Radio-Controlled Aircraft
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40 free Radio-Controlled Aircraft trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Radio-controlled flying sits where aviation history meets the workbench. The same hobby that fills club fields at weekends also trained wartime gunners, launched a film career and sent a model across an ocean on a tiny tank of fuel. This quiz covers the people who pioneered radio control, the parts that make a model fly, from control surfaces and radios to engines, fuels and batteries, and the many kinds of craft: trainers, gliders, helicopters, jets and camera drones. Expect a few questions on aerobatics, racing and the rules of the flying field as well. It is written for RC pilots and builders who want to test what they know, and for aviation fans who are curious about the hobby. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches something.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which future film star was spotted by an Army photographer while assembling radio-controlled target drones?
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was Norma Jeane Dougherty, a Radioplane assembly-line worker, when the pictures led to modelling work and a screen test.
Q 02Which inventor steered a small radio-controlled boat at Madison Square Garden in 1898, long before RC planes existed?
Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla hoped to sell the idea to the US government as a torpedo, and his patent included a frequency changer so that an enemy could not take control of it.
Q 03Which radio-controlled British target plane, a pilotless Tiger Moth, is said to have inspired the word drone?
Queen Bee
Queen Bee targets trained anti-aircraft gunners from 1935. A drone is a male bee, which makes a single flight in search of a queen.
Q 04In 2003 the model plane TAM-5 left Newfoundland and became the first to fly the Atlantic, landing in which country?
Ireland
Ireland's Mannin Beach, near Clifden, was the finish line after almost 39 hours aloft. The model landed with under two fluid ounces of fuel left.
Q 05Which Olympic throwing event gives its name to the spinning wingtip launch used to fling small RC gliders skyward?
Discus
Discus launching has the flier grip one wingtip and spin round before letting go, which is easier and more efficient than the older overarm javelin-style throw.
Q 06Which Hollywood actress co-invented a frequency-hopping radio guidance system for torpedoes during World War II?
Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr devised it with composer George Antheil to defeat jamming. Frequency hopping is one of the spread spectrum methods that modern RC transmitters use.
Q 07The earliest radio-guided model aircraft, flown around theatres as a music hall act, were what type of craft?
Airships
Airships filled with hydrogen were steered over the audience by a basic spark-emitted radio signal.
Q 08Which very light wood, from a fast-growing tree grown mainly in Ecuador, is the classic material for model planes?
Balsa
Balsa counts as a hardwood despite being the softest commercial one, and its rapid growth leaves it less dense than cork.
Q 09What name do glider pilots give the rising columns of warm air that RC sailplanes ride to gain height?
Thermals
Thermals cannot be seen, so contest fliers read signs such as circling birds, bugs and shifts in the surface wind.
Q 10Which British-born Hollywood actor ran a model plane shop in the 1930s and founded the drone maker Radioplane?
Reginald Denny
Reginald Denny flew with the Royal Flying Corps in World War I, and his company built nearly fifteen thousand target drones during World War II.
Q 11Which Indiana city is home to the National Model Aviation Museum and the Academy of Model Aeronautics?
Muncie
Muncie is where the museum keeps the world's largest collection of RC aviation history, and it sells kit plans for models from every era.
Q 12Which rechargeable battery type, a fire risk if mishandled, powers most electric RC planes and hobby drones?
Lithium polymer
Lithium polymer packs must be balance-charged on smart chargers that connect to every cell in the pack.
Q 13Which liquid is the main ingredient of model engine glow fuel, where it is blended with oil and nitromethane?
Methanol
Methanol provides the bulk of the mix, so the nickname nitro misleads: some glow fuels contain no nitromethane at all.
Q 21What do RC fliers call two transmitters joined by a cable so that an instructor can take over from a student?
Buddy box
Buddy box training gives the student control only while the instructor holds a spring-loaded switch, and letting go takes the model straight back.
Q 22Which plant-derived lubricant is traditionally blended into model engine glow fuel, often alongside synthetics?
Castor oil
Castor oil is not there to burn: almost all the lubricant in the mix passes through the engine unconsumed and comes out of the exhaust.
Q 23Which mechanism on an RC helicopter's rotor mast passes the stick commands to the spinning main rotor blades?
Swashplate
Q 14Which hinged surfaces on the trailing edges of an RC plane's wings move in opposite directions to roll the model?
Ailerons
Ailerons can also be mixed at the transmitter to droop together as flaperons or rise together as spoilerons.
Q 15On a Mode 2 transmitter, the stick layout most drone racers use, what does moving the left stick up and down control?
Throttle
Throttle shares the left stick with yaw in Mode 2, while the right stick handles pitch and roll.
Q 16Which small geared motor units inside an RC plane push and pull the rods that move its control surfaces?
Servos
Servos replaced the escapement, a clock-like device driven by a rubber band that could only step between a few set positions.
Q 17What is the technical name for a model aircraft that flies by flapping its wings?
Ornithopter
Ornithopter joins the Greek words for bird and wing, and RC versions often surprise spectators simply by staying airborne.
Q 18Which frequency band, shared with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, do modern spread spectrum RC transmitters broadcast on?
2.4 GHz
2.4 GHz spread spectrum lets many pilots transmit side by side with little fear of conflict, and the receivers are virtually immune to most electrical interference.
Q 19Which Shenzhen company, founded by Frank Wang in 2006, came to dominate camera drones with its Phantom series?
DJI
DJI launched the first Phantom in 2013 as a fully assembled entry-level model, and it is considered the first commercially successful recreational drone.
Q 20Which gliding technique, looping through the wind shear behind a ridge, has taken unpowered RC models past 500 mph?
Dynamic soaring
Dynamic soaring has no official sanctioning body, so speeds are clocked by radar gun, and a run of 548 mph was logged in 2021.
Swashplate assemblies pair a stationary plate with a rotating one, which carries the commands from the non-spinning airframe up to the turning rotor hub.
Q 24Which rotor layout, with two rotors spinning opposite ways on one mast, makes beginner RC helicopters so stable?
Coaxial
Coaxial models are steady enough to fly indoors in tight quarters, though they have limited forward speed, especially outdoors.
Q 25Which aerobatic manoeuvre flown by RC sport planes is a climbing half loop followed by a half roll?
Immelmann turn
Immelmann turn is the tribute to Max Immelmann, a Fokker Eindecker ace, and it leaves the plane higher and heading back the way it came.
Q 26Which brand of foam sheet, the type used for meat trays, do hobbyists cut and glue into lightweight RC planes?
Depron
Depron blends rigidity with flexibility, letting an airframe absorb the stress of flying. Foam models are nicknamed foamies.
Q 27Which household item did RC clubs traditionally fix to a transmitter aerial to show a flier had claimed a frequency?
Clothespin
Clothespin markers, colour-coded by channel, kept two fliers off one frequency, a clash that almost always ended in a crash.
Q 28The 27 MHz frequencies, the first opened to RC models in the United States, were shared with users of which service?
CB radio
CB radio users still share 27 MHz, so those frequencies are now preferred for ground-based models and older toys rather than aircraft.
Q 29Which US federal agency banned launching model aircraft and drones from nearly all the land it manages in 2014?
National Park Service
National Park Service rules cover only flights operated from its land, because the airspace overhead is governed exclusively by the FAA.
Q 30What is the traditional name for the lacquer brushed over a model plane's tissue covering to tighten it?
Dope
Dope has largely given way to iron-on plastic films, which shrink tight under heat and are more durable and quicker to repair.