ORIGINAL: forestroke
2. orientation is more difficult as bipes can look the same right side up as it does upside down at a distance.
3. they are short coupled and thus have bad ground handling. it would not be the best first taildragger.
furthermore, they tend to be far more difficult to fly in gusty wind and less forgiving of pilot error. i would suggest that the bipe be a second plane of a two plane hanger rather than a plane to replace the trainer. ground handling, landing and flying are all more difficult in wind but that is accentuated with a bipe. just my experience. and bipes are generally not made for beginners and thus a little more fragile.
last but not least... balancing a scale bipe is very very sensitive. Due to the short nose and two wing layout, it is not easy to balance the bipe (imho). as such, the maiden should be done by an experienced person that checks everything before hand.
Unfortunately that's untrue and consists of a bunch of generalizations.
1 - Orientation is NOT more difficult at all.
There is basically NO difference, because there is the same amount of asymmetry from top to bottom as a low wing plane.
At distance it is just as difficult to orient on a low winger as with a biplane. If you are having problems, put stripes on your plane or use another means to let you figure out how it is oriented.
My Bipes are FAR easier to see than say a PTS P-51D "Trainer".
2 - They are NOT "more difficult to fly in gusty winds and less forgiving of pilot error". I fly Ultimates in high winds all the time. As with anything else the larger the plane the better it handles the wind.
Their need for power on approach actually makes landings a bit easier in winds, since you power them down right onto the runway w/o risk that they will float over the entire length of the field on a headwind, or that a gust will flip them over.
3 - Bipes are NOT "more fragile" quite the contrary they are MUCH MUCH STRONGER.
The wing struts and carbanes form a hard "square" support system for the wings. Since the wing struts are affixed mid wing there is far LESS chance of damage during a mishap. You have several points of re-inforcement, not present in a monoplane...
I've cartwheeled a small Ultimate 40S end over end ( sideways) when I nosed it in on a very bad landing...
I thought the plane was toast.... I went to pick up the pieces to find it unscathed! ( there was one tiny bit of damage... more on this in a second... ).
I could not see anything wrong....
I fueled it up and flew it the rest of the day...
Everyone at my field came up and wanted to know who manufactured " such a hardy plane " as they wanted to purchase one after that demonstration of just how strong the Biplane is... all had assumed it was demolished...
The next day I went flying again, only to discover that I had broken a strut just above the junction point. I had spent the previous afternoon performing snap rolls, etc. with a busted strut and I didn't even notice! The other two junctions to the top wing were THAT strong.
A bit of glue fixed this quickly... but no other monoplane of that size would have sustained that type of abuse w/o falling apart.
When you do manage to damage the wings, you only do so on the area outside of the struts. This makes them a breeze to fix... and the damage tends to be minor. Again you have a form of cross bracing that you do not have on a monoplane.
4 - Bipes are VERY forgiving of their balance points... On a small 40 Ultimate I've gone 3-4CM in each direction w/o any problems, contrary to popular belief...
On a small 29" Ultimate I've gone a whopping 2-3CM off C.G. in each direction w/o problems.
Biplanes do NOT necessarily have "short noses" either... again it depends upon which biplane you are flying...
A Skybolt is about one of the most forgiving planes available.
A novice has no problems greasing landings in with this plane.
A Moth is almost trivial to fly.
BTW: My 10 year old daughter's first flights were on a E-Flite Ultimate FX. It was such a gentle flyer ( and easy for her to see dispite it's small size ) at low throttle that she picked it up right away.