I recently picked up an Apprentice 15e RXR, mainly because too chicken to fly my T-34. Right out of the box, no flaws. Wing joined together well, but dont be fooled that it can be flown the same day. You have to join the wings with 30 minute epoxy, which takes 24 hours to reach full strength. Once the wing was cured, I then proceeded to assemble the rest of the plane. I checked all screws, nice and snug. Tail went on quickly, two screws from underneath, but dont over tighten or the plastic will crack. Clevices lined right up, and once I had the RX installed, I used an AR600, I powered it up and centered all the servos. All the control surfaces were right on, I did not need to make any adjustments. Landing gear snapped right in, nose gear is a little difficult to get in, the screw is inside the cowl, but flexible enough to be able to tighten the screw without cracking. A note about the nose gear, it is short, too short with stock wheels to fly off grass, even very short grass. I put a 2 1/2" wheel on in place of the stock one, and also check the screw, it should be flat against the plastic, you should not see any threads, I had a few issues with the wheel turning sideways because I didnt have it in all the way.For the main gear I installed 2" wheels instead of stock for more ground clearance. Once that was done, and the wing was installed, the plane was ready for flight. The plane uses the same battery as the T-34, which was the selling point for me, only need to have one type of Lipo on hand for both planes, saves a lot of money. The radio setup is straight forward, bound the AR600 to my DX6i under airplane, then set the 3 channels to 50 percent on the low rate, and set the timer to 8 minutes, which I plan to adjust to 10 and so until I find the correct flight window for the Gen Ace 3300's I have for the planes. After my first flight I noticed it had very little rudder control, so I switched the rudder to 100% and changed the rudder dual rate switch to control all rate switches instead. One flip of the rudder switch and both elevator and ailerons change rate.

One thing I do notice though, not sure what it is yet, the rudder is slow to return to center, which may be the cause of my left drift. I need to find out if the link to the nose gear is bindig, or if the servo is just weak.

Time for flight, took it to my back pasture which has very short grass from the horses. Powered it up, walked to one corner and taxied the plane to the other end for a radio check, passed perfectly, walked to the area I designated as my pilot box, and taxied the plane to the other side so I flew into the wind. Thorttled up and was off the ground in 15 feet. My first ever take off was a success. I trimmed it out, it had too much up elevator, and it rolled to the left. Once it flew hands off, then I flew it a few times around and lined up for a landing attempt. The first one was off, it drifted away from me towards a fence, so I gave it throttle and up it went, then I lost orientation lining it up again, and did a quick loop and roll and got it right where I needed it, brouught it in for a landing, got over the fence and chopped throttle. It floated down the field towards me and landed just past me on all 3 wheels. My first true solo was a success, and I was shaking pretty good throughout the entire flight. I called it quits at that point, didnt want to push my luck. A couple days later, took the plane to my friends house where there are no fences just soybeans, and had 2 more good flights, though only one landing. After the first take off, I had a mishap. The grass was a bit tall and the prop was hitting the grass, so I had given it full up elevator and hit the throttle, but forgot the set the rate to low. Well it took off alright, straight up, stalled, and nosed over, but since I have flown mini helis, I was quick to cut the throttle so other than a slight scuffed wing tip the plane was fine. My second attempt at low rate this time, the plane took right off and leveled off perfectly, though I had to retrim it since I somehow messed up the previous settings. Since my take off was a bit hairy, and I started getting the shakes again, I let my friend fly it and put it through its paces. The plane flies remarkedly well, it rolls, loops, and does some pretty good manuevers, all at low rates too. He didnt want to try high rates on it at this time, so he brought it in for a nice landing. Well, a fresh battery, and time waiting while he got his glow airborne, and off I went again, this time I didnt think the plane would ever get off the ground, but after a few bounces, and rudder corrections, it finally cleared enough grass to get speed up and away it went. This time I flew it for 8 minutes, and was not shaking when it came time to land, and after a few attempts to get oriented, the sun was just setting and the plane was coming in from the west so I couldnt see if the wing was white, or had red stripes to know if I was turning towards me or away I eventually got it the right direction, and brought it in, the first time it drifted away, still need to work on that, the second time though lined it right up and was able to correct the drift and landed it, though a bit heavy on the nose gear. All and all the plane flies very nice, and if setup correctly on the radio with the dual rates, is very docile, especially at half throttle. Another thing I noticed, after 8 minutes of flight, I still had plenty of battery left. The voltage was only 3.8 per cell. Storage voltage for a Lipo. I could probably squeeze out 5 more minutes of flight.

Even with the rough nose heavy landing, and the goofy stalled take off, the plane held up perfect, so with any luck and no mishaps this plane should be getting a lot of air time. I found it to be a very good trainer for beginners.

