is there a plane for beginners that you can fly w normal mode, no self leveling, but reasonably easy to fly for a beginner. I found the horizon hobby planed were too unstable even in intermediate mode? What about the night vapor?

I started with the Apprentice (SAFE) and progressed to the Seagull Boomerang.

It has a standard Spektrum receiver.

Very easy to fly, but it will tell you if you take liberties.

Cheers
Max

How much acrage. do you need?

About twice as much as you think you do. I've found that when talking about beginners, if you can see a tree you can hit it.

As for easy flying planes without the electronic training wheels, the Mini Telemaster is a nice one. The Blue Baby is a home built foam plane that can be made very cheaply, and I hear it's gentle as long as there isn't much wind. But that's the thing- traits that make a plane easy to fly in some conditions make it harder in others. Take the Vapor that you mentioned. I have one that I fly in a gym. It's super easy in the gym, so much so I'll let anyone try it. But even 2-3 mph wind would make it uncontrollable. The Eflite Apprentice is a great trainer up to 7-8 mph wind, then it'll start getting tossed around. Larger .40 and .60 size planes can handle a lot more wind and are overall smoother and easier to see. But they need more space and are more expensive.

Your best bet would be to get with some guys who fly and see if someone will instruct you. One may even have a plane to let you give it a try.

Jester got it right.

I was thinking of trying the. Vapor but a salesman at horizon hobby. Told me over the phone that it would be hard for a beginner re indoors. He said any slight wind would be too much as you mentioned. I was hoping to avoid the whole safe mode thing because I got too dependant on it with the sport cub and the t28. Went through 6 of them trying to switch into the more advanced modes. I'm not sure if I would have the same problem with the apprentice. There one place in town where another guy was flying RC planes but he was an expert I think I would need more space between tree lines and the only other place is about a half hour drive and they don't allow drones, I don't know about planes. There's a club about a half hour north but my wife and I arenot really joiners. Y eyesight and Parkinson's present problems too<br /> but my wife says if she passes a test she's taking for her job she would celebrate buy getting me a 200 dollar plane<br /> So I don't know whether to hang up or not. I the the night vapor would be good at night

When the Good brothers started all this the problem was not too much control but it was too little
. They didn't have self leveling via an electronic control system but it was built into the airframe with high dihedral wings and I don't know what else
Probably a low center of gravity. They just had limited rudder movement, no elevator movement and no ailerons. Why couldn't it be a little bit like that for beginners. The second KL f leveling is misleading but the planes are to hard to fly without it. Are the telecaster and the Blu baby more like the early planes?

When the Good brothers started all this the problem was not too much control but it was too little
. They didn't have self leveling via an electronic control system but it was built into the airframe with high dihedral wings and I don't know what else
Probably a low center of gravity. They just had limited rudder movement, no elevator movement and no ailerons. Why couldn't it be a little bit like that for beginners. The second KL f leveling is misleading but the planes are to hard to fly without it. Are the telecaster and the Blu baby more like the early planes?

You can do it like the pioneers did. The plans for those old school designs are still around. They were essentially free flight planes with a little rudder control added in to make them steerable. Pilots needed the knowledge on how to set up a free flight plane to fly well first, then they could do the mods for adding the single channel rudder.

Giving us a bit of your history was helpful. I can tell you that your problem is that you don't have flying skills. That may seem obvious enough, but it does dictate how you proceed from here. If you've already wrecked 6 airplanes due to pilot error, then you need an instructor. Some people can figure this stuff out on their own, but most learn a lot faster with an instructor. An instructor will show you how to get out of sticky situations and how to avoid getting into them in the first place. He'll teach you how to land properly. A good one will also teach you how to do a proper pre-flight inspection so that a mechanical problem doesn't crash you. For what you've already spend on wrecked planes, you could have paid for a couple of years worth of membership in your club and gotten the training you need. It's a common beginner mistake to consider club dues or even training fees as wasted money that could have been spent on more planes. The whole point of this hobby is to fly, so your skills are where you should be investing your time and money at this point.

You asked about the planes I mentioned. The Mini Telemaster is a stable, fairly slow flying plane that's been around in various sizes for decades. It's a lot like an Apprentice without the gadgets. It has served as the primary trainer for many RC plots, but you still need someone showing you what to do. The Blue Baby is slower and more floaty, not as good in the wind but more gentle and forgiving on calm days.

