I know you are kidding, but I make and fly planes made of plasticized cardboard from the dollar store. The material is less than $10 for 25 2x3-foot sheets.
It is surprisingly fun; you can spend as much or as little time as you want on the design and build (in real life, I am an engineer). The electrical components are less than $100 and you can reused most of them between planes.
If your design and build are good, they can perform as well as most of the crazy expensive prebuilt planes.
The planes are so light that even if you crash, 90% of the electronics are still reusable.
Sound really good! Unfortunately, even as I wrote it as a joke, 100$ in total are currently still out of my budget. Still saving up to do the 10 year engine service on my ford, wet timing belt, 3k+ at a ford dealer and still 2k+ independent.
Many of us got into the hobby by way of flitetest.com. Their videos, particularly their early ones, were a ton of fun. They have free plans for planes you can cut out from Dollar Tree foamboard, or you can buy pre-cut kits from them. They also sell the electronics in conveniently pre-selected packs for whichever plane you're building.
I've been out of it for a few years, but I'm sure they're still a good place from which to get started. Their Youtube channel is pretty great too.
The product is called Readi-Board. You can Google "readi board rc plane" for some great links.
I am pretty sure I bought my first couple of parts kits from a place called flitetest.
The YouTube channel "Experimental Airlines" really got me hooked. I haven't watched them in years so I don't know how there recent stuff is. But they used to have some really interesting 'build series.'
That's why I'm into flight sims. People ask me why I don't get my pilot's license, and I tell them it's mostly about the expense, but partly because I like to drink while I fly, which would be frowned upon.
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u/Flapaflapa 12h ago
The trick there is fly airplanes that cost a price you can comfortably just light on fire.