Hey yall,

I am a new pilot and it seems every sunday i am gluing the wings where they bolt on or something else. As it stands im missing half the cowl and most of the paint due to gluing and tape marks lol.

Is this normal for the first plane.
Does anyone have pictures of their scared plane?

Maybe I'm doing things wrong lol.

Thanks
mike

Up unil now, I thought that I had a pretty good imagination, but I find myself completely at a loss when it comes to trying to figure out how one can lose half a cowl and most of a paint job as result of errant glue and tape application techniques.
Undoubtedly, any light you might shed on this remarkable mystery will be greatly appreciated by all concerned!

This is one reason it is recommended that first planes be high wing trainers with wings that are held on by rubber bands. In a crash the rubber bands allow the wing to move without tearing the fuselage apart.

the cowl is plastic and hit the ground nose first when the battery died mid air-now i have a discharge buzzer connected to my lipo so it wont happen. And the missing paint is because of the crazy thin layer it came with and not warming the tape before removing the blue tape. The newbie things you learn flying.

Fly, crash, repair, repeat. That is a normal progression.

All the repairs are giving you a great skill set. That will pay off in the future when you are putting new planes together. I think we all banged up our first trainers. That's what they are for.
David

The paint job on any foamy is temporary at best. It'll flake off if you just look at it too hard.

It sounds like you are having a good time anyway though. I have never found pristine new airplanes all that interesting. It's the ones with patches, scuffed wingtips, fuel stained and CA glue all over the covering that have stories to tell.

It's called building character. Wait till your second plane...
This is really a case of "third time is a charm".

Oh so completely normal! You are trying to defy gravity, after all. After 53 years of trying to make something fly, I'm pretty firmly convinced that they almost always fly much better after a number of repairs have been done to them......

You do not fall in love with your first plane....

For a long time, many of us folded up and stored a trash bag inside the model. You'll know what it is for when you need it........

..Or got their exercise performing the "Walk of Shame"

When I first discovered flying model airplanes, I recall my method for avoiding the walk of shame was for a number of my first attempts at building to go from the workbench directly to the garbage bag. I felt that the results that I attained during my learning experience deserved nothing less.

Now that being efficient.

First Airplanes are very good at making epoxy mixing sticks for the second airplane! IMHO a great second plane is the Sig 4-Star. They are easy to repair. Ask me how I know.

My airplane when I returned to RC modeling. Good take off, 3 good level turns, lost on the 4th turn. Throttle screw came loose. Better to repair the remains than to bury them. Total Loss. I just built another airplane.

Oh you can whip up another one of those gutter pipe airplanes in about 3 hours. No big loss.

SO true!

My first one was Telemaster 40 somewhere around 1986. K&B 40 and Futaba 6 channel. It came with everything. Motor,covering,radio,wheels and gear. Gosh I miss those days. Looking to get back into the sport at my older age now for the grandchildren and will probably go electric. I still have the TM plans and may blow it up 50% like I did 30 years ago. Was a fun plane to fly with a Q35 and 19 pounds.

i'm new too. I just started in June of this year with the ESC engines. I already completed the model i made. And have the batteries, but now it's stuck yet in the hanger. So learning what this transmitter Flysky is all about. 4 channel

43" wing tip to wing tip, 32 " length front to back. Looks like a Skymaster home made and made of foam card box.

I would show my model airplane, but I'd rather give specs. ESC 2200kv to 1180 kv ESC engines. 1 engine. This is a twin pack. So the single engine runs on 7.4 volts TATTU battery. I am not sure if this was right. It beeps but no engine start. 650 mAmp/hours. 3.6 ibs. to the model airplane. xt30 connector to the tattu. Really small battery. I don't think the 11.4 volts will do it. It will burn it up.

i disagree about slow and stable as possible. I've flown slow flyer type planes that were challenging to fly. When the plane's top speed is only double the speed of the wind you're flying it in, things get uncomfortable in a hurry. And yes, too stable is certainly a thing. A plane that fights your control inputs won't save you from bad piloting and certainly won't advance your learning.

A much better strategy is to choose a plane with a slow stall speed but a significant flight envelope that has some self-righting characteristics while still being reasonably responsive. The old Telemasters, Kadets/LT40s, and other classic trainers all fit that description when trimmed and balanced properly. The venerable Ugly Stick does too, but without the self-righting traits of a traditional trainer.