Hello, everyone, I have a question in regards to the lateral balancing. What I trying to balance is a small electric high wing. The one post I just read said to turn the plane upside down, does it really matter if it's right side up, or upside down? also I have tried both methods, but I must be doing something wrong, sometimes it will lean to the left, other times it leans to the right. I am only using my fingers as balancing points, but I cant get a conclusive answer this way. the battery pack is loaded in the airplane. also if someone can help here, the instructions that came with the airplane don't even mention center of gravity, should I just assume that it's balanced from the factory. This is an rtf, all I really had to do was attach the main wing and landing gear, and charge the battery pack.

First of all what plane exactly are we talking about, can you put up a link for it?

Finger's make it a bit hard for the lateral balance (wing tip to tip).. My method
may not be great, but it works for me... I tie some slip loops at the ends of
(long enough) kevlar string the loop it on the engine hub ( yeah I know it has
Rt. thrust) sometimes I put a screw in the center of the firewall... You could use
a pin or something... And on the tail, I slip the string right on the rudder hinge
line, be it on the hinge itself or what ever I'm using to seal the hinge... some
time I use the tail wheel...

Megatech airstrike [link=http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/WTI0095P?FVSEARCH=airstrike&FVPROFIL=++]tower hobbies[/link]

4005, Go to a thread of RcKen's called "PIF build thread of an LT 40". It's right here in the beginners forum. Start on page 18 & go to post #435. There Ken explains in detail how he laterally balances his planes complete with step by step pictures. Click on each pic for a full size view. This should give you all the info you need. Good luck.

raideron , thanks for your info, thing is I do not have a hinge on the rudder, this this is mostly styrofoam.

thanks a million elenasgrumpy , this should be very useful

4005, I went & looked at the link. It didn't say anything as to wether or not it comes pre-balanced. I only have 2 RTFs and upon inspection they were both right on the money. I don't know if that was just coincidence or not. But they were both balanced perfect after following the instructions to the letter for the little bit of assembly that was left to do to get them air-ready.

4005 , this is the same plane i used to learn on and you do not have to do anything except charge the battery and go fly, have you had any experience at flying? if not the only advice i can give you is dont overreact when you throw the plane and it starts to drop right off the bat, just give a small amount of up elevator and it will rise slow, that is what you want, sloww and small movements on the stick,this is a strong little plane , just put a little scotch tape over the battery hatch or the battery will fall out on landing, fold the ends of the tape so you can easily peel it back when you want to remove the battery

good luck[8D]

Actually I dont have any real time flight experience, every model I've ever attempted to launch has nose dived or spun out of control, since then I took the advice of others and went to the simulator, trying to train the brain. so hopefully with some added knowledge from these forums and the sims, I will feel a little more confident when the weather breaks. and thank you for the tips on the airstrike, I will definately heed the warnings.

4005,
I know that you may have heard this before, but I'm going to say it anyway. If you have all of this trouble trying to fly maybe it's time that find an instructor to teach you to fly. As you may have learned already, teaching yourself to fly can be a very expensive ordeal. Using a simulator for learning to fly is a good thing to practice with, but it won't substitute for a real instructor. In fact, I have seen many people pick up bad habits from using a simulator without any real instructions first. You might find that learning to fly will go a lot quicker if you find an instructor to help you learn.

Ken

Yes you are right about the instructor, I intend to join the club, but they will not be available till about march, I was hoping to try and get some practice with the electrics, so when I show up at the field with a nitro trainer, I will have a little more understanding of what they're trying to teach.

4005,
This is exactly the point that I was trying to make. I totally understand that you are trying to get a headstart on learning to fly by playing with the small electrics and the simulator. But how do you know that you are doing things correctly on the simulator? Sims are a great thing in that they will allow you to practice and improve your skills without ever leaving the house. But the simulator doesn't know if you are doing things right or wrong. If you are doing things incorrectly you will just be practicing incorrectly. I have had students come out that had done exactly what you are, spent a lot of time on a simulator before coming out to the field. The problem was that they had learned some very bad habits on the simulator that I had to "un-teach" before they could properly learn to fly a RC plane. It took probably twice as long for me to train them to fly than it would have if they hadn't done the simulator first. So in this case it actually hurt the pilots instead of helping them. While this is by no means a complete list, here are some of the bad habits I see students picking up from simulators without using an instructor:

1) Failing to keep the plane straight during takeoff run.
2) Climbing out too steep.
3) Not maintaining a constant altitude while turning.
4) Turns that aren't smooth, too sharp, etc.
5) Forgetting that there is a left stick.
6) Not lining up with the runway during landing approach.
7) Using ailerons instead of rudder to make course corrections when landing.
8) Using the elevator to extend the landing when you realize you're short.
9) Failure to learn the signs that a plane is about to stall, and what to do to avoid it, or recover from it.

I'm not trying to tell you that simulators are bad, because that's not true. Simulators are a wonderful teaching tool when they are used properly in a course of instruction. They can really help cut down on the training time a student needs by giving a place for the student to practice what they learn each training session. If you want to get a headstart on learning to fly I would recommend that you contact an instructor and explain to them what you are doing. They can give you some things to work on using the simulator that will help you learn.

Please don't think that I am trying to discourage you from flying, because I'm not. I just don't want to see you doing things that could possibly increase your training time instead of decrease it. Good luck on your training.

Hope this helps

Ken