I would like to fly a roadkill outside and was wondering how they would handle a little wind.

I'm a converted wet flier who now flys mostly parkflier size planes.

From : Don Stackhouse

Quite well. I fly all of them in my back yard in a variety of weather. My general rule of thumb is 5 to 8 knots of wind depending on the model. I let Keith Shaw fly the A6M2 Zero outdoors at a fly-in, and with a little help from thermals he got in excess of 18 minutes, while doing a lot of aerobatics throughout the flight, on a 7-cell 110mah NiMH batery. Other folks who flew it that day typically got about 12+ minutes, while doing snap rolls and other aerobatics through most of the flight (Keith is a master at energy management). The DC-3 is a bit faster than the Electra, and does very well oudoors. I've flown the DC-3 in the indoor basketball court, but getting it down smoothly in the space available is a bit of a challenge. Outdoors it really comes into its own.

The deciding factor is usually turbulence. As the wind increases, so does the low-level turbulence, until you're spending so much mental effort just keeping the wings level that it just isn't fun anymore. I flew the P-38 once in 12 knots with gusts to 20 knots, and I managed to not get completely blown away, but it definitely was a struggle. NOT fun. In general the typical cruise airspeeds are around 12 to 16 mph depending on the model. The slowest cruise speed among the currently available kits probably belongs to the Jenny, and the fastest top speeds probably belong to the DC-3, the Electra and the P-38, in that order. The slowest minimum flying speeds probably belong to the WW I models, the Electra and the A6M2 Zero. For the widest overall flying speed envelope, with both very good top speeds and excellent low speeds, the Electra is the winner. However, the differences between the different kits are fairly small overall, and ALL of them fly quite well outdoors. Also, on the ones whose full-scale counterparts had retractable landing gear (essentially all of the present kits except for the WW I models), the models have removable landing gear. This both lightens up the models and reduces the parasite drag (the main component of drag at the high-speed end of the flight envelope), which can help significantly when flying outdoors

Don Stackhouse
DJ Aerotech