Harbor Freight bi-plane - R/C'd
I was cruising through Harbor Freight and came upon a free-flight bi-plane (item# 91311) which looked pretty neat and I thought it might have some potential to upgrade to full R/C for a nice little park flyer. The bipe has a 15 3/4" wing span and is made from a nice dense foam and the fuselage is hollow. The first thing I did was to cut open the fuselage on both sides of the wing strut to see what I had to work with - this thing has plenty of room for mini R/C components - so I got to work. I added elevator and rudder servos, GWS mini receiver and GWS 8A speed control, GWS EDP-50 direct drive motor, and 2 cell 350mA li-poly battery. The finished airplane. The hatch and equipment. The only thing left to do is fly it!

I flew the bipe and all I can say "WOW". It is a very stable and predictable airplane, slow speed flight is awesome. It loops, snap rolls, and can take off from the ground. With the 350mA li-poly and GWS EDP-50 motor its flight time is about 5-6 minutes. Here is a video (rather large 65M) of one of the first flights - it was a pretty windy day and it still flew great. http://www.vexacontrol.com/builds/harborfreight_bipe.AVI It flew so well I went back to Harbor Freight and bought another one.