Would a small .40 Cap 232 be good for a 2nd plane? I'm also thinking about getting it as a kit. What will i need that does not come with the kit? What glues/tools will i need? Thanks for your help!
-Mike-

Or what about a .40 Extra 300 ????
Thanks again!
-Mike-

mikexnxike01,
The answer to those questions are NO and NO. Neither of those planes are a 2nd plane in just about any circumstance. Maybe a 3rd plane if you have a great touch and lots of time on your second plane. Both of these planes are designed to be aerobatic performance planes, meaning they are very nimble in the air. These planes have no self-correcting tendencies like a trainer does. They go exactly where you point them at. In addition Cap's have a bad habit of dropping a wing if you get them too slow, meaning you have to land them with some airspeed or you'll drop a wing and wind up cartwheeling down the runway. In fact, both planes will need to be landed a bit faster than you land your trainer. Definitely not a second plane.

Here are a few choices that make for great second planes. They have been proven time and time again by many modelers to be great choices for second planes. Any of them will do you well in your progression to the planes that you mentioned. A
Sig 4-star 60 - [link=http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXCHY3&P=0]Sig 4-star 60[/link]
Goldberg Tiger 60 - [link=http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXH756&P=0]the Tiger 60 [/link]
BTE Venture 60 - [link=http://www.btemodels.com/venture.html]Venture 60 [/link]
Great Planes Easy Sport 40 - [link=http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXDTM8&P=ML]Great Planes Easy Sport [/link]
Great Planes Super Sportster - [link=http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXAVR1&P=ML]Great Planes Super Sportster [/link]
Hanger 9 Pulse XT[link=http://www.horizonhobby.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=HAN4100]Pulse XT[/link]
More information is available here: [link]http://www.geistware.com/rcmodeling/second_plane.htm[/link]

Hope this helps

Ken

I'm going to put on my flame retardent suit for this one, because you guys are going to say I'm nuts. But I now believe it & am going to stand behind it!!

World Models Ultimate .40 [8D], That's right, it's not a typo or the resolution on your computer, I did say WM Ultimate .40 !!! Providing you have good time in on your Trainer to the point where you can shred the skies at will with it, then you can fly the WM Ultimate .40. Not only do I believe it can be a 2nd plane but one that will make you look good as pilot. This has turned out to be the sweetest flying little airplane I have ever flown. With all the capabilties of the Caps & Extras, & none of the bad habits. It is very stable, & can be turned down to be quite gentle for those first few flights. I'd be willing to bet that most people with ample time in on their Trainer will get comfortable with this bird during the very first flight. I know I did.

It's important that it be assembled straight & true, if it is, you will fall in love with this plane on contact. Not only is it easy & stable to fly it is down right fun!! It's impressive & fun to watch too. Like I said, this one will make you look good. We have a fun little way of judging airplanes around here. It's called " if Mark can fly it, anyone can fly it". Guess what? Mark can fly the snot out of this one! Heck I don't even want to fly anything else right now. I'm just having too much fun & at the end of the day any spectators & visitors all make a point of coming over to tell me how much they enjoyed watching the "Hot Little Bi-Plane". It is hot too, with an O.S. .46 on it, she screams around really good at half throttle, but it does it all so gently that it is just a blast to fly. It isn't scary at all. Now don't get me wrong, if ya don't respect her she could get all over ya in a hurry, but if ya remember that & don't get too carried away with it, you can have all sorts of fun with it. Even just coming off of a Trainer.

Ok. I'm done, flame away[8D][sm=punching.gif][sm=bananahead.gif][sm=drowning.gif][sm=lol.gif]

I agree with both guys above to a point.My 2nd plane was a Hobbico .40 Extra 300.Learned on a Kadet MKII.Got to where I could wring the Kadet 3-4mos after I soloed and got the Extra.Now Im not the most gifted pilot by any stretch,but I was mindful of my limits and my wallet when I flew it.My dad did the trim flight and then it was all mine.It was never crashed and I sold it about 3 yrs later.If you decide on an Extra,get a real one.By this I mean a true mid wing,not a low wing with the belly pan filler thing.Im not sure why,but the real mid wing ones seem to fly a lot better.They seem to slow down better without the tip stall problem.Ive always thought if a person could only have one plane to learn and progress with,it would be an Extra 300.JMO.If you are just flying circles with the trainer and still have bad landings,an intermediate plane may be better.

Grump...consider yourself flamed!!

I think most any plane COULD be a second plane for any given flyer. I have seen kids solo in a few lessons .....and doing rolling harriers a few months later, GRRRRRR!!!

The key is knowing what the plane will do at all times and staying ahead of it.....I'm still behind mine....and I still get 'surprised' by some things I do. I do think a 3D foamy is better practice than any sim.

Grump....I'm sorry you missed the Chula Vista event.....c'mon man!!...it's only a 12 hr drive....

Hi Mike.

It depends on you're level of skill flying the trainer. I started flying RC in November of 2004 and started building an Extra 300S Great Planes .40 kit mucho before I learned to fly. If you are confident and comfortable with your trainer, I'd say go for it. They are great airplanes, , but you have to be careful not to slow them down to much, most have a high wing loading, especially in the smaller sizes. All of the planes Ken listed are also good second planes, but it depends on how you are flying your trainer. If you think you can, go for it, follow your dreams man. Typical tools needed for building a kit would be;

Hobby knife (many Extra blades)
5 & 30 minute epoxy
thin and medium CA
sanding block
drill
pliers, wrenches for nuts and bolts, etc.
covering iron
heat gun
loctite

C'mon up Mark. It's actually only about an 8 hr drive. We can play tag with the Ultimates. Monday we'll have three identical color schemes up at the same time, only one of them is a 33%er. Gary & I don't dare take our eyes of our little ones though or we'd be flying the wrong plane.[&:]

I really expected a lot more fire for this opinion, but ya just never know.

