Im new to the whole remote controlled airplane thing. I decided to build one for my senior project in High School.
But anyways, what should I look for? I was interested in a bi-plane or World War II plane but I've heard that beginners should start with top winged planes. Also, I don't want anything too big or tiny. Just a descent sized plane. I need one that will take some moderate time to put together too. At least 10-15 hours.

Check out my build thread. 89 hours to build this. One of the best trainer kits you can buy and a decent sized plane as well. ARFs go together quickly but not really a build. A friend of mine built the PT-40 and it took him roughly 100 hours.

somegeek

yep..LT-40 is probably the best bet to get going...

Kit...50 to 100 hours

arf 15-25 hours

Can I go wrong by buying a bottom winged aircraft rather than the top winged? I'd love to have a P51 Mustang or any kind of World War II bird. I've just always heard that the top wings are alot easier to fly.
About the build time, 100 hours is kind of pushing it. Since it's a school project I have a time schedule for it to be completed around February of 2006. I think a project up to 30 hours would be plenty. Am I wrong?

what kind of project is this? wood shop? electronics? metal shop??

No, its a senior project. Every senior has to do a project over basically anything they want too. I chose to build a plane and write a paper over airline tradegies over history. It's not for a specific class or anything. But there are requirements. One of those requirements must meet AT LEAST 15 hours of time put into the product (which is going to be the plane itself).

a top wing trainer is just that a trainer. A trainer helps you by being very stable and will slowly right itself within reason while you are trying to make movements which you have to concously think about an automatic response. Low wing aircraft like the p51 will let you get them very easily into bad orientations and they will stay there until you purposely fly them out of it and they are very fast to respond. They are easy to over control and get way ahead of you due to there greater speed. Even the p51 by hangar 9 that is stated as a trainer is not very helpful as a trainer unless you ant it to train you for low wings after you graduate from high wing trainers or had many many hours on a sim. Stick with an arf for the project it will look better and fly better then a kit will if you have no one to ask for help on your first build. there are a lot of skills to master in building and the first attempt does not always look great especially the covering stage until you have done a few and you would not want something that you were not proud of showing for a final grade. An arf has the major components built and covered like the wing and fuselage. Your job of final assembly consists of glueing together the wing halfs and attaching the rudder and tail feathers to the fuselage. Then you must properly mount and engine attach the fuel system. mount and install the receiver batteries and servos. make and connected all linkages to servo and control horns. check for proper directional and travel throws. make sure that all surfaces that you have attached are square and alinged properly with the aircraft. hinging of ailerons and rudder and elevator are also necessary.

as long as you dont fly it you should look in to a arc (allmost ready to cover) aircraft. by the time you hookup all the electronics and trim them out you should be at 15 hours but if you are good at it it takes a little afternoon. covering is supposed to be easey but there is a lot to do so you should be busy in class. you could build from plans a small electric plane, cover it, and demonstrate the art of flying.
are you going to be building this at school?? last time I was at high school doing a wood battleship project in wood shop I was held up more often by bad kids breaking my project than accually not knowing how to finish the project. might want to keep that in mind when picking some thing out.
The best thing to learn on is a trainer like the sig lt-40 or the hanger 9 alfa (.40 size or .60 is fine). they fly good and self correct which will help you learn your thumbs to fly. thats about as much help as I am.

The construction of the plane will take place at my house and not at school, so it's not really a problem at all.

Im looking at several planes on towerhobby.com
Seems like I'm mostly interested in the basic kits rather than the ARF kits. Do the basic kits vary in time it takes to build the model?
I've been looking at...

Great Planes Corsair
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXJ572&P=0

Great Planes Mustang
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXJ571&P=0

Anybody have any insight on these and whether or not they would be a descent plane for a first?

Both the 'Kits' you linked are going to take far longer to build than 30 hours. If you intend to learn how to fly with either one after the build then they both are a very poor choice and will be the cause of much frustration and uneeded additional expense by the time you acquire some flight skills.

Insisting on warbirds or some other types of inappropriate airplanes in attempting to learn to fly virtually always results in additional expense in repairs or whole airplane replacements by the time you acheve your dream of flight. Either this or many just get frustrated and quit, without ever realizing that dream.

Don,t cheat yourself get an appropriate trainer first.

John

The only warbird trainer out there so far is this RTF...

http://www.horizonhobby.com/Shop/ByC...ProdID=HAN2825

I doubt there's 15 hrs to put into that, though... if they had an ARF version, that would likely be 15hrs or so.

If you are going to fly it, get an ARF trainer... if you aren't going to fly it, just get a static model and build it... it's not worth investing $$$$ in a RC model if you won't fly it!

Whatever I get I will fly it. I just wanted something that would look nice since its for a senior project for school. I figured I wanted something more advanced and cool looking rather than your basic looking trainer plane.

If you're going to actually FLY this plane, DO NOT choose any type of warbird. Get a trainer. Sig, Hobbico, Tower, and Great Planes all make excellent trainers that, once completely built, should put you well over the 15 hour mark. An average stick built trainer kit should take about 40-75 hours.

Of course, if you're not going to fly it, build whatever you choose.

Good luck!

Dr.1

Why not make your plane look cool in your covering. If you build from a kit you could find a color scheme you like and adapt it to your plane. The choices are endless and the results are 1. trainer to fly, 2. required hours for school, 3. cool looking plane that friends will envy. Start a build thread and send us some pictures from time to time as you go along. I'm sure a lot of people here will have plenty of advice for you along the way. Good luck, Jeff