Pizza Ball: Trainer Variant of Goldguy's Nutball RET

by Miracle Air | January 16, 2013 | (8) Posted in Projects

Cut the corners off of a 20 inch square, then build as a regular Nutball and you get... the Pizza Ball. It seems to be more sedate and stable (though far less fun) than a regular Nutball, and is perhaps more beginner-friendly. Check out this link to view the original Nutball thread:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=836389

Check this out for an excellent build video from Flite Test:

http://flitetest.com/articles/nutball_scratch_build

 

All electronics were ordered from Hobby King: 

Orange Rx Reciever (with a Spektrum Tx, although I'm VERY interested in the Orange Rx computer Tx with 10 model memory and 6 channels)

9 gram servos

1350kv motor

18 Amp Speed Control  

1000 mAh lipo

 





COMMENTS

Miracle Air on January 20, 2013
I'd love to see a picture or some video if you decide to go with this one!

We're swinging a Hobby King 8x3.8 prop, by the way.
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lonewolf7717 on January 18, 2013
giggle....pizza ball perhaps but couldn't stop thinking flying Mexican flag possible due to my proximity to the border. Seeing as your port/starboard colors are correct and you ended up with a very fine flying model that you took the time to explain....high marks all the way round. supremely excellent....now for some PIZZA
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smit6089 on January 19, 2013
Great work. Working on a few scratch-builds now and this looks really intriguing.
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Miracle Air on January 18, 2013
Thanks for the comments, guys! I'm a teacher and the Pizza Ball is the first trainer produced by my RC club, which just started up. I've had some good results by starting the kids on RC Desk Pilot, a free sim, and then transitioning them to the Pizza Ball.

Albert is the first student I trained. He learned on a Nutball and then built his own Pizza Box Flyer, which you see briefly here. It was his comments about how "squirelly" the Nutball was (until he got used to it... kid was flying inverted on Day 2) that got me thinking about adding more wing area.

Another student painted the Pizza Ball you see here, and indeed it does look like a Mexican flag, but actually it's the tricolor of the Republic of Ireland. That red is actually orange, but the lighting wasn't great. She did a nice job, though. Very visible.

I have an update submitted showing the equipment we used, and another video on the way. This one is hosted by Albert and chronicles the two of us doing some streamer cutting. He's good! I'm very proud.
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casehatter on January 17, 2013
A beginner needs all the help they can get to stay in the hobby and to learn their lefts from their goings and a comeings ya recken good Job 5 stars from me
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tramsgar on January 17, 2013
Got one of those "pizza boxes" too. Realized what I've done only after I painted it for easy orientation... =)
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Pizza Ball: Trainer Variant of Goldguy's Nutball R...