Beginner RC planes

What do you think of this one?

http://www.bananahobby.com/4-ch-blitzrcworks-red-star-trainer-rc-trainer-airplane-rtf.html

From this review, it looks like a nice plane.

If you want to begin flying with RC planes, buy AXN Floater (Clouds fly) along with turnigy 9x. This is the best you can do. The plane is easy and fun to fly and the radio is good for even larger and more complicated planes :wink:

I don’t know if I’ll get one or not but it’s got to have landing gear.

Trust me, you can’t go wrong with AXN floater or MULTIPLEX EasyStar II (or HOBBYKING BIXLER) You can alwys land on the grass or catch it in the air. It is not easy to land on the gear. I was disgusted of flying because of the first plane I bought (1,5m cessna) that is pretty hard to fly and i took me over a year to try it again with another plane. I wish I bought the AXN before! :slight_smile:

I have Spektrum DX8 radio and I have to tell that there is not big difference between this and T9x for normal user. You can flash custom firmware to the T9x to gain even more features than the DX8 has.

Its like $7.99 for the new tail section. Not sure where it broke that it would be able to glue it and have it function properly.

The Champ was doing pretty good. At about 1/3 throttle I was doing decent, but it was windy so when a gust came I would loose control. Also sometimes I would turn too much and over correct and then I would panic and over correct again and it would be all over lol.

I will probably order the new tail section later today so I can repair it this week and fly again next weekend.

I don’t know about the plane but in the RC community Banana has a pretty lackluster reputation. ALL their planes are wonderful, crash resistant, and suitable from everyone from beginner to expert. Uh Huh…sure.

That is not a beginner plane, that’s for sure. The gyro would probably help but it won’t overcome newbie dumb-thumbs.
Video reviews from vendors and folks that have been ‘bought off’ by vendors need to be reviewed skeptically. My first plane (Megatech skyliner > aka Megaturd) had fine video reviews but actually would not even fly. I had a pilot with lots of experience try.

If you don’t KNOW, the better option is generally buy something that has a large/huge following and GOOD support (parts available), especially if you don’t have a clue what you are doing besides trying to learn to fly. You WILL have crashes and you WILL need repairs and parts. It’s good to figure purchases from that point of view to start, NOT on how pretty and cool a plane is.

Or at least the US, or your country, based internet sales.

I jumped right into 6 ch 450 class helicopter. Scares the crap out of me but just lifting off and gently setting her down is a feeling of accomplishment, for my age. No 3D for me!

The problem is the parts are like ordering parts for the flash lights. Plane or heli I would highly recommend supporting your local hobby shop at sale time;)

Thanks. Good advice I’m sure! I was thinking along those lines. A Cessna isn’t a pretty plane (to me) but I figured it was pretty stable. Parts are something I was wondering and thinking about.

I’ve only starting thinking about this recently. I do want to be able to land on wheels however. The landing is the cool part to me. Even in a full size plane you can take the plane off and fly it around on your first lesson. It’s the landing (and navigation and emergencies) that takes most of the time to learn.

I don’t think I have much interest in extreme aerobatics either. I do want the plane to look like a plane :slight_smile: and to be big enough to see while flying it. I’m still thinking about all this however.

Well... a little glue and a little tape and I thought she was ready for flight. Dont know what else is wrong with it but it just wants to climb now. Low throttle and even trying to use the remote to keep it low. I was attempting to keep it in control and it was up about 50 feet, wind took it and I cut the power and tried to turn away, but she went right for the house. Ended up hitting the stairs on my back porch at about 20-25 mph I would say. Broke the prop and the main wing. Now its about $25 + shipping to have her air worthy again.

Think I used too much glue and tape on the tail end to repair. Thats the only thing I can think of why it seemed tail heavy and just wanted to climb...

If I end up having to buying a new Champ, the son is not touching it... ever.

I grew up with a Cessna 150 Aerobat, the one with the checkerboard tail. Nope, not pretty and darn slow. The fun part was when you went inverted or actually made a full loop;) That was $10 an hour wet time, Bayou Flying Club at Lakefront Airport in New Orleans. Today, I bet it would be $60 an hour or more?

Check the internet for RC flying fields in your area, hell they got to be a lot of them there. There’s always Boeing Field…

Flydiver, from this thread offered to show me how to fly RC’s and I’m going to take him up on it. It turns out we live close to each other and there is a RC friendly park nearby as well.

I learned to fly 150’s, 152’s, and 172’s. I don’t know what it costs to fly today either. I learned a long time ago and it was in the $30/$40 hr/range.

You got the CG too far aft. You probably needed to rebalance it after the repair.

I'm going to put a new tail section on. Also going to order foam safe adhesive at the same time and a new main wing. The bottom of the tail fin that turns the plane broke off at the bottom right where it attaches to the fuselage. It's pretty much done for. I think he tried making it look like it was not broken and made it worse.

Not going to put the new main wing on until the one that's on it is toast, just want to have spares so I'm not high and dry later on...

I haven’t flown recently. It depends on whether it is electric or fuel now days. There is a county park nearby where RC electrics are flown. For fuel burning ones, I was shown an undeveloped area near Santa Cruz. Quite a drive but a nice place to fly. There is a model airport somewhere around here, but I have not looked it up.
Of course rubber power is allowed most anywhere. I have seen people fly large RC gliders in a park with a windy hill across the Bay.

I’m thinking about a Bixler 2 as a first plane. Anyone here have one?

I just ordered a Bixler 1.1 RTF.

How is the plane coming along Pulsar?

I just tried to fly my new plane for the first time yesterday. It crashed before I reinforced the hinges with tape and it limited the elevator movement.

I took the tape off but it crashed again as the first crash had moved the battery forward from the CG balancing point.

No damage and next time I’ll have the battery Velcro’d in even more than this time.

I’m lucky that my plane is a pusher so crashing on the nose at least wasn’t crashing on the prop.

Painful to watch…
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7_RIajBMOb9Y0JpWVBGaThYWk0/edit?usp=drive_web

I put off new parts for a L2m, and another rather large order from Hank... But soon I need to order parts to get this back in flight.

That was a painful video...

I need a new prop, tail section and main wing. But I am also going to order glue too, and fix the main wing for now. Going to order glue, 2x props, tail section and a main wing. That way I hope to stay in flight for a while, and be able to repair most damage until I can order new parts. Think it will be about $25-30 for all that, so really not that bad. Just will need to keep myself from flying in winds and keep my 6 year olds hands off it haha

The guy I was flying (trying to) with yesterday had a Champ. I was amazed at how light weight it was. Without the 6 year olds help :slight_smile: I would think it would be hard to damage. I guess trees would damage it however.

My plane was about 4 times the size of that plane. We had a little wind and he had his plane almost hovering when going into the wind.

I’ve seen (on YouTube) people take planes that looked really damaged and glue them back and fly them in just a few minutes. Foam seems the way to go! :slight_smile: