I have never flown a plane before but want one of these two planes.

Do you think it would be best to get the aerobird because it has the 3rd channel which would give me something to work on once i learned the basic controls? or should i just get the firebird thats cheap. I think the aerobird would be funner since it is more manueverable but i'd rather wreck and 90 dollar plane that a 170 dollar one.

Is an aerobird easy enough to fly and learn with?

i don't know if i agree with all that. its like telling a person he needs a 500 dollar fly rod to get into flyfishg, when a 150 dollar combo outfit can do the same thing.

I think i'll stick to trying out this and if i really get into it i will move on to better things depending on how much i'm into it. On a college budget, no way you will see me dropping 550 bones for a plane that i can fly around.

Ripper, you are right![img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] My personal advice is to look at the Firebird XL, with the 40 Inch wing, and the 6 cell pack.
It handles stronger wind. I had mine up last night in about 12 mph winds. it is $119 plus the 8 AA batteries
for the transmitter. The Firebird I had was hard to learn on because it was skittish in any wind. Nevertheless I had 262 flights on it when I went too high and it got gone out of my control, never to be seen again.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-blush.gif[/img]
When you get some allowance built up, you could buy an Aerobird wing, or a Fighterbird Wing and get a real kick out of a faster Firebird XL![img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]
Happy Flying!

thanks for the reply Bill.

I'm still not sure which route i'm going to take. the aero bird even comes with the batteries and a car charger. I like the idea of being able to control pitch. I have plenty of time to think though, too many things to pay for right now.

How about a personal review of the Aerobird from a new RCer, me. I looked at the Firebird II, XL, Fighterbird and the Aerobird. With three channels you can do a lot more, so I went with the Aerobird.

I was not interested in building. If I spent a month building and then wrecked it, I would be crushed. I wanted a RTF that could take some punishment.

I am a first timer. However I am also one of these guys that goes into intense
research when I get interested in something. After several months of research,
talking to people, flyers and non, I bought an Aerobird. It is a super value
but there are other good starters. Here are the plusses and minuses in my mind
of the Aerobird.

Very inexpensive and rugged for a three channel starter - $150-$170
The plane comes complete and fully assembled. Charge the flight battery, put
on the wing, put the batteries in the transmitter and up you go! Even the
batteries for the transmitter are included.

New flyers like me are going to crash, so you don't want something costly to
start with. There is a full line of parts available at reasonable cost. You
can replace the whole main fuselage for $49 including the motor and all the
flight electronics. A wing is $15 and the tail is $7. So, if you crash badly
you can get everything for under $75 and you are back in the with a three
channel plane.

Batteries and charger:

The battery will run for a full 5-6 minutes at full throttle and 12-15 minutes+
at half throttle. Many planes in this class run 4-6
minutes. And unlike many of the 2 channel starters, it comes with a peak
charger that you can use in your car. If you pick up two spare batteries you
can stay in the air all day. A full charge takes about 40 minutes.

Another plane I liked was the Sky Scooter Pro, now the Pro II. You can get it as a base plane and motor and add your own electronics or get it ready to fly with a 72 MHZ Hittec 3 channel radio for about $150. This was my second choice to the Aerobird. I like it a lot!

The Aerobird also has an X-Pak hop up kit available for $30. It includes a 7
cell battery (the basic is 6) and a larger tail. This makes the plane faster
and more maneuverable. So, once you get good you can soup it up! I bought the
X-Pak when I bought mine. I will use the 7 cell as my second battery and save the tail for later.

WIND

All new flyers should start in winds under 5 MPH so that you are learning to fly the plane rather than fighting the wind. I didn't do that and crashed a lot because of the wind. However, now I am very comfortable flying this plane in 10-12 MPH winds. Handles it very well.

27 MHZ vs 72 MHZ Radio

The Aerobird uses a 27 MHZ radio which is assigned to general use for planes,
cars and boats; mostly low end stuff. There are only 6 available channels. So,
if you have a kid with a RC car in the same area where you are flying, and he
is on the same channel you are on, and he is close enough, when he switches on
his transmitter, you will lose control of the plane and probably crash. Even
with 72 MHZ radio systems, this will happen if you get two flyers on the same
channel, but 72 MHZ is dedicated to airplanes. High end RC cars are on 75 MHZ
so they won't interfere.

The flight control is a single stick radio with rudder and elevator on the
stick. Throttle is on a slide on the left top. It is similar to a Futaba or
Hitec single stick arrangement. I find it very comfortable to use and other flyers who have tried it say they find it easy as well.

If you are going to join a club, check with them. Some clubs will not admit 27
MHZ based planes because they can't be flown with a buddy box, a training
system, like a dual controlled car, that is used for pilot training. After
long consideration I bought the Aerobird, but these are things I took into consideration. My club, www.lisf.org has many firebird pilots, so the Aerobird was welcome The Sky Scooter Pro, mentioned above, is on the 72 MHZ band set-up so you don't have any of these considerations.

