Rob Romash - Capacitor Powered Model Airplane

In this blog post I am going to start with a little name dropping, Rob Romash has competed and won at the highest levels of model aviation. So when I found out he was designing model airplanes for the toy industry I knew that these model airplanes would fly well. Past experience with model airplanes purchased through toy outlets is that such model airplanes are overweight, underpowered, and fly in an unstable manner.  In a recent phone conversation with Rob I found out that his Flash Fighter capacitor powered model airplane that looks like a jet fighter aircraft is available through Radio Shack. Cracker Barrel is another outlet for his products but there is none where I live so I purchased the Flash Fighter and the Flash Copter at Radio Shack.

Flash Fighter Flying High 

I was anxious to try out both products but the weather was not the best, I did get some flights in before it started to rain and hail. Both products use the same type of charging station which contains 3 AAA batteries. Charge for no more than a minute and launch the flight time will depend on how long the charge was giving some control to how far the flight might range out.  Even with 30 second charges in windy weather the Flash Fighter flew a good flight, the Flash Copter went higher than I would have imagined.  In comparing the Flash Fighter with another capacitor plane that I bought from a toy store that was about the same size, Flash Fighter weighed half as much. A lighter plane will normally climb higher, fly longer, recover better from upsets, and not break as easily.

My experience with capacitor powered model airplanes is from purchasing two toy airplanes and also for building a capacitor model airplane to conform with a Science Olympiad trial event known as Wright Capacitor. The first toy capacitor airplane was from Estes which was at least light but would start to gyrate in pitch before the end of the flight, I put the electric components of that plane in a balsa plane that flew better. Another toy capacitor plane was just too heavy but with enough adjusting I got it to fly. My Wright Capacitor airplane flew well and I used it to mentor a Science Olympiad student that was competing in the event.

Wright Capacitor Plane I Had Designed

Estes Capacitor Plane

Estes Electric in Balsa Airplane

Flash Copter Insides

  Additional Resources
Eclipse Toys website
About Rob Romash
Mini-Stick Poonker Plane by Rob Romash
Mentoring Over the Internet Over the Internet - my blog post about Wright Capacitor
My Wright Capacitor Airplane Flying Outdoors
Too Heavy Capacitor Airplane
Estes Capacitor Plane Components in Indoor Plane

 Bill Kuhl
http://www.ideas-inspire.com