RE: Newbie's regret -- I think I made a mistake w/2nd plane
I fly in a club where everyone knows everything. As a newbie (with only two years of flying a Firebird Outlaw with no moving surfaces), I listened to what was said and everyone suggested a Slow Stick for my first "real" plane, followed by an E-Starter. I buy planes on impulse and started with a Jinx 3D made of Depron and with 60-80* of surface deflection. My first three flights were crashes due to either mechanical or electrical malfunctions. After sorting out those issues, I can now do just about what I want to with it. I figured start hard and work backwards.
My second build was the F/Flex YAK 55 a couple of weeks ago. The stock motor had decent power but I had issues with the recommended brushed ESC. There was no way to program "Brake Off". First flight was a little twitchy and on landing I got about a foot off the deck and chopped the power and flaired to a gentle stop. That resulted in the prop stopping vertically and grabbing the grass. The whole front, back to the stick mount broke off and the battery came out the side. I glued everything back and poked my finger through the wing while checking the C/G.
My second flight was full of stunts in the 15 mph wind and I again made an almost perfect landing causing a crack in the wing. The prop saver is under so much tension it can't deflect on landing. That cost me a cowl. I like the concept and I bought it for the advertised durability... which it does not live up to. I opened my toy box and went with a brushless geared Himax, a CC 25 ESC and the same prop. It benched at 190 watts at 17 amps.
I've now got a complaint in with Great Planes regarding the ESC and the YAK through my local hobby shop. The brushless setup results in great flights but no matter how easily it lands, I now crush the gearbox bushings and wallow out the spinners. I've just ordered some threaded shafts to where I can hopefully land on a GWS prop and snap the prop instead of the plane.
Tomorrow I plan to try landing inverted to see if that helps since it'll put almost everything on top out of the way. If that doesn't help, I'll try catching the dang thing.
It's not you...it's the YAK 55. I bought mine the second day the hobby shop had it and it almost seems to be dry-rotted. I can land the Jinx inverted or even pretty hard without any damage to the Depron, but the YAK 55 has yet to survive a flight.