Originally posted by ALLISONMO2
well guys i need an opinion. i recently acquired an arf cgm ultimate in a trade and was originally going to sell it. well i opened the box and played with it and now it's stayin! .91 will be here fri! my only concern is my relative lack of experience. my first plane was an avistar trainer and i still have it after 4 years. problem is that's it. no other experience except a few flights on a stik. avistar was fun and did some non-trainer like stuff with a .46fx&macs pipe but it was a trainer none the less. most landings occured without the prop still spinning and at an airspeed of mabye 10 mph. now i'm considering flying a much less forgiving model that i have heard i have to fly in at high speeds. am i making a big mistake or do you think that an instructor on a box for a while will have me on my way? buying a plane to fill the void in flying styles isn't really an issure due to $ and time constraints. what to do?
I don't think you have a real concern here. In fact, I think bipes make a rather nice progression from trainers. They are different but not inherently hard planes to fly and once you have a good flying bipe, you'll never be without at least one in your stable.
I haven't flown the Ultimate but have had 4 or 5 bipes. In my experience, it's very misleading to say that the Ultimate will have to be landed at high speed. What they do require is that you keep some power on. Power doesn't necessarily translate into speed when it comes to bipes. It just means that you can't chop the throttle and glide it in from the downwind leg like you would a trainer.
They have a lot of drag so they slow down quickly when you drop the power. Just keep the throttle on a bit when you come in on final and learn what the rate of descent is.
An instructor on the buddy box for the first couple of flights or so is a great idea.
As for good flying bipes. I like the 1/4 scale EAA Bipe from Balsa USA so much, I built two. It's inexpensive too!