i have a vmar harvard 2 that i want to fly basically as my second plane its suppose to be aerobatic with its tear drop wing i can successfully fly my spad qhor by myself and haven't had that much time on an actual balsa plane so i was wondering if this would be a good idea i have also included a pic of the harvard

Canadian Ehh?

Will you be maidening this plane or will someone else? It can be a second plane, however, i think you will need to get some time on a buddy box to see the difference in Coroplast, and balsa. I have flown both, and coroplast is extremely fun, and relaxing to fly, but balsa is a little faster. And acts a bit different.

-Chad

Generally speaking, any plane that resembles a scale plane is going to have higher wing loadings and other tricky flight characteristics. I would not recommend this for your first balsa low winger. As chad also pointed out it is going to fly faster, both top end and landing. I would suggest one more plane as a low wing trainer. A Goldberg Tiger II in either 40 or 60 size would be excellent and both come as kit or ARF I believe. These planes fly equally well fast or slow and are very aerobatic if desired and landings are slow and predictable. I have flown a couple of VMAR planes of this general type and they can be touchy in the hands of a novice.

BTW Chad - you say you have flown both. I assume you mean coroplast and balsa because to the best of my knowledge your only low wing plane remains unflown. Since you don't have any personal experience on how ANY low wing plane flies, how can you give such advice? You continue to give advice on how to build and you can't. You continue to give advice on how and what to fly and you can't. What gives?

Certainly true of models that are genuinely scale, but this thing looks even less like the full-scale that it's supposed to represent than the World Models T34 looks like a genuine T34 (which is kinda hard to do). I see no reason to warn anyone off just because of the model's name being far more scale than its shape.

Go ahead and try it on the buddy box.

i agree... try it on the buddy box. i think within a few flights, you'll be off the buddy box and flying solo. if i'm wrong, at least you'll have someone to save your butt.

i agree that scalish planes are harder to fly but some people catch on quickly and others don't. the buddy box will be the only way to guage your ability.

It's hard to tell from the picture, but here are a few "no spin" obseravations on the plane:

1. The wing has a small amount of diehedral

2. In the picture the wing looks to have a constant chord, or possible a slight tapper.

3. The airfoil is symmeterical or nearly symmeterical.

4. Big vertical fin and horizontal.

5. The fat canopy will increase drag and make the plane fly slower and decelerate quicker.

Except for the canopy this is the same formula used when everyone talks about a "good" second plane: Hogs, four stars, big sticks etc. The biggest factor for this plane well be its weight / wing loading. If the plane is light it should fly very well and land easy. If the plane is very heavy then there could be complications, otherwise it wouldn't give a second thought to making it my second plane.

I've flown the Harvard II & it is not a good idea for a second plane. It tip stalls easily & rolls inverted. There is a good chance that you will lose it on your final turn, or on final approach, unless you carry a fair bit of speed.

At cruise speed in flight it is OK, but the wings are structurally weak, so be carefull about snap-rolls & high-speed pull-ups.

Bruce,
I was talking about coroplast and balsa.

You said "...It can be a second plane..." I too am curious on what experience you base your endorsement of this plane.

I don't understand why sometime's people recommend another plane, Like its so easy to just buy another plane, build it, switch the electronics & engine. Sometime's people dont have the money or time to do that. Canadian Abviously already built the plane and it seems like its ready to go, If anything he needs motivation and encouragement to fly the plane. People here alreayd mentioned the possible bad habbits of this plane, Just keep an eye open for that. Now you have an advantage. This is why I agree with a few guys to just go on a buddy box, feel the plane out and get used to it.

You have the plane don't you? Well if it's there why not try it! No point in buy9ing another plane only to find out the harvard is easier to fly! Hehe dont ask how I know..[:'(]

I have flown a Tiger 60 which is often recomended as a second plane.. It will drop straight down all mof the sudden if you get to slow... Heck my trainer would go into a spin when you stalled it! Chances are..IMO if you try it with the buddy box and an experience piloet... Treat it like your training, then you'll be OK... Just check out the stall speed/tendancy..

NJ,
Thats what gets me mad. When people at my club tell me to get rid of my SPAD and buy another plane...
It gets expensive

It's really quite simple, we want to help someone avoid crashing their plane. If you've been in the hobby long enough, you will have seen this pattern plenty of times. Inexperienced pilot shows up at field with plane that's beyond his skills. Someone helps him get it in the air and perhaps buddy boxes it a couple flights. Within a short time of being weaned from the buddy box, inexperienced pilot stuffs the plane. So, which is cheaper, suggesting that someone not take on a plane that's beyond them, or suggesting something more within their skills? I personally feel that it's irresponsible to blindly tell someone to go ahead and fly a plane that's beyond their skill level. This is particularly true when the endorsment comes from someone who is a beginner and really doesn't know what they are talking about.

Chad, this hobby is expensive.

Those of us with experience will nearly ALWAYS speak up if we think someone with less experience is doing something that's not a good idea. What you do with our suggestions is your own choice, unless it relates to safety, but we are still going to suggest it. Your encounter with people who don't like spads is really not relevant to the discussion of whether a relative beginner should take on this particular plane.

Mr. Canadian,
My second R/C plane was a Spitfire, (my first was a Eagle II trainer). I was confident in myself. I pointed her into the wind. throttled up, she took off, and the rest is history. What a thrilling experience. I do recommend you purchase the Great Planes G2 Flight Simulator and practice landings, takeoffs, and flying with the aircraft on the program. I recommend this to all of my students. Their flying is great! Good luck.

