I was just wondering if the Hobbico Avistar RTF was a good beginer plane. I come from the boat side of the hobby and was trying to get into airplanes as well
The plane comes with everything minus fuel and batteries so it looks like a good deal. I figured I would ask first and see what others thought about the plane
before I make a purchase.


http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...I=LXMU53**&P=0

Damn good trainer. I have the Superstar, which is basically the same plane with a flat-bottom wing. The semi-symmetrical wing improves the performance, although it might not fly quite as slow as the Superstar (but you can still get it down to walking speed). If you want a plane to just bang around with, it's great.

It's a good trainer. I've trained plenty of students with this trainer and I think it's a good bird. You'll do just fine with it. In fact, when we have people stop by the field and ask what I would recommend to get started this is one of the packages that I point them to. It's a good plane/motor/radio combo for a reasonable price.

Ken

The Avistar is a very good plane.

The Avistar will handle wind better than your typical flat bottom airfoil trainer because of its semi-symetrical airfoil.

The downsides is it lands a little faster than the typical trainer. This is not a big problem as the 40 LA is not a powerful engine.

My suggestion would be to spend a little extra money and get the stuff separately.

Get a ball bearing 46 engine (highly useable for a 2nd plane. The LA has only 1/2 the power of a ball bearing 46 ). Some user friendly ball bearing 46 are: OS 46AX, Thunder Tiger Pro 46, Evolution 46 NT.

If the budget will allow, also get a 6 channel (or more) COMPUTER radio. While learning you will not use many of the features of a computer radio, but by your 3rd or 4th plane you will most likely be wanting things like retractable landing gear and flaps. Getting the 6 channel radio initially will save you from buying another radio with theadditional channels in a year.

Thanks for the advice guys.