6 wks of kit building, 6 weeks of flying on the cord and yesterday I finally got to solo! 2 flights on the cord, 2 flights off. Still getting educated First takeoff was right down the runway, some ovals, figure eights, then 4 nice touch-n-go's then the rain came.. Rushed the landing and managed to be 12 inches inside the runway and caught the nosegear and broke the prop.. Put on another prop, waited out the rain and learned when to abort a takeoff attempt. It shot sideways towards the pits but the nose stayed down so I chopped power and taxied it around again.. It shot off of the other side of the runway on the next attempt but went airborne. Instructor wanted to check the plane to see if something was up with it or if I was over driving the takeoff and of course, caught the same bit of grass on the landing, flipped the plane and broke the prop (wooden) He loaned me a plastic prop and then the rain drove us away.

On further inspection, the first flip seems to have torqued the nose gear a little so I am straightening that out but otherwise the plane lived through it's first day with me at the controls without my safety net. Now if the darn rain would go away

Congratulations and I also see that you are learning about plastic props too. My instructor started me on them at the very beginning. Good luck from here out.

Now you are a master of a flying machine.......it does sound kinda cool doesnt it?

way to go zipster! It is great feeling to finally solo Isn’t it

WTG! There's nothing like cutting the cord!

Just a "fun" tale about my PT-40 (you do fly a PT-40, don't you, Zister?).

On take-off a few months back, the nose wheel hit a particularly stubborn tuft of grass (I fly off a grass field that has a coarse grass). The wheel bent back on the spring so far, that it re-bounded into the prop. The APC Prop put two neat slices right through the Du-bro rubber wheel (It fortunately missed the wheel-hub).

Lesson: props spin fast and hard, and check yur nose-wheel for slices....

I had no spare wheels, so I glued the rubber together with medium CA, and flew some more. About two weeks later, same thing happened. Two more slices on opposite side of wheel. Bit freaky. Hasn't happened since.

gus

that landing gear has to be really long or extremely flexible to bend forward that much. Any chance you got enemies slashing your tires? [sm=wink.gif]

Yepper, I am flying a PT40, love it! About to order another wing kit and build the lower diehedral version to play with..

Ouch, ouch, ouch my instructor was doing touch-n-go's with his 4*40 and the rubber on one of the wheels shot off and a 45 degree angle to the runway, had to land it on the hub.. Glued the wheel on and kept flying

Oh yes, Had to break all of my wooden ones first though Now that I have done that, picked up 5 plastic yesterday

Very cool, but master?? Nah, the guy I fly with, now HE is the master, he can do a lot with my trainer but I love to watch him fly his pattern planes, etc

Totally great feeling.. I had asked the instructor if he felt like it was time to cut the cord, he kind of grinned and said I had been ready for a while but was waiting on ME to think so

Thanks MinnFlyer for the Attaboy, I am going to hang that rascal right on my wall, next to the remains of my first prop

Dont bother with the new wing Zipster. Save your money, squeeze every ounce of juice out of the pt-40 and learn as much you can, then get a low winger and start having some real fun. There are many docile low wingers out there that any beginner could handle after a trainer. Have fun flying!!!!!

I thought about that cappio, the plane will do rolls, knife edge, split S, Immelmann, inverted flight and inverted turns (hey, my instructor used to do pattern comps and is teaching me some stuff) but they keep me busy as the devil on the sticks.. And of course most are ugly on the trainer but still fun) I hoped the flatter wing would take some of the fight out of it <grin> I do have my eye on a 4*40 for a second plane but still have quite a bit to learn on this one first.