Hi urmr-ca,,

    Today we went out to fly a Hobbyzone electric plane thats been knocking 
around in the garage waiting for the kids to get older and a nice clam day. 
The thing flew well enough, but the motor now has an intermittent fault. 
Whilst attempting to fix it, I realised how badly built the thing was, the 
nylon control lines were nearly worn through where they enter Al tube to 
tail, the motor retaining screws pulled through plastic body and the PCB was 
cracked, which may well explain the intermittent motor fault. Oh and while 
disconecting the control lines to extract the innaerds of the thing, the 
plastic lever snapped.  The thing landed fairly gently just three times so 
all this this seems a bit much!

    Anyway everyone concerned wants to fly rc planes some more, so can 
anyone here recommend a good relaible trainer type aircraft. Something 
fairly slow for park flying at first I think, but any suggestions are 
welcome.

Cheers
Steve.

"Steve"  wrote in
news:7ia3r2F30f5mlU1@mid.individual.net: 

>     Anyway everyone concerned wants to fly rc planes some more, so can 
> anyone here recommend a good relaible trainer type aircraft. Something 
> fairly slow for park flying at first I think, but any suggestions are 
> welcome.

First, I've been an armchair pilot for a couple decades...flight
sims of one sort or another. So this undoubtedly helped me RC fly.

Second, I started flying RC helicopters about 18 months ago. I
currently fly a Blade 400 which is an RTF that came with a Spektrum
DX6i radio.

About 4-5 months ago I picked up a Multiplex Easyglider, a receiver
for my radio, and batteries. It's an ARF foamie powered glider. I
found it to be very gentle and easy to fly. I had a couple minor
mishaps at first that required a little regluing of the nose and
replacing of the ESC, but since then I've had no crashes.

One thing, though, is the included motor is brushed and it doesn't
like being full power especially powered by LiPo batteries. It burns
out too easily. But I only needed about 2/3rds power to launch and
putted around at 1/2 while learning.

I have since replaced it with an outrunner brushless (E-flite Park 480
1020kv, which required surgery to the nose) and a good ESC (E-flite
30 amp with bec) and better folding prop (actually from a Radian glider)
for direct drive (orignally has gear box). This thing now has tons of
power and it's also much quieter.

Anyway, I chose a powered glider foamie as a beginner for three reasons.

1> Foamies can be glued back together with foam safe CA. Depending
   on how bad it is, you can do field repairs and fly again the
   within an hour.

2> Gliders are gentle and forgiving on the controls. This plane will
   stall but it does it very nicely.

3> Powered meant I didn't need a launcher or cliff to fly from.

BTW, I use 2100mAh 3 cell LiPo's and my longest flight just puttering
around and catching thermals was about 55 minutes.

But now that I have power to spare I'm doing full on aerobatics.

Hope this helps.

Brian
-- 
http://www.skywise711.com - Lasers, Seismology, Astronomy, Skepticism
Seismic FAQ: http://www.skywise711.com/SeismicFAQ/SeismicFAQ.html
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"Skywise"  wrote in message 
news:iNVvm.185338$hv7.114209@newsfe10.ams2...
> "Steve"  wrote in
> news:7ia3r2F30f5mlU1@mid.individual.net:
>
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Brian
>

Sure does thanks. I was looking at powered glider type aircraft, i'll check 
out theb Easyglider.

On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:44:00 +0100, Steve wrote:

> Sure does thanks. I was looking at powered glider type aircraft, i'll
> check out the Easyglider.

The easyglider does look good. If you want more of a standard plane then 
the FlyingWings 'V Trainer' has been well reviewed for toughness - it was 
designed to protect the motor/prop etc. and as a high wing V tail plane 
it is a decent trainer but can also do basic aerobatics when you increase 
the throws. Comprehensive spares are also available...

