kaydoggy

My wife finally got tired of my whining about wanting to try an rc plane, so she surprised me with a Wattage sport-bipe. I have never flown anything but a very cheap 2 channel plane from walmart. Is this a good/fair first plane? My thinking was that the bi-plane would be fairly slow with alot of lift, but after searching the internet I'm getting worried that this is not the case.

Any tips on getting this thing off, and hopefully back on the ground without crashing? Can you take off from the ground or do you have to hand launch it.

Thanks,
Mark

Matt Kirsch

My Feedback: (21)

Hi and welcome to RCU!

A gentleman brought a Wattage Sport Bipe out to my club's trainer night a few weeks back, and I was elected to test fly it. He had tried to fly it a few times himself, and was unable to keep it in the air.

To put things in perspective, I have 8 years of flying experience, and I'm pretty good if I do say so myself. Anyway, I wasn't able to keep the plane in the air for long, either. This particular plane was tail heavy, slightly short on power, and had way too much elevator throw. It was like riding a bull at a rodeo.

If we hadn't damaged the wing in the last crash, we probably could have sorted it out. The battery needed to be moved all the way to the front, and it may have needed additional weight in the nose to bring the balance point ahead. Additionally, the elevator needed to have the linkage moved to the outer hole on the control horn to tone down the response.

IMHO, hand launching is the only way to fly here. If you can, launch left-handed so you can keep your right hand on the main controls. Or, get a friend to do a "running" launch. Overcontrolling will be an issue, so practice making tiny tiny movements with the sticks before flying.

kaydoggy

Matt,
Thanks for the reply. I think that her decision was based primarily on price, the whole plane was only $99. I will definately take you suggestions on the battery and the elavators.

Another question. FOr a first flight do you think it is better to try to keep fairly low or get it pretty high so you can try to make corrections when/if it gets in trouble? I will say, the people that write the ad's for these things do a good job of convincing you that they are "easy to fly". She did better than I would have though, I probably would have bought the p51!

I guess I'll take it out and see what happens...

Mark

devizzle7

YOU DEFINITELY WANT TO TO AT LEAST 100 FEET BEFOR YOU START MAKING ADJUSTMENTS. AS FAR AS STARTING OUT WITH A BI-PLANE, EXPERIENCE IS NECESSARY. I WOULD RECCOMEND A HIGH WING TYPE A/C TO START OUT WITH.

jljflys

I have been flying the Sport Bipe a few times now over the past couple of months. Mine balances very well with a 1/4 in foam spacer between the firewall and battery and another piece of foam to hold the battery in place. I prefer to take off from a hard surfaced runway. I find solo hand launching to be a big challenge with less than 50% success. Having a friend do the launch works quite well. You do want to let it gain some speed before you try to climb. Once it reaches good flying speed it performs quite well. It will stall and spin in if you don't have sufficient flying speed- Jerry

kaydoggy

Thanks Jlflys. It's good to get some optimistic news about this plane. I still haven't worked up the nerve to take it out yet. I've been playing around with FMS and have actually gotten fairly good with that. I'm not sure it is a good comparison since all of the planes in FMS seem to have ailerons, but I have been able to take off and land with the slow flyer and both biplanes fairly consistantly.

Mark

kaydoggy

Well after over a month, yesterday I finally had a "no wind" day and worked up the nerve to try to fly this thing. Went to the local soccar field/park, checked to make sure all the controls moved the right way, gave it full throttle and chucked it. To my imense surprise, after dropping a few feet it began to climb. As it got higher, it seemed to get stuck in a constant right turn. I could stop it with full left rudder, but when I release it went back. I believe looking back the wing may have shifted in the car, and I forgot to check that (DOH).... Lesson learned. Anyway after going in circles for about 45 seconds and having no luck putting enough trim on the rudder to counteract the turn I tried to bring it down. At about 10 feet it kind of nosed over and crashed. I checked it out and after centering the wing again, went for my second try. Again gave it a toss and it flew straight this time. I actually managed a couple of "controlled" turns until the dreaded crash. How you can hit a soccer net when it is the only thing in the field is beyond me. I did learn that keeping the plan "a couple of mistakes high" is a very good idea.

A couple of observations I made. It flew much slower that I thought that it would, which is probably a good thing. Biplanes, as I'm sure you all know, do not return to level flight on their own. At least mine didn't. Pushing the battery all the way forward seems to put the COG about right. IN the soccer net crash I put a couple of dents in the wing, pulled the top wing "riser" off the fuselage and broke one of the wing "supports" between the two wings. A little epoxy and some tape and I think it is back to airworthy. As much as my wife laughed at me, the few minutes that the plane did fly were absolutely great! I think I may be hooked. And I believe with a couple more trys I can get the hang of the biplane, even though I think I would have been better off with a high wing trainer.

Mark

jljflys

Glad to hear you got it flying. Mine has had several minor crashes as well. I did loose the smal plastic pinion gear on the motor shaft and ended up ordering a new motor with a brass gear. My Wattage Corsair isn't fareing so well as the wing folded and it went down in a soybean field. After spening an hour looking in the tall dense foilage I decided to wait untill the leaves drop off in a couple of weeks and go get it then.