Downed Plane Locator:

If you fly near woods, swamp, tall grass or places where the plane could go out of sight, get some kind of plane locator. It is amazing how hard it can be to see a plane in the woods or tall grass that is 10 feet from you.

Here is a review of an Emergency Locator Beacon that illustrates its value
(this site is somewhat unreliable)
http://webhome.idirect.com/~arrowmfg...s/elb-revi.htm
Sounds like a good idea to me. Every plane I ever own will have some kind of
locator.

Here are three examples of locators:
http://www.customelectronics.co.uk/lma.htm
http://www.hobbico.com/accys/hcap0335.html
http://www.rcelectronics.bravepages.com/Locator.html

These won't work on my Aerobird. I am using one of these:
http://www.keyringer.com

They look like a small clicker for your car door locks. They work by sound.
You click one of a pair which sends out a chirp that the second one hears and
answers. I place it on top of the wing under the rubber bands that hold
the wing. Itbalances nicely, and I can easily move it from plane to
plane..

Resources Aerobird, Sky Scooter Pro

Here is an internet site that sells the Aerobird. They also have a
link for a video of the plane flying:
http://www.parkflyers.com/html/aerobird.html

Here is a link to a review of the Aerobird:
http://www1.wildhobbies.com/news/de...w&articleid=853

As I said, my alternative plane was the Sky Scooter Pro. It had been about
$260 RTF, but they recently released the Sky Scooter Pro 2 at about $160 so
you might want to give it serious consideration.
http://www.servocity.com/ServoCity/...._airplane.html

Videos
http://www.hitecrcd.com/Funtec/videos.htm

So, that's my evaluation of the Aerobird and why I purchased it. I fly as often as I can. I have about 20 flights on my plane since the end of March. I am fully self taught. At this point I am just loving it. My friend has a Wingo and says he likes flying my Aerobird so much he plans to get one too.

great info, much appreciated.

quick question aeajr, did you have much troubl learning on this plane. some sites say its not for beginners but some say its easy to fly and a good starter? what do you think?

Virtually all the problems I had learning to fly this plane related to wind. I took my first 5-6 flights in winds of more than 10 MPH. I was advised not to do that. Even the instruction manual advises against it, but I did it anyway.

Once I got a calm day, I was up and flying easily. The plane is very easy to fly.

Also make sure you have enough room. The manual says you should have at least 600X600. Once you are comfortable flying, you can probably work in half that space, but leave plenty of room when you start. And, don't be afraid to pull the throttle back to half, once the plane has reached flying speed. She flies beautifully at half throttle and you will have more time to make your turns and adjustments.

Speed is the beginners enemy! Altitude is the beginner's friend!

All new flyers have the following challenges:

1) We tend to over control the plane - go very soft and slow on your adjustments, especially on the launch. The plane will be unsteady until it gains speed. Big adjustment can cause you to lose lift on any plane.

2) Always launch into the wind - Helps the plane gain lift

3) Always land into the wind - one of my worst crashes happened when I forgot this

4) Gain altitude - we tend to want to keep the plane close to us, but minor wind gusts or a pilot mistake could cause you to lose altitude. If you are only 30 feet in the air and this happens, you might not have enough room to recover. Get it up 100+ feet to give yourself some room. I have had the bird up around 400 feet with no problem.

Personal errors

1) I tend to hit the trim adjustments on the control system and knock them too the extreme. If you do that the plan will likely crash on launch, especially if you push it so the elevator takes the nose down. Very Bad

2) Make sure you check the wing to make sure it is straight. After even a smooth landing, check it. I had two crashes because I didn't do this. As I launched the plane and it moved away from me I could see the wing was not set properly. A minor miss adjustment makes a big difference

3) Watch your flight time - Don't push the battery on your early flights. If you lose power to the motor because the battery is too low, you still have flight controls, but you have to come in dead stick. Actually this is the way I like to land, BUT if the motor quits when you are at a bad location, say near some trees, you may not have enough glide to get back to the landing area.

Flyers in my club, both new and experienced, have commented on how well the plane flies. I often cut the motor and just ride the wind for a while. It has a nice glide characteristic.

Since we have an all grass field, I take the landing gear off. I hand launch and I belly land. Works fine. If you have a runway, you can try rising of the ground (ROG) but I am told hand launching is easier.

Almost all trainers are three channel planes, except these low cost electrics. They sell the two channel planes as the beginner planes. They are simpler to fly, but they are limited in what they can do. If you are very limited on your $$, or are not confident you will want to continue on, the firebird II, or XL are good choices. If you can swing the $$, get the Aerobird. You will have a much longer growth path with this plane and develop your skills more fully.

