newbee was designed to look and fly like a plane in a 1950's comic strip. Mine is powered by the recommended O.S. FS .26 four-stroke engine. The sound of that little engine just adds to the fun. The cowl, wheel pants and landing gear can be (and were) ordered from Adrian.

Due to its size, quick responsiveness, and perhaps my color scheme, I would recommend this plane for only the accomplished pilot. I find myself concentrating intently to make sure I keep up with right vs. left and up vs. down.