Hi,

I purchased an E-flite Apprentice 15e. The cost was $299 ready to fly, and includes the airframe, radio gear, brushless motor, esc, and 3s 3200 lipo battery pack. It is all foam and the all up weight is around 2 1/2 lbs. All I had to do was epoxy the two wing halves together, bold on the tail feathers, charge the battery and go flying. And boy does it fly well.

I tried to start the hobby with a Wattage Ezette. But that plane was way under powered, as it only had a brushed 380 can motor and sub "C" cells.

The apprentice, on the other hands has bags of power. I give it full power on takeoff and within 20 ft I am airbourne and it very nearly goes verticle. I need to reduce power and give it some down elevator to put it in level flight and need to take the power back to 1/4 to keep it from continuing to climb. I have had roughly 26 flights and I am beginning to roll, loop, hamerhead, and cuban eight, as well as do a little inverted. I mostly take off on a paved strip, but due to the configuration of my flying field(s) I land on long grass (1-2 inches).

I have had one mishap which cracked the cowl, but that was repaired with tape.

Flight times are around 20 minutes. Normally I take off and fly around for about 8 minutes, land and then do another flight on the same battery of around 8 - 10 minutes. (This is far better that the E-zette which only got a total of about 8 minutes.) I bought a second battery of 3000 MaH. I also bought a Triton EQ chatger which can charge a depleted battery in bout 50 minutes from an AC outlet. The included charge takes about 1 1/2 hours from my car, and I got very tired of waitinig. The Triton cost me $119 plus I bought a multi lead adapter for many different battery types. However, Hobbypartz does a good charger for $55 bucks, as I discovered at my local flying field after I bought my Triton. I think my triton is a better charger, but I probably would have been satisfied with the cheaper one. But I would definately get adn AC version.

Here is a link to the Apprentice at Horizon Hobbly: www.horizonhobby.com/Products/Default.aspx

I am glad you are thinking of getting into airplanes, I am enhjoing it a lot. Good luck and happy flyinig.