Now here is something to take note, I started flying mini Heli's like the Blade mCX and mSR, 120SR, then traversed to a UM T-28, along with several hours of sim time on real flight, so this wasnt my first time flying a plane with a radio, just the first time I actually took off from the ground, flew it and landed it back on the ground in one peice, and a plane that actually had some weight to it. My previous flying with the T-28 shows well on the little bird, it looks like it went to war with a smooshed nose, bent prop shaft, cracked wings and tail, but the little bugger can still fly good, it just cant take off and land, has to be hand launched, and flopped onto grass, and the flopping is rare, more like flip flop instead. So IOW, you cant take this plane up if you have never flown before, BUT with a buddy box and a good pilot helping, you can learn to fly it quickly.<br type="_moz" />

Fantastic job and congrats on the first solo!<div>
</div><div>Remember - the low wing gets the stick when the model is coming towards you. Keep repeating that to yourself when the plane is coming towards you and you'll always be able to level her out.</div><div>
</div><div>Now go join a local club, the AMA too while you're at it and really get a jump-start on most beginners.</div>

If you buy another Apprentice or have to replace the wings or advise a fellow modeler the original instructions on putting the wing together just used the leading and trailing edge plastic with the built in tape.

Ihave over 50 flights with just tape on the wing center line. I only got going on this as you waited overnight for the epoxy to set. There is a great advantage to taking the wing appart easily for long range transport or shipping if you sell it used. fiberglass reinforced tape is good but overkill.

Most glider wings are held together with less and they don't have problems.

I'll keep that in mind. My T-34 Mentor wings are held together with a tiny strap and 2 tiny screws. If it weren't for the flap link, I could easily transport the wings in pieces, but setting the flaps every time and trying to put that tiny little screw in at the field discouraged me on that route.

Well, 7 flights into it and here is an update.

So far only two incidents, both while landing. The first was a depth perception issue, plane is smaller than it looked, I thought it was closer to me and wound up catching tall grass and flipping it over, but since it was going slow it never touched ground.  Second one was yesterday, it has good hang time and while bringing it in, got caught in the cross breeze when it got past the barn, I was trying to set it down before it got there, but that bugger just hung in the sky. Once it got past the breeze swung it nose first towards us, and when it touched down, caught the grass clippings I was trying to avoid, and cartwheeled.  Nothing broken, but did tweak the elevator and munched the trailing edge at the tip a bit.  I put it back up after that and had to readjust trim as it had more down elevator after that rough landing.

Anyhow, here is something to keep in mind if you are looking to buy one of these.  They don't like grass if its more than 2" tall. I had to have the lane hand launched last night, I could not take off from the ground because the grass was too tall. I have oversized wheels installed for better clearance, but didn't help, and here is why.

I brought it in to the shop after flying to readjust the elevator trim after the bad landing, and gave the plane a once over. What I noticed is the motor has a lot of down thrust, which explains why it appears to dig into the ground when trying to take off.  If I were to install a 3" wheel on the nose it would bring the motor shaft parallel to the ground and would alleviate the ground digging, but a 3" wheel wont fit.

During the inspection I also found two issues, one that explained poor ground handling, the other would have been a disaster in the air had I not found it.  The nose gear arm was hitting the foam so I could only turn right, left was being blocked by the foam, which also explained the strange rudder behavior. A little digging out of foam, problem solved.  The second issue is one that anyone who has this plane should check out, the prop shaft had come loose on the motor. It was tight when I first put the plane together, but the set screw had worked itself loose. I noticed the prop seemed notchy, as if the motor had a bad bearing, and I also noticed it looked like it wobbled, then I noticed that the prop would move before the motor did, and found the problem.  I took it apart and cleaned the motor shaft with a file since it got a little nicked up, and put it back together with some lock tight.  Check your prop!

BTW my last flight was good, the landing was picture perfect, put it right where I wanted it, and it touched down on all 3 wheels nice and soft.  Missing the grass clumps is a good thing. Missing the cross breeze past the barn even better, catching the loose prop shaft before it came off in flight,  Priceless!

The trick with the Apprentice in longer grass is full throttle and full up elevator take offs directly into the wind. You still need to find a bare patch of about a metre so it can get going. The prop wash over the elevator helps keep the tail down and the plane will break ground in less than 5 m.

It is a bit hairy when you first start, because you risk a prop strike at WOT, but works so long as you start with a metre or two of bare ground. I used to use a large piece of carpet (6' X 6') at one location.

That bare patch is what was missing. When I fly from my house the plane is up and away in a very short distance. Icame close a couple times of getting going, only to veer into a grass clump. Ishouldnt have anymore ground handling problems, resolved the steering problem.

One quick observation here. Please... use paragraphs. Separate the information so that it doesn't just blend in to one big blob. The original post is just about impossible to read and a follow up post was almost as bad.

Come on, folks... make things a tad bit easier on these old eyes.

CGr.

Well at least I didnt use txt speak


<font size="8">Is this better for the eyes? </font>

Another quick observation here, if you don't like how someone posts, don't read it.

Thanks for the review acdii. It was very well written and easy to read. Our club raffled one of these off a month or so ago and the young girl that won it has been coming to our field regularly for instruction. It does fly very well and makes a good trainer.

Excellent review, well written. Thanks.