hello fellow pilots, i have just enterd the world of flying 3d planes, ive been flying regular rtf planes for about 2 and a halp years and i have decided that i cant hold back any more, so i want to try fling one of these 3d planes, they look fairly easy to construct, does any one have a sugjestion on a nice 3d trainer, ive been looking at the flout out 580 from great planes, looks cool, please tell me if u have a sugjestion, i never had an arf before, but i would like to take my fling to the next level, i guess these 3d planes are a good way to start

If I were you I'd order some 3 or 6mm depron and get some free plans off the internet and build your own. That's a little more work, but this way if you crash you can just cut out a new plane for free, or replace the busted part.

Ditto on that.

Get some 6mm foam, and use some plans to build a 6mm depron extra 300 or edge 540 or something, you can get plans from 3dfoamy.com
Then put a decent brushless motor like the BP21 from balsapr.com on the front of it.


Since you've been flying for a while now, it should be easy for you to get the hang of flying it, now all you need to do is practice the 3D maneuvers.

The advantage to using 6mm foam is
1. Its much more durable than 3mm foam
2. When it breaks, it normally breaks clean, and can be CA'd back together easily.

I have a 6mm plane that I flew full throttle into a chain link fence. 10 min later it was flying again, and you could barely tell it was ever broken. Dont worry about crashing. Its just part of learning. The best part about using 6mm foam to build your own planes, is that you can just build another one if you smash one up, plus you will get valuable learning without spending tons of money on kits.

Good luck.

I would start with something that bounces a little better like epp foam. It sure helped me. prop savers lots of props. Epp will bend take a hit and bounce back. I learned to 3d with a mini 3d from slofly.com. It is a little heavier then depron but unless you are a super fast learner I would look into epp. I went through many lite foamys but you set them down hard and they brake. you can lawn dart a mini and worst case put a new prop on it. My two cents.
Justin

Yes EPP is the way to go. I would go with SX2 or 3 if you want to build. Or slofly for a kit. I have built about 7 SX3s for some friends. Everyone really likes them. I have both. I like the SX better but both are better then non epp planes to learn on. Less repairing. More flying.

The last dome flyin' I was at 10 of us started flying, in about 10 minutes I was the only plane not broken. And still flying. I am a believer!!

Well my only foamy to date is a 6mm depron Ultimate. I have slammed it into the ground and pavement a few times. Only twice have I done any real damage. Both times it went in inverted into pavement and just ripped the top off. A little epoxy and it was flying again. I flew into a fence once at WOT, swapped the prop and flew again. FWIW, this plane is 14 months old and has nearly 40 hours flying time on it.

I could be wrong on this, but from what I have seen most of the EPP planes flex too much for precise control when you really wring it out. My depron plane flexes a bit too though, so I am in the process of building a 30" span balsa plane as a replacement, the Skeeter 30.

EPP is ok. But its heavy and hard to shape. If you do bust a part too much to be glued back together, you have to order a new wing or fuselage. This can take a few days to arrive...meanwhile your out of flying time.

The 6mm depron is widely available at most quality hobby shops. If you bust a depron plane, you can just cut out the section thats messed up and replace it with a patch. Normally this only takes a few minutes.

I had a EPP Parkzone Stryker. While its a fun plane, it got to be a real pain to glue it back together after a mishap. Once I built a 6mm depron plane, repairs were easy and fast.

Im going the EPP route to learn low level 3D on. My machines of choice for abuse are the GP Yak55 and U-Can-Do-3D... Both are made from EPP and should take hits nicely. check out the videos on their site- the durability is pretty impressive. Being EPP they wont be "precision" flying airplanes, but to learn the basic moves without breaking a bunch of planes, i think these will be a good investment.

Might want to rethink that GP stuff. Check out the threads for the u-can-do first.