I've built but not flown a .40 trainer. Reason being I'm not sure anyone's at the field, and it's 50 miles one way to get there. In the mean time, I bought a 4 channel coax heli to fly around in my house, and that I've been flying the rotors off of.


How many of the skills I'm building on the heli will transfer to the plane?

Some. The concept of control reversal while its coming at you will be second nature and that will be a big help. Realizing your left thumb controls more than the throttle will help set you apart from most fixed wing pilots as well

But you should definately get help, there's quite a few differences, the cost of driving there and back will still probably be less than taking a 40 size plane home in a dustbuster when the realiazation hits that no matter how good you are at flying around, you have to land at some point.

Haha. I've been running cars for decades so the concept of control reversal is second nature in my mind. I am finding some difficulty in getting the heli to do what I want when it's facing me though, something that doesn't happen with my cars. My thumb seems to forget entirely about that when there's no wheels on the vehicle.


Well of course. I wasn't suggesting I could completely replace buddyboxing with a micro heli. I'm just curious as to how much I'm learning on the heli will translate into when I first fly the plane.

Well, as said, you get the right - left thing down pretty good... I don't know if that thingie has a rudder or not, but that will also give you some working knowledge of that particular control.

CGr.

It does, on the throttle stick.

Well, that will puts you a step ahead of those that have never worked the rudder and knows right from left.

CGr.

Being as most good co-axle helis are balanced enough to put the transmitter down and watch it keep a pretty stable hover in no wind (do with with a CP heli and your in for a repair bill), I'm not too sure if much other than orientation will have been taught. I say this as while I fly a nitro CP heli which did have a lot of transferable skill sets when moving onto planes (well for me anyhow), when I have flown a friends co-axle, I didn't get a feeling that there was a lot of involvement required from the pilot, and that you had a lot of time to pause and think out your next move - even when compared to my own .40 trainer.
So taking that into account, when flying something that on landing and takeoff does not really allow you that ability to pause, take a break and think out your next move, and is much faster re it's overall speed, that's where the weakness of that ease of use will come into effect and leave you unstuck.

If you really want to practice at home, and are serious, get a good quality simulator - mines saved me $$$$$$$ !

I've gotten this one to do that a couple of times, but it's so sensitive to the winds in my home that I usually have to fight it to hold it in place.

I have herd these are great to learn on, so perhaps it might be a good stepping stone prior to flying a big heavy (and frankly dangerous) nitro model if your too far from a club to do a buddy box session - perhaps other members here could pitch in on this front and add there two cents worth being as I have never flown this specific model and came into planes via a different route:

[link]http://www.horizonhobby.com/products/super-cub-rtf-electric-HBZ7100[/link]

I took the same route you are doing. Flying micro copters. I went from the mCX to an mSR, to an SR120. I then went with a UM T28, flew that thing so much it looks like it went to war.  After some Sim time I maidened my Apprentice with very little difficulty, I was shaking so bad though that it was a short flight. <div>
</div><div>If you have a large empty lot nearby, the UM T28 is a good starter plane to get the hang of flying without doing too much harm and it handles up to 10 MPH breezes. </div>

Two things that would keep me from buying the Cub. First of all, I won't fly a fixed-wing bird that doesn't have ailerons. Call me weird, but that's one feature I absolutely insist on. I'll sooner give up piston power than give up being able to do a barrel roll whenever I want to. If I do get a foamy, and honestly I've been seriously pondering them, I'd get one of these instead:

http://www.horizonhobby.com/products...r-bnf-PKZU1680

http://www.horizonhobby.com/products...lt-bnf-PKZ5380

http://www.horizonhobby.com/products...at-bnf-PKZ1980


Secondly, is there any way I could seal the foam on that thing against glow fuel? I'd toss a throttled Cox 0.020 on the nose of it before it flew a foot. I'm not really a fan of electric power in RC, and I only put up with it on my heli because it's an indoor model and too small to be engine powered. If you're wondering why, chalk it up to personal preference. I was turning wrenches before I was old enough to walk in a straight line. I just simply prefer them, find electric a bit dull and ho-hum. Well, that, and batteries annoy me. My heli will fly for 7-10 minutes, then sits on my computer for 45-60 charging, something I want to avoid without spending a fortune on fast chargers and tons of batteries if I can get away with it.

The foamies wont hold up to glow, period. The electrics arent bad, the UM T-28 can use the batteries of the mCXP and get up to 15 minutes of flight time, and can be flown just about anywhere. Great way to learn to fly, then the glow trainer would be SO much easier to fly. It's how I got into it, and now I'm building a Kadet LT40 with an O@ .52 4 stroker, a P-51 with DLE20 and I have a Deweyville Special with a DLE20 waiting for the first nice spring day. The electrics are great for a quick and easy flight, just need a couple charged packs the plane and TX and off you go. Heck, last time a few of us got together to fly I had 2 flights in before the first popper even took off.

The Corsair is a Bi**h to fly. I have one, adn it is not that easy to fly.<br type="_moz" />

Well that pretty much nukes my interest in them. Also, those other flyers are taking forever if you got two flights in before they got off the ground at all. They only have maybe 30-45 seconds more pre-flight to do than you do, they should have been queued up on the taxiway. I know I would have been. Takes me longer just to get set up than it does to get my glow cars running around, not gonna putz around with the plane either. Rx pack charged up? connections good? Surfaces wiggling right? Noise coming out of the engine? Time for takeoff!


My two biggest issues with electric, and my heli is a pretty bad offender here, is as such: You spend ten times the time charging as you do flying, avoiding doing this involves spending more on batteries and chargers than you spent on the airframe they're going in. Secondly, electric motors don't have any of the soul that engines do, and that soul is what attracted me to this hobby in the first place. If it wasn't for watching glow powered cars in parking lots and seeing a glow powered trainer hanging from a hobby shop ceiling I'd still be doing model railroads.

Actually if you can fuel up the plane, start and warm up the engine, make sure the engine is tuned. in 30-45 seconds than you are the best I have
ever seen. All the electric guys has to do is plug in a battery connector.

I keep my engines tuned in such a matter that I don't have to touch the needles from spring to late fall, and then a slight richening on the HSN has it set through the winter. I may drop 200-500RPM on the top end that way, but honestly, having a glow engine that's as plug and play as any brushless setup is well worth it. My touring car is set up that way, I literally don't have to do anything more than fuel it up and start it, and it's good to go now through mid September or so.



So yeah. I'd have it on the runway within 60 seconds of getting it started.

Well the bottom line though, is it wont teach you how to fly a plane but it will put you ahead of someone that has never flown anything.

Edit: that was a polite way of saying "no bickering please"

'Long as it isn't giving me any bad habits I'll need to break when I do get down to the field I'm happy.