Well the World models Cap 232 is very well behaved. It being a second plane totaly depends on the pilot. If you can stick the landing every time. recover from any situation without breaking a sweat, get up and down without thinking about it, know how to use the rudder your ready for at least this CAP. You need to know how to use the rudder or you will snap it into the ground, thats true with just about any aerobatic plane. if your thinking about the answer on anyone of these. DON't Do It.

[link=http://killerrc.com/video/cap232/cap232-340k.wmv]my old cap[/link]
video sucks but you get the idea
had an OS AX.
lost it when the battery came undone while doing a hammerhead. I flew the hell out of it for 3 years. this was acually the plane I returned to the hobby on after a 2 year laps. The video was after I had ir flying about 2 weeks. Would have been nice to get it a couple weeks later dragging the rudder in the dirt and snap roles at 3 feet but oh well. I did love flying it

Red, Your video didn't suck. Aren't those WM Caps fun to fly, I miss mine but the Ultimate has taken most of the sting out it.

my second plane was a WM Cap 232 (Breitling Version) and i was fine. loved flying that plane and wouldn't for one second doubt that someone could fly it as a second plane. however, it wouldn't be a recommended second plane unless i knew how well you fly. the ultimate is a great plane but i would say that's even less of a second plane.

all in all, i agree that it just depends on the pilot. but my Cap 232 was not only a looker but extremely pleasant to fly. lost it not because of my flying but because i didn't check the ailerons and had them reversed. oops. struck a tree shortly after take off.

forestroke, My second plane experience was very similar. I had the WM Cap Castrol Aviator, of course it is the one you can't get anymore.[:@] I lost it do to a poor assembly job on my part. It was my first ARF & I couldn't wait to get that bad-boy done quick enough. Don't know why I was in such a hurry, I knew I wasn't going to try to fly it until I had mastered my Trainer pretty well. So after sitting in my closet for about a year I finally broke it out & did surprisingly well with it, It flew very nice for about 10 good flights, that's when both elevator halves parted company with the horizontal while in a high stress attitude & she came down in a death spiral. I may have dumb-thumbed it, but it certainly doesn't look that way from the wreckage. So I replaced it with the WM ultimate I spoke of & she is every bit as easy to fly, if not more so than the Cap was. I'm still very much a Cap guy & will put another one together as soon as I can afford to.


P.S. Besides Grumpy, my other knickname at the field is fourstroke.

well my other nickname isn't grumpy

elevator halves parting sounds like you probably scored the covering a bit too deep. if that's the case, you should try using an old soldering iron instead. works like a charm!

I say probably no, but maybe yes.

The smart answer is no, Caps like all other scale aerobatic planes are very tipstall prone if you slow them down too much or get too agressive with the elevator. I would not recommend a Cap for a new pilot...

BUT, it depends on your skills, and your level of self awareness. Some people don't know what they dont know. There are folks that "think" they are more skilled than they are because they dont have anything to judge themselves against and vice versa.

Here would be the litmus test for me to tell me that you are ready for a plane of this nature.


Notice I put a lot of emphasis on landing since this is where its going to get tricky. Flying is not that big of a deal, its the landings that will kill you.

1. Can you really 3 point land a trainer, on the runway, in a controlled manner so that the plane gently sits on the runway and rolls out 25'-50' or so and comes to a gentle stop.. EVERY time you land. Even in a crosswind? If you make planned approaches that all look just alike and are capable of consistantly approaching the same way and make nice gentle bounce free landings every single time, you may be ready.
If you still have any bounce or "plop" in your landings then you probably are not ready. If you drop the plane on the ground with a little bounce most of the time and occasionally grease in a nice smooth landing, you probably are not ready. If you usually land just a little too slow, or a little too fast or if you have to land a trainer so fast that it skips several times before it sets down or makes an excessivly long roll.. You probably are not ready.

If you ever get the least bit confused when flying upright or inverted, you probably are not ready. I'm talking really flying inverted, you bascially need to be able to takeoff, roll inverted and cruise around inverted until you are ready to land..

Can you put a trainer into a really nasty vertical spin and then recover? If not, you are definitely not ready. These planes love to stall, and if you cant get a trainer out of a somewhat stalled condition, you are dead meat with a Cap.

Most people can generally fly around, but if you can't really land with control as I mention above and do it consistantly then you might get away with it, but you are asking for trouble... I have seen otherwise really good pilots tipstall these sorts of planes on downwind turns and when landing. You really have to be 1 step ahead of th plane at all times.

i do have to say, i went from a Seagul Boomerang 40 trainer straight into a World models cap 232 as a second plane, so i went from a high to low wing, and a tri-gear to a tail gear, landing gear set-up all in one go and on another note, i am running this cap with a os 70 fl, but what i do have to say is, i land it just like my trainer, cut throttle right back on downwind leg and just let it glide on the last leg before final turn for landing, i have never really experienced much tip stalling, and also, the fact of caps so called (snapping when pulling too much elevator i am also yet to see, because i am quite violent with my little cap, yet i havnt really had it "snap" on me..., so you cant really say that a cap 232 or an extra or edge for that matter wouldnt make a good second plane.