On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:05:08 +0100, Steve wrote:

> Hi urmr-ca,,
> 
>     Today we went out to fly a Hobbyzone electric plane thats been
>     knocking
> around in the garage waiting for the kids to get older and a nice clam
> day. The thing flew well enough, but the motor now has an intermittent
> fault. Whilst attempting to fix it, I realised how badly built the thing
> was, the nylon control lines were nearly worn through where they enter
> Al tube to tail, the motor retaining screws pulled through plastic body
> and the PCB was cracked, which may well explain the intermittent motor
> fault. Oh and while disconecting the control lines to extract the
> innaerds of the thing, the plastic lever snapped.  The thing landed
> fairly gently just three times so all this this seems a bit much!
> 
>     Anyway everyone concerned wants to fly rc planes some more, so can
> anyone here recommend a good relaible trainer type aircraft. Something
> fairly slow for park flying at first I think, but any suggestions are
> welcome.
> 
> Cheers
> Steve.

Steve,

Ask over in rec.models.rc.air it's American biased but has a lot more 
traffic than this group ever had.

-- 
Chris

Chris Dugan wrote:
> On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:05:08 +0100, Steve wrote:
> 
>> Hi urmr-ca,,
>>
>>     Today we went out to fly a Hobbyzone electric plane thats been
>>     knocking
>> around in the garage waiting for the kids to get older and a nice clam
>> day. The thing flew well enough, but the motor now has an intermittent
>> fault. Whilst attempting to fix it, I realised how badly built the thing
>> was, the nylon control lines were nearly worn through where they enter
>> Al tube to tail, the motor retaining screws pulled through plastic body
>> and the PCB was cracked, which may well explain the intermittent motor
>> fault. Oh and while disconecting the control lines to extract the
>> innaerds of the thing, the plastic lever snapped.  The thing landed
>> fairly gently just three times so all this this seems a bit much!
>>
>>     Anyway everyone concerned wants to fly rc planes some more, so can
>> anyone here recommend a good relaible trainer type aircraft. Something
>> fairly slow for park flying at first I think, but any suggestions are
>> welcome.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Steve.
> 
> Steve,
> 
> Ask over in rec.models.rc.air it's American biased but has a lot more 
> traffic than this group ever had.
> 
trouble is they recommend Tower hobbies and the like and things you only 
get that side of the pond :-)

-- 
Kevin R
Reply address works

You don't say what your budget is and I'm not totally sure of your skill 
level.

Kyosho have always been regarded as a good quality make so you could have a 
look at this

http://alshobbies.com/shop/lookupstock.php?pc=2650

Otherwise have a look through all of these and see if there is anything that 
takes your fancy - size, price, looks, skill level etc. and then post back 
and we could comment on the make.

http://alshobbies.com/shop/cat.php?id=314

Cheers,

Nigel 



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"Nigel Heather the-heathers.co.uk>" <nigel@<NO_SPAM> wrote in message 
news:011137e5$0$22412$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com...
> You don't say what your budget is and I'm not totally sure of your skill 
> level.
>
> Kyosho have always been regarded as a good quality make so you could have 
> a look at this
>
> http://alshobbies.com/shop/lookupstock.php?pc=2650
>
> Otherwise have a look through all of these and see if there is anything 
> that takes your fancy - size, price, looks, skill level etc. and then post 
> back and we could comment on the make.
>
> http://alshobbies.com/shop/cat.php?id=314
>

Budget isn't an issue really, although I didn't want to spend a fortune.

I've just bought a ParkFun Scout, which seems to fit the bill for the 
children at least. I had my first tree climbing experience for quite some 
time today! the plane seems OK, not so sure about myself.

I really want to self build eventually as I've just had a lot of fun making 
a WestWinds Spitfire - it's currently being covered and doped. With that in 
mind I really wanted to have separate swappable components, so the Scout is 
a compromise. Next time I'll build a proper plane and buy proper transmitter 
reciver, servos, etc. I've been into the model shop in Manchester and by the 
look of it they are now so small and light, you could almost fit the kit in 
a modified Westwind plane.

Thanks everone for the advice.

Steve.