ORIGINAL: aeajr

One of our club members came into the club with the Firebird Outlaw, so I now
have a little time on one helping him learn to fly.

First, this is a really cute plane. However it is VERY light so that the
slightest breeze pushes it around.

While dif thrust works, I have to say that the motors are not really strong
enough to control the plane well in anything over about 3-4 MPH breeze. I am
sure someone will say they have flown in 10 MPH, but there just isn't enough
thrust.

Anyway, the guy was flying. He made an adjustment on the tail so that he got
some better climb and was really doing well. He got it up about 100 feet and
was having a ball when it just started to climb faster than he expected. The
plane had found a thermal.

He shut the motor off and was just floating along. He was loving it until he
realized he couldn't get the plane back down.

When I go the controls, the plane was up about 400 feet. I could not power out
of the thermal and was not able to induce a spiral dive since there is no tail
surface you can control, as there is on a Firebird, XL, Commander or
Fighterbird. We had contact from the transmitter because we could get the
plane to turn, but when it hit the edge of the thermal, it would be spun back
in. We could not break out of the funnel.

Despite our best efforts the thermal just sucked the plane into the sky.

For its intended purpose, a close in little fun plane, it is cute and serves
the purpose. However, be VERY careful with this plane if you get it above
tree level. It has so little power it can not fight against wind and can
easily be sucked up by a thermal.

It was an amazing sight. I never saw anything like this before.