Given this is my personal blog, I do plan to fill it with various things and projects. However I wanted to document a major stroke of luck I have had. After so much bad luck with my sci-fi-your-pi project quadcop_project apparently things decided to balance out.
There is a brand of RC jet called BVM. BVM has been around a long time and is top dollar, and top shelf. As an example consider this jet here:
http://www.bvmjets.com/Pages/kits/bandit_arf.htm
This is a model that is already put together and just needs the electronics and engine installed (called an ARF - Almost Ready to Fly).
The kit, and everything you need to assemble EXCLUDING electronics and the engine , is over $4000 USD. Insane! On top of that, the jet is not that big. You can buy a Chinese made jet (like I do), and if you spent $4000 USD you would have a HUGE jet. I mean at atleast 50% bigger. I never have spent $4000 on a toy, and never will.
The model has been around a long time, released in 1997 originally as a "kit". The difference back then was that you had to glue things together and paint it. As time went on they kept making it easier and easier for people to get flying.
The original kit was also nearly $4000 USD back in 1997. As time went on, they also started using cheaper materials to keep the cost the same while providing the labor needed to assemble it to that more finished state. So these older kits are sought after as being higher quality.
So what does this have to do with my luck? Well someone GAVE me a brand new kit from 1998, with nearly everything. Well, he had a nasty divorce a long time ago and his wife packed up his stuff. There was a part missing and he thought it was trash, and considered tossing the entire thing. I invested $200 and some research into the kit, and it is now complete. I immediately got an offer for $1500 USD to buy it from me. Feeling bad, I checked my bank account and I gave the guy who gave it to me $300 USD. That's all I had right now. What a deal!
Will I sell it. In all economical intelligence, yes I should sell it. I could use the $$ for sure. BUT this is my ONLY chance to own one of these. So I think I shall keep it. Selfish?
BTW if you are wondering how I can afford my jets, its pretty simple. I use a variety of methods to keep the cost way down:
-I buy broken jets and fix them
-I make low offers to people who just want to get out of the hobby. One guy called me back after 1 year and accepted it finally.
-I dug a broken jet out of the trash, fixed it, and sold it.
-bought a new jet from someone once that had some shipping damage, and the manufacturer was sending him a new jet. I got pretty cheap and spent 2 years fixing it.
Fixing requires the knowledge of fiberglass repair. Its not hard but just take some time to learn. I have an air brush and I use acrylic craft paints from walmart, thinned with blue windex. This gives me a good finish. Then I cover the model in a 2 part clear coat used on cars. The makes a $20 paint job look like a $500 one.
Ive never been rich, nor will I ever be. But I am resourceful and that can be better than being rich.
Here is an example of a jet I recently painted. This was a beatup foam model and I didn't spend much time perfecting it. I dug it out of the trash after it was turned to packing peanuts. I glued it together like a puzzle, I recreated missing pieces from blue foam used on houses. then I used my normal painting methods. The only thing I bought new was the canopy up front.
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