I love it and would recommend it to anyone.

Since I am self taught, I made many mistakes that really beat the plane up. So here are my tips, not because of defects in the plane but because of the beating a new pilot will give it if he is as aggressive and self-taught as I am.

Get an extra wing right away. You will need it.

Get a second battery. You will want this with any electric plane. Fly one, charge one.

Have someone with you when you fly. You will tend to lose your orientation. This is especially true if you are in a small space. You won't realize you are heading for an obstacle. And, if you have a friend with you, it is just more fun.


The is one weak spot in this series that comes out with serious nose crashes is the motor mount. However keep this in prospective. The crashes I made that caused this to fail would shatter most planes. I took a nose dive at full throttle from 30 feet. Total lawn dart! Two weeks later I did it again from 50 feet. Totally pilot error and primarily flying in TOO MUCH WIND for a beginner! Mine survived and, if you take my advice here, yours will too.

A very hard hit into the ground or a high speed hit into a building or tree can shift the motor, or dislodge it completely, as it did on mine. If you are sure you are going to crash, cut the motor!!!!! However, with a small modification, this plane can survive some pretty serious crashes and you can enjoy lots of fun flights with these "birds" Read my post and see what you can do to prevent this from happening to your "bird".

There are also other planes that have similar bodies. Planes like the e-gull, the vector and the t-hawk, just to name a few. They may benefit from this modification as well.

What Happened?

Due to my lack of skill, my Aerobird took a good shot in a hard, nose first, landing causing the motor to break free of its mounting and shift forward inside the plane. I have since learned that this is not uncommon for such crashes. Also, while mine was dramatic, if it is only a small displacement, you might not notice it, but the motor can get out of the proper thrust line causing the plane to fly to one side or the other.

After some experimentation and excellent advice from other threads I fixed the Aerobird and repair the damage done by the forward shifted motor. There is a link to photos below.

Here is what I did.

I drilled two holes on either side of the body, right behind the motor and put a nylon tie wrap there. This holds the body tight to the motor AND blocks the motor from shifting backward. I did this as part of my repair, but you can do it now, before a repair is needed. On my second high speed nose in crash, the motor stayed put!

The holes are 1/2" apart, centered on the motor. I used an 8" tie wrap, but a 7" wrap would probably be better as they are a little less bulky. You want the tie wrap to either sit against the motor or sit barely behind it so that,
under stress, the wrap stops the motor from shifting forward.

Here are pictures of the damage I incurred and the repair.
http://www.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i...e21b338b02ba4af

(A tip on viewing the photos. Select view pictures. It takes you to a slide
show. In the upper right is a stop button. The photos will flip on their own
if you don't stop them.)

The photos show a yellow tie wrap, but that was just for pictures. I cut this out and replaced it with an orange one that looks much better on the plane. I got the wraps from Home Depot, but Radio Shack has orange tie wraps as well.

After putting this tie wrap in place, there was no longer a need to put any kind of bracing plate by the prop area, though I added one later and mounted the motor with longer screws. However, This tie wrap really holds the motor solidly AND prevents it from moving forward.

Recommendation to all Firebird, Firebird XL, Fighterbird and Aerobird flyers and those with similar fuselage planes:

I love the Aerobird and think the whole "bird" series is fine. However I would recommend this modification be done on ALL new "birds" BEFORE the motor mount is challenged and repairs have to be done. If the motor shifts far enough, it will hit the control board and wipe out all of the electronics. If it only shifts a little, the plane flies badly, commonly to the left or right and can't be trimmed properly.

You can do the drilling and insertion of the tie wrap without having to take the guts out of the plane. Just be careful to limit how far the drill bit goes inside the plane. There is enough room to do this, just be careful.

When you put the tie wrap in, make sure it slips UNDER the noise suppression components that are soldered between the motor terminals. You can see them in the photo. A 7" tie wrap is not as wide as the 8" wrap I used, so it will fit more easily with less displacement of the components, however I believe that it will be strong enough to get the job done. You could also attach two 4" ties together as they are even smaller, but I still think they would make a big difference.

Don't over tighten the tie wrap. Just make it barely snug, don't distort the body of the plane. If you are skilled and have some very long nose pliers, you can probably hide the square head of the tie wrap inside the plane so it looks better.

I sent a note to the manufacturer and advised that this should be done at the factory. Don't get me wrong, I like these planes, but this reinforce met of the motor mount makes them even MORE crash tolerant. This will take care of the problem before it becomes a problem.

I hope you find this post and the photos useful. Thanks to everyone for their advice and tips.

Don't wait, do this mod now on your Firebird, XL, Fighterbird or your Aerobird. Do it now, before you need it and you will have a much longer, happier relationship with your "bird".


AEAJR
www.lisf.org