abufletcher

Any interesting ideas of what to do with a trainer once you've move on to that second or third plane? I've stripped the engine and radio equipment out of my trainer and am left with the empty shell. Any clever conversion projects? I mean I suppose I could...


...donate the thing to the club for training or education purposes.

...buy some cheap gear on eBay and get it flying again (but why?)

...do some weird and radical conversion

Or?????

Righty

I would do your first one

if not you could hang it on your ceiling for display...


trainers are not the prettiest planes... so i would go for option number 1

KidVermin

My Feedback: (3)

Our club has a big bonfire during the Jan 1st freeze fly and the ex-students toss in their planes, minus the good stuff of course.

CP140

I'd hang on to it.
-There may be a child/grandchild/niece/nephew who'll want you to show them how to fly.
-If you are away from the field for a while, it might be nice to loosen up your thumbs with an "easy to fly" trainer.
-Put floats on it.
-You might just want a lazy afternoon flying circles.
-You can pick up a flight pack/engine cheap at a swap meet and use your trainer to take photos/carry a glider.
-You can give a "show and tell" presentation to a local school/boyscouts etc without caring too much if a finger goes through the covering.

When I first joined the club I fly with and was solo and looking for a second plane, two or three of the older guys all made their recomendations and then told me, "By the way, don't get rid of your trainer.I did and I wish I hadn't...."

Wing-Ding

You could make a video showing its destruction by whatever means comes to mind and then offer the video as a credit card pay-per-view on the internet. Then, take the revenue that it is sure to generate and put it toward a fourth plane.

jettstarblue

Radical proceedure- make a delta wing, gyro, or (less radical) semi semetrical wing conversion for it. Or turn it into a low winger.

My best suggestion is start you own "cadillac ranch", and bury it nose down, up to the wing saddle, then whenever anyone crashes, bury the remnants of those too.

britbrat

It isn't ready to be retired yet! Remove the dihedral from the wing, sink the wing into the cabin-top about 3/4" - 1" (as much as you can without interfering with the servos), convert to a bolt-on wing mount, fit a hot .46 motor (mounted sidewinder), remove 1/2 of the right thrust & 1/2 of the down thrust, close in the nose with a nice clean fairing, convert to a tail dragger, increase the throws as much as you can --- go out & fly its ***** off -- it will be a blast.

I've done this several times & it is well worth the effort. You end up with very cheap, fully aerobatic looks-like-a-trainer hot rod. When you think that the hot rod is ready to be retired, put it on floats & fly it some more.

The message is -- old planes don't have to be retired -- just morph them into something more interesting.

jboy381-RCU

this would be my vote...use it to promote the hobby...maybe at funflys you could give spectators time on it with a buddy box of corse...or save a kid in the naborhood from the streets by taking him or her flying...flying is the best drugs i've ever taking...get them hooked on it,and stand back...

john

FLYBOY

My Feedback: (11)

Give it to a kid that wants to get into the hobby badly but can't afford it. Always makes you feel good.

b-mccor8

My Feedback: (3)

here is the deal. You're never to good to take the trainer back out every year to get in the first few flights. I refresh every year with mine. I also keep it for our fly ins to put potential new members/spectators on the buddy box. If you are taking the engine out of this to put in another plane I don't think you have accomplished much. I f you are moving up to a second plane hold on to it. Sooner or later you'll be out that second plane and need a back up. My 2 cents

Gordon Mc

My Feedback: (11)

You could always keep it around as a test-bed. e.g. if you buy a new RX, or have an existing one fixed etc., then first run it in your old trainer before trusting it in your big / fast / expensive planes.

Gordon

FlyingIreland

I hate burning planes....but I've burned two trainers already...and it felt bad!
At the moment I have a few damaged-repairable planes that I've lost interest in flying because some of them are just too big for my runway (kadet senior, kit built, modified as camera plane), or some are not nice to fly (sturdy birdy, new yamamoto trainer)
I really don't know what to do with them, I have considered burning them because there are no clubs round here to trade with etc....

RichD

You dont fly during the winter time? Slap some skis on that trainer and FLY all year round.

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

Hang on to it, Someone will need it someday. Like Flyboy said, you can be somebody's hero

DBCherry

My Feedback: (4)

Yep. Hang on to it.

You can give it away at some point down the road,
or you could use it as a float plane, then fly it off snow in the winter (floats work great on the snow),
or fit it out for use with a Buddy Box to instruct new people. (You may become an instructor in a couple years.)
Dennis-

phread59

Do the wing mods and convert to tail dragger. Then when you are feeling froggy and want to do that full throttle inverted low pass. Go ahead, if you auger it in you won't feel so bad. If you are going to try some wild airobatics, why not with your trainer. You will be surprized what it will do with a little modification.

Mark Shuman

JohnBuckner

My Feedback: (1)

No self respecting well rounded pilot would be without a few trainers Among the many things you can do and has not been mentioned yet are:

Set up two cones on the runway several hundred feet apart and line up five trainers abreast, first to complete ten laps wins (no wings allowed).

Make a simple swiveling hook about a foot long on the after fuselage that drags the ground on takeoff and drops a little in flight then try to hook a line stretched between two water filled milk jugs on landing. This is a hoot and harder than you think.

They make ideal night flyer conversions.

They make ideal X-C flyers.

They make ideal twin or quad conversion subjects.

Here are a couple of my Trainers. The first is an unknown forty size trainer with a pair of .20's, talk about fun? The second is my Sig Cadet Senior Trainer with four .28's, Always have the field to myself as everyone lands to watch. The third photo is the Quad flying at night.

mlawrencemsc

My Feedback: (19)

Hello FlyingIreland, Don't burn the plane give them to me, all I have now is a radio. It cost alot of money to get in this hobby.
Thank you,
Mike Lawrence

mlawrencemsc

My Feedback: (19)

Hello Abuflecher, Don't burn the plane give them to me, all I have now is a radio. It cost alot of money to get in this hobby.
Thank you,
Mike Lawrence

-pkh-

My Feedback: (2)

I'd give it to your local club... then they can pass it on to a newb that wants to save a few bucks. I wish my club had some of these... would have saved me $100 on my trainer ARF!

Cole_lol

This is kinda off subject. But is there any place I can get some visuals of mods to do on a trainer? I have an alpha trainer and I was thinking about messing around with it a little bit... LOL i got two fusealodges and well... I figured it would be kinda fun...
Thanks
Cole

lionheart

My "retired" planes aren't worth much..... eh.... Can you do anything with smoking holes?
I say give it to a kid that wants a start.

xchangx

My Feedback: (2)

Mike Lawrence,

I'm in Tuscaloosa and I have a beat of Alpha trainer with engine that I'm thinking about selling. Let me know if you are interested and maybe we can meet up.

Michael Chang

typicalaimster

Hmmm let's see...

You could fuel it up about a 1/4 tank. Only put two rubber bands on it. Take it up REALLY high and out of the way of people and property... Then two words... SNAP ROLL!

--Scott

keepiru1

I'm sure there are plenty of things that have been said here that run the gamut from donating it to the club to train newcomers to the hobby to burning them in a Pyrric victory display. I've given away a couple myself......kept a few and went back to them as testbeds for ideas more than once. But I think the best thing I did with a "retired" trainer was the giving it away part. It felt good to get someone who needed it something they needed. And I felt good about it too.