It's that time folks. Last month, we had a new king of parkjets, the SU-37 (updated version) by Jamie Rothwell. It knocked off the long-time king, the Steve Shumate designed F-22 Raptor. Can the Russian beauty hold back the Raptor? Let's find out!
PANEL LINES - DAMBUSTERS
Knowledge
We got an E-mail over the last week with some awesome pictures attached. Shaun decided to take Tomas Hellberg's F-18E Superhornet design and do some custom work. This is just something you can't get out of a box.
He added in a custom battery hatch, custom airbrakes, and an LED flashing light set up all worked into the design. We won't really discuss his custom paint job representing the VFA-195 squadran out of Japan, because we noticed something else, careful panel lines pressed right into the foam.
T-38 SUNDOWNERS AWESOME
Annoucement
A Parkjet fan sent us over his pictures of his Steve Shumate T-38 build. And we have to say, it turned out awesome. He dressed it up in the popular "sundowners" scheme complete with the details that make it look right in the air.
TOP 10 PLANS - MAY 2013
Top 10Folks, for the first time in a year, we have a new #1 plan downloaded on parkjets since we started keeping track just about a year ago. Honestly, we never thought it would happen. But it has.
For those of you new to the site, you might not know that every month, we break down the most popular plans and let you check them out, so you can get a jump start on some popular plans. After all, the popular plans are popular for a reason. They have good documentation, excellent flying capabilities, and look good too.
Well, let's check out the most popular downloads for May 2013 and see who is king of the mountain!
DASSAULT RAFALE PICS SUBMITTED
Annoucement
We had a member of the RC Community out there submit some pictures and video of his version of the Mike Jackson Dassault Rafale profile style parkjet.
So we thought we would get them posted.
This is an excellent plan, inspired by the designs of Tomas Hellberg, that provides a great platform for a parkjet. The large delta wings, large control surfaces and simple set up, coupled with a mid-motor mount design make for an easy to fly and build jet.
INTERVIEW - TOMAS HELLBERG
Interview
For those of you that have been following Parkjets for a while, you will be familiar with our interviews with popular RC airplane designers that have allowed us to host their awesome designs right on our site. It has been a while since we posted an interview and so we thought its time for a fresh one.
We reached out to Tomas Hellberg and he gratiously agreed. Tomas has designed some of the most popular and rock stable designs on Parkjets, including the F-22, F-18, SU-31, SU-37 and more. His designs feature simple build techniques with tabbed construction and profile looks. His unique thrust vectoring tabs allow for excellent acrobatics without a lot of fuss. And we should mention that our prime sponsor, 6mmFlyRC, features many of Tomas' designs as kits, so you can get your hands on a laser cut version. Okay, that's enough of an introduction, let's kick this off....
NEW PLAN - SU-37/27
New Plans
Last week we uploaded a new plan to our FREE plans page. Jamie Rothwell let us know he has made some modifications and some size adjustments to his very popular SU-37 plans.
First, he shrunk the plans to 80% of the original size. Then he cleaned up the plans, improved the canopy, nacels and some other minor tweeks. Then he changed the plans to allow for a simple modification so that the builder could convert the plans to the SU-27 with a little effort.
TWITTER - 1000+ FOLLOWERS!
Annoucement
Back at the start of the new year, we put out the call to have folks follow us on Twitter. Back then, we had just a few hundred followers but we decided to focus a little more on getting our social media credentials up to par. This week, Parkjets reached a small milestone, we crossed over the 1,000 followers threshhold and could not be more excited.
TOP 10 PLANS - MARCH
Top 10Every month, for nearly a year, we have been logging the most popular plans on parkjets on a monthly basis. Its time to look at last month, and see what the list has in order. Here we go!
10. Cutlass by SDParkflyers - The Cutlass has come to Parkjets and its found a great little spot. The Cutlass is a great beginner plane, featuring broad delta wings and moderate speed. A great Parkjet!
MERMAID VIDEO
VideoOkay, so it's obvious we have been slacking on adding in plans and keeping up with the constant demands of Parkjets and the folks that visit often. Rest assured we have not been doing nothing. We are working on a few more plans, working hard to boost our social network standing and just trying to keep up with life.
In the meantime, we updated the very popular Mermaid plan with a great short video of the Mermaid on grass.
This video lives in the plans page, but here it is without all the clicking.
TOP 10 PLANS - FEBRUARY
Top 10VIDEO: F-18E SUPERHORNET
VideoWe ran across this video from a customer of our sponsor, 6mmFlyRC and it is stunning. The video is not that stunning granted, but the model itself is just fantastic.
