How to Make an RC, Flying Rigid Airship Model - British Airship R 80

This is a brief video bout a project to build a somewhat-scale model of the British airship R 80. Specifications: Length -2meters Diameter - 50 cm control - 3 channel, vectoring main propeller and small rear propeller in the tail for turning The construction is a balsawood frame (braced with thin thread), made from 1/32 balsa strips and consisting of 15 rings (10 sided). Although the actual R 80 was a 21 sided shape, I reduced my model to 10 sides to save weight. The frame is covered with silver tissue paper. At the nose and on the tail surfaces I used red, white and blue tissue to replicate the R 80's colour scheme. The single gas envelope fills the full interior of the ship, It is was a simple construction from gores of mylar safety blanket material. So far it has kept the airship aloft for about 2-3 hours at a time. As this was mostly just an experiment, I didn't buy any expensive electronics for control, instead I used the receiver and motors from two small rc cars, joined to a single battery. This system is fairly light weight but works very badly, even after I extended the antennas to get more range, the range is still only about 30cm. Thus the airship is essentially uncontrollable in its current state. However, now that I know the rest of the airship works quite well, I have ordered an actual lightweight receiver, esc and servos to replace the rc car system. Once I install the new control system, hopefully the airship should fly quite well. Music Used: "The March of the Men of Harlech"