Thanks. The guy helping me out gave me a Master Airscrew prop after I broke the last wood prop I had in my box, and your right it held up nicely.
Chopper man

I remember those landings some years ago. Go buy the wooden props by the half dozen or dozen. They splinter when they hit the tarmac but a lot cheaper and easier to replace than a bent crankshaft. When you stop breaking props on landings, then go to the plastics. Sounds like you are flairing to hard or too high off the runway, or flying it to the ground. If you have a flight simulator this is one of the things you can practice on it.

Glad to hear that you got to fly, the landings will get easier.

The master Airscrew prop will break long before it does any damage to your engine. If you land hard enough to damage the engine, the prop type won't matter. I've buried engines with MAS props on them w/o a bit of damage caused by the prop.

Congrats on finally getting it in the air and having fun.

Checked Tower site and manual and found no mention of the wheel diameters or if they are form or rubber. Putting an order together and would appreciate knowing what they furnish in the box.
Plane will be flown off rough asphalt or salty dry tidelands, any suggestions as to tire sizes, thinking 2" front and 2.5" mains
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXD761&P=7

and for power TTPro 46
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXKF97&P=0

Thanks

For the price I'm thinking about two of them. #2 wing would be built without any or very little dihedral. The elevator, aileron and rudder may get replaced with maybe 15% oversized. Any thoughts on a bash along these lines?

The tires that are include are of the foam type. Some say change them out to rubber to reduce the bounce. I had some landings that were fine and others that bounced. The tire size is 2.5 on front and back. I would definitely go with a .46. I have a .40 and it is a littled under powered.[&o] Hoped this helped. Good luck.
chopper man

Mike, the tires that come with the trainer are decent so I wouldn't worry about replacing them.

As for the wing, the dihedral is already set so I wouldn't try pulling the dihedral out of it, not worth the hassle.The best way to do that is to build a kit, or you might want to buy a wing kit like for the Great Planes PT 40 and fit it to the Tower Trainer.

My recommendation would be to get a kit like the Sig Kavalier which is a shoulder wing which would make a good second plane, but with a kit you will have to buy everything for it: tires, fuel tank, covering, motor mounts.

A "bounced" landing isn't caused by the tires. It's caused by technique. The model "bounces" on landing because it's touching down with a bit too much speed and a little added elevators causes the plane to lift off again. If you come off elevator on touchdown, or land at an appropriate speed, the model won't bounce.

Taildraggers bounce because they also have a bit too much speed and hit the mains before the tail. This forces the nose up and the plane takes off again. Three-point or tailwheel-first landings never bounce. Tri-gear models will bounce if they hit nosegear first. Again, this is due to technique, and not the type of tires.

I"ve had models with hard tires and soft tires. All will "bounce" with improper landing technique. One model with soft tires had enough rolling resistance, though, that a touchdown on the mains immediately rotated the nosegear onto the pavement. This lowered the angle of attack of the wing, and "glued" the model to the runway.

You could order the Tower Trainer Kit [link=http://www.towerhobbies.com/products/towa0100.html]Tower Hobbies Trainer Kit[/link] to get rid of the dihedral. But I say fly this one as is and build the next model with a semi-symetrical wing.

hesitanted too long and it went out of stock before I got the order placed. I was amazed that the ARF and Kit price was the same price !!!
A Sig Kadet LT-40 was the #2 choice and it is on the way.

As I get ready for the weekend I started thinking about the landing gear on the Tower. After a couple of hard landings last week the gear would get flat, if you will, and the tail of the palne would drop. The guy helping me out would just bend the gear in a little and that would help. Anyway is there a good way of moding the gear that would fix the problem without adding alot of weight. Or even a replacemnet gear that would fit the Tower Trainer?
Thanks
chopper man

Silver solder small washers on the lower bends and far enough up each side so 12 lb or 20lb 12" musky leaders criss-crossed from upper to lower on each side are tight enough to pull the gear in.

The second advantage here is that a hard landing will snap the leader(s) without harming the plane. When you can land consistantly without harming the 12 lb leaders you're ready for scale gear or retracts. If you can't find the leaders, use heavy fishline or light wire. I used weed wacker line on my Big Stik (I use this when I put a heavy engine in a sport plane not designed for one so the larger prop doesn't smack the dirt/grass).

With the bent flat metal gear I drill 3/32" holes and put cotter pins through from the inside and clip the leaders to them.

Charlie P.
Do you have a picture that you can post so that I can visualize it?
Thanks
chopper man

I want to take advantage of the free buddy box offer by AMA. I have a Tower Hobbies radio which everyone says is made by Futaba. What buddy box should I request.
Went out to the field this morning to fly and the guy that normally helps me out was helping someone else. [] No other buddy boxes. This offer would have helped me out.
Thanks
chopper man

Another weekend has gone by and I didn't get to fly. [>:] I know what you're going to say but I'm tempted to go it alone. I have no problems with the flying/approach part of it, thanks to flying my EasyStar. I just haven't done that many landing with a landing gear. Do you think it is still a really bad idea to just do it? I'm not sure how the buddy box thing works but I'm going to try and get one from the AMA. I joined by signing up for the trail membership a couple of monoths ago so I don't know if they will allow me to take advantage of the offer. As mentioned above I don't know what box to ask for, so if anyone could advise me I would greatly appreciate it.
As always THANKS!
Chopper man

Refresh my memory, what type connector is on your TX? A round 5 or 6 pin or the small square one?

The back of my transmitter has a 6 pin square connector.
Thanks for your help
chopper man

Yours is what they call the "Micro" plug. My research hasn't been very helpful I'm afraid. The Tower TOWM6082 cord will work between yours and older Futaba units like the 7U and 8U series, The TOWM6081 cord will work between 2 units like yours or yours and a Hitec of the correct type as long as the Hitec is the student box(power off). I am not familiar enough with the JR's or Airtronics to help further without just making guesses.[]
http://www.futaba-rc.com/radios/trainer-cord.html

Thank you for your effort[8D]

chopper man
Look to the future, get if you can a micro to micro. It will mate with a bunch of the newer Futabas.

Chopper man - what you can do is get on EBAY and watch out for a REALLY cheap transmitter. Remembering that it doesn't really have to work all that well because it will just be a buddy box. I picked up a dead transmitter a couple of months ago just for parts to repair an old unit that they didn't stock parts for any more. Got it for $8.

Chopper man, The Buddy boxes that I saw on the AMA website were for Airtronics, and JR. You would need one for Tower or Futaba. You could also use a second radio as long as you have the trainer cord to match them up.

Is there any chance that the controller/transmitter of the G3 simulator would work with the tower radio as a buddy box? I guess I'm just trying to find a cheap way to go about it.
Thanks to everyone for your help.
chopper man

Chopper man, do you have the G3 flight sim? If you do try it. Hook it up to your Tx, power up Tx and plane. Toggle the trainer switch on your Tx, and move the joysticks on the interlink. If you get movement on your plane's servos then you are in luck.

Do not have your interlink hooked up to the computer.

If it works let us know.

There may be a problem if you can't reverse servo direction though. I know nothing about G3 so I don't know if it has reversing switches.