G'day

45 and 32 eh? Well, that makes you about the same age I was when I was learning to fly. I was 40 and my son was 12 at the time (that was back in 1989 so you can work out the rest).

That is important. At 45 you do not quite have the reflexes of a 16 year old. My son leaned to fly on a Great Planes PT 40 which I built for him. It had a Magnum GP40 for noise generation. It was a good trainer. Big enough, slow but rather untidy in its flight because of all the dihedral. Rather like the Kadet. He was taking off and landing within three months. I took a lot longer though if the PT 40 had survived (I crashed it in some unsupervised practice) then I may have gotten there more quickly.

At 32 your brother has some advantages in learning. He should be able to learn a little quicker but what is really going to matter is just how much "stick time" you are able to get. The more the better. I did not start to really improve until I started flying more than once a week. And I did not become confident until I bought my first Kadet Senior.

If you had said you were 20 or so then I would probably have suggested smaller, faster trainers and the younger folk seem to become quickly bored with large slow models. The preferred trainer at my club is the Phoenix Classic but it is my least favourite as it is so small and because most people overpower it with an OS 46AX. My preferred ARF trainer is the World Models Skyraider Mach 1 with an OS LA46 in it (mine has a Saito 62). For older newbies I recommend the Boomerang 60 which is quite large and like the Kadet but it has ailerons and is a lot heavier than a Kadet and so must fly faster. They fly well with a 60 two stroke and even better with a 70 four stroke and are great fun with a 90 four stroke. I suspect they are sold in the US under a different name though.

So do you have to wait for "Santa" to deliver the Kadet at Christmas? Or is it going to be an early Christmas present? I am looking forward to seeing some photos as it is built.

I did convert my original "Old Number One" Kadet to a tail dragger. I used a separate servo to drive the rudder with a Goldberg "Golden Rod" system. It worked fine until it dropped the wheel in flight and from then on I just used the wheel bracket as a skid which worked just as well so long as I did not want to taxi for miles. Initially I would stick with the trike arrangement. It is easier to build, and easier to take off but it is weaker. As I have said before, I would reinforce the bottom of the firewall with some more ply where the wheel mounts.

The photos attached are of the wing panel I have been building over the last few days. Note the close up of the way I pin the spars. You can't really pin through them so two long pins does the trick.