Silly me

I I have been flying SPAD for sometime now and everyone at the field always ask me to maiden the SPAD for them, have a look to make it fly better or something like that. I don't see myself a the best flier at the club, but for some reason I always ended up flying everyones SPAD planes with the owner waiting for me to say, "great plane"

But ....... some of the planes just fly crap, needs full right and up trim to fly almost straight, most needs to rebuilt the wings, twice, others needs a ton of lead to balance. I think I have seen some of the worst remakes of some of the planes on the site. I can tell you only the best planes and pictures make it to this forum, the other makes it to our club

But ....... I HAVE NEVER SEEN SUCH EXCITEMENT in someones eyes when I take off, never have I seen tears rolling over a grown mans face when I hand him his radio and say "great plane"

FrankC29

Hey, what;s 40 clicks of right aileron compared to that, huh? Besides, their next will will be better, and the third juuust right!

Woodsy

Good onya

i used to get one of the "experts" to maiden my SPAd's untill i realised he was going to make negative coments regardless of how well it flew.

then i realised i was flying better than this guy who was testing MY planes, i'm NOT a better pilot i just seem to have a better "feel".

i love my SPAD's

JuniorPilot

i always maiden my spads!

Mike in DC

I'm confused. I don't think there are any SPADS that you add weight to balance.

Woodsy

the more "scale" SPAD's say like the SPADet where the wing is in a "fixed" location can some times need a bit of weight added to balance.

Silly me

I am not saying that SPAD are no good or anything like that..??..??

The point I was making is that spad is much more that just a plastic plane.

What was the worse SPAD you ever flown?

Woodsy

worst i ever flew was a scratch design tailless design.

first flight was a sequence of out of controll inputs untill my brain said SHUT OFF THE THROTTLE when i did that it just sort of crashed

CaptKAOS

My Feedback: (7)

As a buddy of mine always says....."They'll either fly...or die..." I always maiden my spads too.... What the heck.....if it dies...no biggie..... Just repair it or build a new one...

wildnloose

Silly me,
I was thinking the same thing, and I feel your pain.

When I maidened my dogfighter there were 3 guys waiting to see how it flew. After I landed all of them asked me to maiden their spads. Some people lack general building skills and I have to say just because you can build it does not mean you should try to fly it...

Seems like many people hear the words tough or durable and think that means indestructible, so they go out and build planes that their skills are not even close to being adequate to fly it safely. They seem to think they can grow into flying it; but it only frustrates them, then they wonder what the problem is.

Allow me to add a few examples. One guy has a 40 sized plane that weighs around 8-10 lbs, it needs a .61 just to take off. Another guy built a SPA3DT, I have seen him take off about a dozen times, all flights lasted less than 10 seconds. Other people fly it without problems...and he just cannot figure out whats wrong...DUH.

The really sad part is that most of the instructions I have seen (especially on spadtothebone.com) are excellent. You almost have to go out of your way to screw things up.

Also, I have noticed that some guys just don't do SPADS. I asked several guys if they wanted to fly my dogfighter but no one will take me up on it (it is pretty fast though).

O.k., I'm off my box....going to fly my dogfighter (tt .46) until it rains....yeah baby.....

Mitty

Yeah ,SillyMe...I built a spad trainer and i never flown the glo planes but parkflyers.I let one of the pilots maiden it and it flew..was way too teal heavy and landing gear sucked,but other then that it was going straight when "hands off" .Funny though..when i read yoru first post i though maybe you were that pilot who maiden my spad? lol
Mine needed ton of lead ,even though the guy who maiden it made it look so easy to fly. ...
He told me he was a bit surpriced that it flew at all..Well,i took it out after i fixed the landing gear and i was having crash after crash ....dang..still a lots to learn for me....So i am heading out to the field today.

JimRoss

Hmmm! I feel bad for them if they don't want to fly the dogfighter, I have let several guys at my field fly my Demons and my Balsa Pizazz. Without exception everyone of them was impressed at how well the Demons flew and went away to start on one for themselves. I know I have made two converts and two more possibles. Spads are on the rise in South Texas.
There was even one old hard core balsa flier that sat and watched every move we made with the Demons and said that he was impressed with it. I think if I egg him, on a little bit I can have him building one by months end. Might just give him the necessary materials. Hmmmmmm!

JimRoss