Almost as fast as the ones with no engines at all... How's a 498mph glider sound?

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1609281

With a big hill, the right wind, and an appropriate unpowered glider, it looks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjASRmgQWoo

Possibly easier than piloting the real thing. No g-force, total vision, simple controls, and so on. With various fail-safes and controllers, its made much easier

Dont get me wrong, I've tried flying normal RC planes, and Im rubbish at it, it is still hard and skillfull. But, if you spend some time on YouTube looking at what people can do with these things, you'll end up wondering if they are bending physics.

I taught myself to fly RC planes using RealFlight[1] RC model simulator using the same transmitter / controller I used for the RC planes configured with progressive rate controls connected via USB interface.

10 hours on the sim using a high-wing trainer with lots of dihedral[2], learned how to land in a gusty cross wind, then out in to the park with my high-wing high-dihedral trainer. Took off, flew, and landed no problems - the RealFlight trainer was nearly spot on.

I then bought a model F4U Corsair, much different plane to fly, they go where you point them and don't self right or self level like a high-wing high-dihedral aircraft. More RealFlight training and then flew and landed it successfully first go to.

Lots of fun! The parks I had easy access to weren't in suburbia though.

1. http://www.realflight.com/ 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihedral_(aeronautics)

Hey! Thanks for sharing these!