"Keep 'Em Flying!"
Flak

hey britbrat the one thing i am used to is landing fast b/c my spad always tip stalls i have to usually bring it in at about half throttle the only problem is that i have never flown a low wing plane but i have flown balsa trainers before at the field i fly you have to come in a bit fast since you have to dodge some trees as for the wing not being structurly good that worries me since i usually do fast fly-bys and my club does have buddy boxes for me

Canadian,
I am going by what my club president told me..

He said
"With you making that spad look easy to fly, you can fly most anything with a day or 2 on a buddy box (talking about a U-Can-Do and pylon racer..)"

hmmm...

first the qhor (from the pictures from SPAD) isn't really a low wing trainer. it has no dihedral and is really mid wing since there is really no fuse and a traildragger at that! so the qhor is already much more advanced than say a strict trainer. the only thing about canadian's qualifications is how well he lands... a spad is great for beginners not because they are necessarily easy to fly, but rather because they are cheap yet robust and easy to repair. so if you are greasing the landings, i'm sure you'll be off the buddy box in no time.

as people mentioned, the only thing that may shock you is the speed. judging from the qhor wing design, it isn't meant to fly fast. the harvard will fly fast so when you're flying you need to take it easy at first with low rates and conservative throttle. second it's a trike... so it will have much better ground handling. so while you're spad may handle like a bus on the ground, the harvard will be more like a ferrari. don't put too much rudder or else you're bound to tip over. once the nose hits the ground, the nose wheel will be very effective. on the contrary take off's will be much easier and you'll particularly enjoy the trike on windy days when your friends are ground looping like their down their own version of swan lake.

however, i do agree with piper chuck. we've heard people wanted to learn by themselves on a HOB P-51. i think it is our responsibility as experienced people to warn those people of what may happen, the best of which is a damaged plane.

the only real reason i bought the plane is b/c i was getting tired of flying coroplast sure its a blast and all and will do all sorts of stuff but its time i got another balsa plane and a nice at that all i really wanted was a nice scale looking low wing fun plane. someone also said that the plane looks nothing like the full scale well then someone should looks closer and the full scale and i think vmar did a great job on the details i've added some pics of the model and the full scale all i'm saying is that i'm tired of flying plastic and i want wood and i want a nice wood plane that will look good when it flys b/c qhors are ugly and very sensitive and get blown around on windy days and can be a real handfull and with about 5 solo hours on the qhor with some occasional bad landings and over 250+ hours on fms i think its about time i get a breakable model sure i'm still going to want more buddy box time for the first few flights to feel how she flys but all in all i just wanted to know what this kind of plane would fly like so i know whats coming.

Well, I guess that says it all. If it works for Chad, it'll work for everyone.

Aw man ... if you're gonna quote me, then you could at least try to quote correctly I didn't say it looks nothing like the full scale, I said that it "less like the full-scale that it's supposed to represent than the World Models T34 looks like a genuine T34 (which is kinda hard to do). "

Take a look at the pics you yourself posted. Look carefully at the wing planform, the wingtip shape, the shape of the whole of the front end of the fuselage, the curves on the full-size where the model has straight lines, the gear placement relative to the fuselage sides, look at the size of the control surfaces on the model vs those on the full-scale,etc., etc.

Now, at this point you may think I'm tyring to trash your model - well, I'm not - what I'm trying to get across is this: warnings about the flight characteristics of scale models being unsuitable for beginners can be very valid - using the full-scale aircraft's airfoil, planform, coupling ratios, gear positions, control surface sizes and locations, etc on the model can all result in characteristics that make the model unsuitable for less inexperienced RC pilots. Manufacturers are aware of that, and they are aware of the fact that many people who buy kits really aren't actually interested in having a scale model - they're quite happy with a model that bears some resemblance to the aircraft it's modelled after, but which has been significantly altered to make the kit / ARF easier to fly (and assemble). Consequently, they frequently do things like moving the gear further apart to provide better ground handling, changing the airfoil and planform to give more docile and predictable handling (e.g reducing tip-stall tendencies, etc), stretching coupling ratios to provide greater stability, increasing or decreasing control surface areas to get the desired control responsiveness, etc., etc. The end result is (or at least, is supposed to be), a model which appeals to its audience because it has a resemblance to the full-scale model, but which doesn't have the potentially unfavorable characteristics that a scale model would have... and which coincidentally is easier and cheaper to manufacture than a scale model would be.

At this point I guess we could argue about exactly what constitutes "scale". One of my buddies has a foamy profile model - a slab of 1/4" thick foam from which the rough outline of a P51 has been cut. From the well-known outline it is clear that this is patterned after a P51. Is it a "scale" model ?

Good luck with your new toy.

Gordon

Piper,
I suppose your are correct[&:]

Hey all, Just my 2 cents, Phoenix Sonic was my first low winger, small and hard to see on cloudy days, good flyer though. Second low winger was a Tower Kaos, super flyer. It has a thick airfoil, so it slows down nice for landing. Still have and fly them both. Kaos gets more time however.

from my observations, i think that the sonic is not a good trainer. it's not that it doesn't fly like a trainer but that it isn't so robust.

flying wise, i've helped a few people get down on windy days when their nerves were a little on edge and found that it flies just like a trainer should. however, everytime i see someone gently crash the plane, it seems like the plane explodes. the most recent was when someone had already landed but rolled off the side of the runway. no one thought anything of it. we were surprised when he back and the firewall had ripped completely off and the front sides of the fuse were torn. when wings hit things they really just crumble.

on the other hand, it is by far the most popular trianer here by at least a factor of two. it flies well and is inexpensive. but if it were up to me, i'd choose a more robust low wing trainer like a WM Supersport, which i've seen take a lot of abuse and just keep on flying!