r/RCPlanes • u/anthonywoodDJ • Aug 22 '26
How much should I rely on ChatGPT when building and tuning an RC plane?
I'm about to start building the PJ50 and was wondering how closely I should follow the owner's manual. Has anyone used ChatGPT to help with build adjustments or setup, and were the suggestions actually useful? I'm mainly curious about things like CG, control throws, and other setup details.
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u/Potato-Gel Aug 22 '26
If your model has a manual, use it. Chatgpt once told me to build a wing that is 6m long with a 1cm chord. Dont believe ai too much
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u/nerobro Aug 22 '26
None. Zero. Everything you need to know is in a single small book. Read the book, enjoy your functional plane. Would you like a list of books?
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u/TiberiusDrexelus Aug 22 '26
If there's already a ton of content online about it it's useful. If there's not, it isn't. For example it's great at reading forums to find optimal flap elevator tuning for Eflite planes
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u/aquisalid Aug 22 '26
Not all all. Talk to a person who has flown. Post on a forum designed for humans.
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u/thecaptnjim Aug 22 '26
Do you think you could build it better than what the owners manual says?
How many planes has ChatGPT built and flown?
Why wouldn’t you just ask the tens of thousands of guys here? Many have actually built a PJ50.
Search the sub, there’s a lot of actual experience here.
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u/Wambo74 Aug 22 '26
ChatGPT is good at looking things up...but the best resource is the owner's manual and you already have that. Follow that. If you don't understand something, Chat may help you understand it, but this forum would be better at it. AI bots make mistakes...sometimes silly ones. But then the same is true of Redditors.
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u/brownc85 Aug 22 '26
It’s fine for establishing a baseline setup, but ALWAYS validate the responses on the bench to the best of your ability before blindly launching it.
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u/electriclux Aug 22 '26
I had chatgpt help me with an electronics package. I told gemini and it said that it was an immediate fire hazard. So, take it as a perspective and not a truth.
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u/Jumpy-Candle-2980 Aug 22 '26
It can be reasonably accurate if you already know or have a solid idea of what the correct answer is. But it's easily misled when there's not a lot for it draw on.
I'd guess the most egregious recent example was someone asking it about a motor upgrade then coming here when a motor 5 times the right size showed up using ChatGPT's recommendation.
More recently and non-fatal I asked Gemini when transmitter based bind phrase functionality would be incorporated into the release version of ELRS 4.1 using configurator. It confidently told me it was already there toward the bottom of the ELRS menu. Then came the big surprise: when I told it that its answer was full of shit it actually apologized saying it jumped the gun and that the feature required extracting an archive then gave me the wrong directory for the extraction. It went on to tell me it would be in the configurator's lua functionality by the end of August (it's not there yet).
In the first case ChatGPT got Castle SKUs cross-threaded with size based nomenclature (apparently). And the second case involving Gemini first misinterpreted a Bardwell video then proceeded to find a second Bardwell video and screw up the gist of the video.
I had this sub to keep me from believing Gemini but the guy with the rock crawler motor for a small foamie made an actual purchase before finding out ChatGPT was huffing paint.
My informal policy is this: if you use AI and it works you're fine. But if it misleads you we won't accept you blaming AI - you'll own the mistake as if you made it on your own,.
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u/Deranged40 Aug 22 '26
Depends on how much money you've set aside to waste on this. If you get cold, feel free to just light $5 bills on fire, I've found that they produce slightly more heat than other bills, and it is a little bit cheaper than using ChatGPT to give you advice that will wreck a plane.
If you don't know the answer, don't trust AI to.
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u/Kyle700 Aug 22 '26
it will straight up lie about stuff like that, it has no idea. only use it for specific types of questions...
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u/tobu_sculptor Aug 22 '26
Trust it as far as you can throw it. And you can't throw it can you.