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Old 10-02-2003, 10:33 AM
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jatoo
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Default Best First Plane

I recently tried the Firebird Outlaw and with little flying experience was amazed at the ease of flying this little thing!
This is the perfect plane for a beginner, it is small, (27 inch wingspan!), comes ready to fly, and is very easy to fly. It has 2 channel radio and has no control surfaces, it is controlled completely by its two motors, more power to climb, less to descend, more power to one side to turn (I think it rolls from the torque of the motor). This plane is very hard to damage in a crash, and even better, is very hard to crash, as long as the power is cut when you are close to the ground it should just glide in nicely to land, although on grass the tiny wheels tend to get caught and it flips onto its back. This does not matter as it doesn't damage the plane the landing just doesn't look as nice! One downside though is that if you do come to the ground with the motors going it can easily damage the wing, as the propellers are very close to the bottom of the wing and the wing is held just by rubber bands which means it can tilt from impact leaving you with lovely hole in the bottom of you wing, cut by the propellers, but if you cut the throttle, this should not be a problem. (have a look in the picture where the propellers are if my wording is a little unclear). In a crash, if the ground is hit with force the propellers pop off the motors, and I think this might help. One other problem that can happen in a crash is the bar holding the motors can snap at its weak point inside, making the bar band and the motors come out of place, but this should be able to be fixed with some super glue. Another good feature that comes with many of the !QUOT!bird!QUOT! planes (hobby zones firebird, aerobird etc.) is that when the batteries start to get low, it automatically cuts the throttle to save power and only uses remaining power for steering, this allows you to land safely before you completely run out of power and loose total control.
Because it has no control surfaces and steers with the motors, it is not as responsive, and takes a little while to turn, but for a beginner I think this is OK. This also means that all aerobatics are impossible, but also makes it hard to stall etc. and therefore easy to keep up in the air. To land cut the power and glide slowly in, you don't even have to touch it, flying with a friend earlier today, he watched a landing and said !QUOT!wow nice landing!QUOT! but since i started to come in I hadn't touched the controls! It flies very slow and does just what you want if there is no wind. It is very light with small motors, so the wind really affects it.
This is the perfect plane for a beginner it comes RTF, is very cheap, it is extremely easy to fly, and is hard to break. Some people will say it is not worth it because you cannot use the radio gear in you next plane, but at this price it is very cheap and if this is your first plane what is the point in getting one that is more expensive and harder to put together if you might not even get another one? For a first plane have some fun and worry about getting decent radio gear later. Overall if you are looking for a first plane, do not pass go, do not collect $200 dollars, get a Firebird Outlaw for a hell of a lot cheaper!
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