Remote Controlled; Scale Jets

One more very nice scale model and perfectly flown. With my zero experience in RC flying, I would not get any of those precious masterpieces safely in the air or even more back on the ground in one piece.

The T-Bird was the standard first generation trainer aircraft in most European Air Forces. Unfortunately, the T-33 was already faced out, when I joined the military. You could still see one or the other T-Bird parked on German military airfields but non of them was still flyable (certified). We had one T-Bird fully functional in our "historical" collection at the military university in Munich for educational purposes and one T-Bird engine on the test rig during our studies but no chance for me to ever fly one.



Later, when already assigned to my squadron, I got a call from a friend from my F-104 weapon training in Luke AFB. He was a Candian Air Force Pilot and got assigned from Cold Lake Alberta to one of the Canadian F-104 squadrons in Söllingen in Southwest Germany. He invited my to Söllingen and I flew ASAP down to RCAF Söllingen with my F-104 G.

This Canadian Wing had 2 or 3 T-birds still operational for target towing and instrument training. Guess what, my friend invitited my for a backseat ride. I really enjoyed the very pleasent 2 hour flight with a high level instrument part, some acrobatics, low level flying in the Black Forest and a few traffic patterns with a few backseat landings for me. No advanced electronics, just old fashioned manual pilot skills.



After returning to my home base, the young officer very proudly proclaimed his T-33 ride to his friends in the pilot lounge of our squadron. Fortuitously our flight surgeon was present during my proud announcment, having a coffee in our lounge.

He stood up, took me aside into a little briefing room and gave me a pretty harsh bollocking: "Do You young stupid pilots ever read Your anual medical?" I took my medical out of my pilot licence and he forced me to read one sentence loud: "Class one medical, cleared for all combat jet (with ejection seat and pressurized cockpit), all fixed wing aircraft and helicopter but not including T-33".

Reason was my seat height. I was just to tall for a safe ejection out of the rear seat of a T-Bird, because of its low rear part of the canopy. Also the German Forces had no T-33 anymore, this was still measured and included in our medicals, if our measuremts were out of those limits. I had noticed the very little head room for me in the rear seat, my head would have most likely played the canopy breaker tool during ejection. But as we always said, war is not a sports festival . The only sentence we ever read of our medicals were the sentence, cleared for one more year of flying!

You can assume, this was my last attempt to get a ride in a T-Bird. And luckily our Flight Surgeon was a Santa Claus and never reported me to our commander. Luck is part of any career .

I am fascinated by this great jet powered scale models and those great RC pilot skills of their operators. Those models are bloody expensive and chrashing one of them must make their owners really sad. Sorry but some of those perfectly flown military models just trigger my memories.

And sorry again, I could not resist. Below a nice video about my last fighter wing, the JG 71 "R" (Richthofen). A long video and unfortunately in German but very nice pictures. The part I like very much is about the Flight Surgeon LtCol Doc Hermann. I met this guy many times during my reserve duties. He is one of those Santa Clauses, best friend of his pilots, spends more time in the squadrons than in his office and trys to get as many back seat rides that he can get. And no flyer will ever try to drink him under the table, he will always win . He is still the active flight surgeon at Wittmund Airbase, now flying the Euro Fighter.



Phantoms forever, Horrido!!!!

Here we have a very nice RC model of a USN F-4 Phantom II.



Perfectly build and very realisticly filmed.

I do not believe this semi scale RC Su-57 has any kind of vectoring thrust. I even do not believe, it has a twin engine configuration. This fake tailcone contains the one and only hence pretty powerfull little jet engine. The rest is just a great power to weight ratio and a very effictive taileron setup with a programmable mixer in the remote control. But nicely flown, I must say.

And yes, I have seen this beautiful Rafale RC Jet on Jetforums before. It is the one with the stuck down nose gear. Obiviously with no speed limit with the gear down . A much more realistic flight image than the Su-57. What amazes me the most on these full scale single or twin engine RC jets is the fact that they have no engine intake tubes within the fuselage. Just the intake itself and then the air is passing through the hull with all cables and fuel lines sitting in the open and the little engines within this almost empty hulls. Does not seem to have very much impact on the RC aircrafts and engine performance.

I have sat once in a Rafale cockpit during a static display. These tiny french fighter cockpits are definately not made for "Herman the German". I could hardly breath in it and this without life vest, survival harness and helmet. I have flown in the backseat of several different Mirage types like the Mirage III, Mirage F1 and a Mirage 2000. All of them with these tiny cockpits. I was close to become claustrophobic. I daubt, I could have safely ejected without loosing some of my extremities.

My biggest eye opener was a backseat ride in a Belgian Air Force Mirage III B. During the preflight briefing, the pilot told me that this double seater was the oldest aircraft in the Belgian Mirage fleet but it would still be going strong. The only thing which should not be happening during flight would be a red Oil pressure warning during afterburner takeoff. Guess what happend, a red oil P during rotation. My high pitch voice hint about this incident made the pilot laugh. This was their running gag during passenger rides. It came always on during take off without any malfunction. Bastard!!!

But I got my revanche. I gave him a backseat ride on one of the next days during the exercise in a TF-104 and I simulated a open nozzle during the approach, which was one of the most serious emergencies in the single engine F-104. 220 KIAS ore more during final approach and a max. sinkrate during final of 200 ft / min. Of course we were not allowed to land out of one of those partial power patterns, 200ft AGL low approach only and the nozzle could be manually closed afterwards. He almost had to wash his pants after landing. " The revenge is mine spoke the Lord"

But as we say, flying is stupid, expensive and dangerous but .............. a lot of fun.

How about all of them together. RC Airliner meeting 2019

I nearly hated the concorde during my military life. It took me yeeeeeeears in the military to come to a level, where I was allowed to go to Mach 2.2. And then anybody could just buy an airline ticket and fly at Mach 2+ across the Pond, just not fair .

The size of that RC Concorde is insane. Very well flown and the RC model has a very realistic appearance in the air. I like the very simple mounting of those 4 little engines. Simple but very effective. But I think the guy is still working on the exterior finsih. He could just not wait to fly it.

That plane is almost worth a divorse, isn't it .