The F-18E SuperHornet is a great model for those just starting out building, but as you can see, you can take this design to the extreme with details. Complete with LED lights, panel lines, clear canopy and pilot, the model here is perhaps the best example of craftsmanship we have ever seen on a simple profile model.
Sit back and enjoy the show!
2 NEW PLANS - MERMAID & MIRAGE
New Plans
We just finished posting up two new plans by Marcel du Plessis. His designs are rock solid and he already had four models in Free Plans Catalog. These are two great examples of plans you can put together in fairly short order and achieve great results with just a little effort.
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
Annoucement
This is a really simple post here, but we are asking you, our visitors, our newsletter subscribers to do something that costs nothing...follow us on Twitter. Parkjets tries not to ask much of our loyal visitors, but we have set some goals in 2013 and without you, they won't happen.
We have the crazy goal of getting 5,000 twitter followers in 2013. When January 2013 rolled around, we were at a lowly 165. As in less than 200 followers. Now at the beginning of Feburary, we are at 257, a great jump, but you don't have to be a math whiz to see we need some acceleration in our followers. We only post once or twice a day, we don't overload you with garbage, just a few things we find, buried articles on Parkjets and other tips from around the world. So go ahead, follow us.
TOP 10 - JANUARY 2013
Top 10To kick off the new year, its time to take a look at what people downloaded on Parkjets.com. We have been maintaining the Top 10 list now for the better part of 9 months and there have been many new plans to crack the list, some stay, while some fall off to an old classic.
Before we really get started, we want to thank everyone for an incredible January 2013. Parkjets received over over 30,000 visitors who looked at 239,000 pages on Parkjets! That's the biggest traffic month yet! So thank you.
Alright, let's get to the top 10 plans for the month of January 2013!
TWO NEW PLANS - T-28 & SUPERSLO28
New Plans
As January creeps to a end, we added two more plans for you to enjoy. And like the Cutlass added last week, we dipped into SD Parkflyer's pool of excellent plans. And in an effort to really expand our offerings, we are looking to add some plans that have not been invited to reside on parkjets in the past, namely some 3D flyers, warbirds, and we are looking for some more EDF plans as well. To wrap up January, we have some excellent 3D style park flyers up for your enjoyments.
Let's get started....
NEW PLAN - CUTLASS
New Plans
A few months ago, we got permission from SD Parkflyers to post his free plans to our site and although it has been a long time coming, we kicked off the postings by throwing up his awesome Cutlass park flyer.
The Cutlass features a funjet style design, with a large delta wing and twin vertical stabalizers. The design is for 9mm EPP foam, which as you might know, is a lot for forgiving when crashing. But with some modifications, the Cutlass could be accomadated for 6mm Depron or other types of foam board.
INTERVIEW - CHRIS CARPENTER
Interview
F-95 Morningstar
It's been a while since we posted an interview with a designer or company here on Parkjets, so to kick off the new year, we thought you might like to hear from a designer that is running a business! It's like a two for one. We reached out to Chris Carpenter, designer of the MIG 31 "Firefox" and the F-95 "Morningstar," and he is the guy on the other end of the line when you contact RCProfilePlanes.com. He recently sent over the plans for the Morningstar and we asked him a few questions. So without boring introductions, let's get started with the interview!
2013 - WHAT DO YOU WANT?
Annoucement
It's a simple question really, what do you want to see with Parkjets in 2013? We have been kicking around some ideas but need your feedback. For example:
- Do you want to see more "warbirds" and traditional tractor style park flyers?
- Would you particiapte in a Parkjets forum?
- What about a video series or PDF on how to expertly finish depron?
- We experimented with having a few motors for sale on Parkjets, do you want to see Parkjets have a store with RC gear for sale?
- Do you want more videos? For example, some how-to's on getting your plans to planes?
- What do you want to see in our monthly newsletter?
- Can we improve the way the site works? For example, is the navigation easy for you to find what you are looking for?
These are just some things to consider, but we welcome all input. We will continue to work to make the site more user friendly and more helpful, but we want Parkjets to reflect what you want! Comment away!
2012 - A YEAR IN REVIEW
Annoucement
It was a busy year for Parkjets in 2012 so we thought it would be a good idea to put everything in a nice little capsule so our visitors can see what happened over the last 12 months and hopefully look forward to the next 12 months! Now, this is the one time of the year we want your input, so be sure to add your comments, we want to hear from you - what you want to see in Parkjets in 2013 (more after the break).