John,

I don't mean to offend anyone but I personally could never stand the sound of ducted fans so I've never owned one. It's funny, I was exactly in mss88's boat a few years ago, curious as to what ducted fans sounded like. I watched a few SKS tapes and was turned off to ducted fans pretty quick. There were; however, a few turbines on those old tapes, now those I liked! After going to Florida Jets I was pretty much hooked.

As a step up to turbines I think ducted fans are an unnecessary expense. There is no legal requirement to fly one. They are usually too noisy for most fields. Anyone who can fly a fast sport plane and/or a Quickie 500 or fast Diamond Dust can fly a BobCat, TopCat or HotSpot, the main difference is turbine lag. I distinctly remember the thought as I flew my HotSpot the first time how half the guys in my club could fly it easily. As far as retractable gear is concerned it's a non-issue, beginners can just leave it down for the first few flights.

I remember when I was getting started in jets I was lucky to know a few of the more down-to-earth guys in the RC jet hobby. I already had a fair amount of RC flying experience like yourself and they advised me that ducted fans would be a waste of time and money. In my case I just got a Diamond Dust with the model aircraft equivalent of a Ford 427 on the nose, logged my high-speed flying and was on my way. My first HotSpot flight was a total non-event.

Like I said in the other post, I really think a lot of RC jet guys let this stuff go to their heads. Heck, there are 12 year old kids flying model jets. Entry level jets are nothing more than a model airplane with a different source of power, that's all! I have no idea why guys make such big deal out of this stuff. There is nothing stopping a beginner from buying a 33% Hangar 9 Cap 232 ARF and plowing it into a car or worse on his first flight. Model jets are no more dangerous than giant scale aerobatic planes and yet there is no "Giant Scale Pilot's Organization" concocting a bunch of Mickey Mouse training schemes and checkout profiles. Like I said, we are flying model airplanes here, not issuing type ratings for Airbus A320's. That's why I think the AMA needs to allow buddy box flying and checkouts on the buddy box for model jet flyers.

Whew!

OK, I feel a lot better now! Now that I've said my peace, how's that TopCat coming along? Have you flown it yet?