What about one of the Sig Kadet types? They can be flown either three or four channel, are relatively stable and can be either nitro or electric powered. Better still, you can get them as either a kit or an ARF

Hydro -

The SIG Kadet 40 EG ARF is a great training, or first aircraft. The ARF is very lite and I train folks on it using a AXI 2826/12 motor (similar in performance to Suppo 2826-5) on a 4s 4000-4500 mah battery. While you might be able teach yourself to land and take-off with this plane you would still need some buddy box time (or a lot of simulator time) to get the basic left-right coordination, turns, etc. down. Even with something like SAFE you are risking a lot to just got out and fly without sim or instructor help, I have trained students on the Kadet and they are able to solo and quickly transition (like one flight) to Apprentice or Sensi like planes. So which ever route you go I would recommend some sim and instructor time to get you solo'd without having to buy a lot of repair parts. Soloing does not have to mean a lot of crashes and repairs. I still have and occasionally fly my Carl Goldberg electric Gentle Lady (basically a three channel moto glider which is also a great way to go for a first airplane) that I built as a first airplane in 2004, By the way there is a Kadet "swap" file for the Real Flight simulator that is dead on in flight characteristics.

Actually, Gyrodog, I have built a Kadet Jr and have two more under construction as we speak. I was actually suggesting the Kadet line to Obrien 135, not asking if it would work for me. Funny you would mention a motorized Gentle Lady. I have a kit stashed for the Goldberg Electra, the same plane you referred to.

any of the high wing, "piper or Cessna types" are good learning planes. the bigger the better. bigger planes fly better, more realistic in the application of flight dynamics and are easier to fly in general. I don't believe in the electronic training wheel technology. learn to fly the plane,....not the electronics.

I'll have to disagree with you on that, r ward. Cubs even approaching scale fidelity are notoriously frustrating planes to fly. I have one and really enjoy it, but I like it for its quirks, not its gentle nature. Scale Cessnas can be snappy like my Goldberg Skylane was. Of course, there can be significant variances in flying characteristics with changes made to wing shape, airfoils, and tail sizes.

every plane has it's character,.....most "scale" planes have stability and control issues. the closer you stay to true scale the more they show up,....usually in control surface inadequacies, which will translate into stability issues. that's why I say what I do....... learn to fly the plane as it is....a plane.... not as it is ...an electronically stabilized model. the electronic stabilization takes the character away and makes them all fly the same to some extent.
I guess I have no problem with these quirks being taken out by larger control surfaces and maybe different air foils and wing areas. i'd rather do that and know I am flying the plane, not a circuit board.

First time I've ever read someone taking about "flying a circuit board". Unfortunately, it's all too true in today's society. Many of those just beginning in hobbies or, for that matter, the work force, seem to think that anything that makes their workload smaller is a benefit, regardless of how much it takes away from them either in the short or long term

I understand,.....no-one wants to invest and crash that investment, but that said,....it is an inevitable part of the hobby,... and all hobbies or sports have their bad spots !. the bad part of "flying a circuit board" is that mistakes are made and the correction is never learned because the mistakes has be electronically compensated for. pretty soon all you'll need on your Tx box is one stick for left and right and up and down and a button that says "FLY" and a button that says "LAND".
stability programs have their place as a safety net, of course, the bad thing about them is that most people refuse to wean themselves off that safety net and still think they "know how to fly an R/C plane". ironically, it is the very issues that the programs compensate for, that is the substance of really knowing how to fly an R/C plane.

Agreed 100%. The person I was referring to learned to fly with wing stabilisation. This would return the wing to level with no input and would limit the amount of bank.

So when they flew without, (1) they had no concept of having to bank the opposite way to return to level flight (2) and worse they had been whacking the sticks over full and getting nice gentle turns because of the limiter. You can imagine what the flying was like when the stabiliser was removed.

Cheers,

Nigel

I'm on the fence about stability systems. If a person wants to fly serious models, scale or competition, they have the learn fundamental flying skills. You can't do that with a stability system compensating for your mistakes. However, there are pilots without access to instructors or who have health issues that limit their abilities. Stability systems make flying possible for them. It's possible with the current technology to never fly with direct control for one's whole time in the hobby. As long as they are safe and having a good time, I'm all for it. But if the plan is to learn to fly higher performance planes or to truly be in control, I do agree that the electronic training wheels do lengthen the learning time.