Whirley Bird, That was back in 1980, When I had to do everything I could with an RC plane. The Skies were made from thin A/C ply and I used ammonia to curve the nose's,
It was fun and we had a blast doing it, My friend only crashed due to dead battery on trans.

Now I just build, I have a little helper and I take him to watch the planes, but at his age I wont fly and try to watch him too.

Sorry I missed this question, lost track of thread

Dan Z

WornBoots,
aka Dan,
Sorry I missed this post.
I didn't take the photo of the new trainer yet.
I have to install a PC board in a neighbors TV set so maybe late tonight.
TH does not sent the TX as shown in the catalog and I was on the phone with them for over an hour last night.
Now they want my TX before they send the other one as shown in the catalog.
The one they told me was no longer made until I mentioned consumer affairs division.
Seems like with TH every transaction need a 3 step procedure.
Well I have 4 planes now and all my other needs will be from a LHS.
Have a Great Sunday

I like your 1 liner at the bottom LOL.
At times that light to me is a freight train comeing down the tracks full bore

Whirley Bird

What type Trans did they swap to? TH system-Hitec etc.

.
.Dan,
I placed pictures about this but not sure if their were removed.
Tower hobby catalog shows a silver colored TX that comes with the new Trainer.
It's the TH 4FM.
However they are sending everyone a 4th and trust me it's pure JUNK!!
The green and Red LED's are on when the battery is full charged.
When the voltage drops to 8.5 the green light is supposed to go out
Then the red light stays on and when voltage gets low it will blink.
I also noticed that the operating time on the 4TH is almost half of the 4FM.
They told me the 4FM is no longer made until I mentioned consumer affairs division.
I deal a lot with mail order and ham gear.
When a defective item is sent or the wrong item is sent the normal procedure is to send out the right unit.
Then when UPS comes all we do is swap boxes.
I had my last deal with TH especially when they said the 4FM is no longer made.
The 4TH also has no meter and a lower aamp battery pack.
TH IMHO is just unloading junk.
Heres my thread.
Look at the pictures

http://www.rcuniverse.com/showthread...431#post670135]

Here is a better picture of my Trainer on it's floats. I haven't gotten the rudders done yet. (Don't need 'em in the snow anyway.) All of my time has been taken up builing my Contender, I think that will be a blast to fly, I even got a good set of aluminum snow skis for it!
Al

Hi Al,
Well aluminum skis and the hardware must have cost a good dollar.
Where did you get aluminum skis at?
I have the same trainer and was thinking of converting it to a tail drager.
How does it fly with the skies?
They look big and extend past the nose.
Sharp looking PIC

Whirley Bird,
Since I am a newbie, and I don't know what I am doing, I can tell it flys great. My instructor seems to think so too. The Tower .61 has plenty of power to pull it along. I am really anxious to see how it plays on the water.

I bought the skis on eBay. I just camped out and kept checking till I found a set that was inexpensive. I got mine for $22.50 with shipping and insurance. They are the aluminum, spring loaded type. Real nice and wide.

Maybe with the snow season coming to an end more of them will be available at a reasonable price. There is a fellow from Canada who has them listed frequently, but the bidders must think they are made from gold. lol
Al

I've been having a ball this winter with skis on my RCM 40. I just checked and I've logged 37 flights off snow since New Year's Day. We've had lots of snow to make lots of suitable air-strips.

I have a set of the Du-Bro skis and they work very well. Once I dropped into a foot print during take-off and lifted the tip of the front ski into the prop arc. BANG! Sounded like I had blown the cylinder head! Little bits of black plastic everywhere. (The temperatute was about 10º and things were a bit brittle). Amazingly, the plane hopped airborne and I had a good flight. I stretched the flight long because on a low pass I had seen the front 3" of the ski was gone and feared it might not end well! Tried to make my plane a tail dragger on landing and flared it in . . . ka-flump. Thankfully, powdery snow is very forgiving.

H i Al,
Well you sure lucked out for that price.
Just looking at the picture I would guess to say they would go for $60.00 and up.
If you have that many flights in since JAN your no newbie now plus flying off snow your doing a lot more flying then most of us.
BTW,
Thats a great shot.
Did you go through alll the steps in the book for breaking in that engine?.
Nice trainer and you sure can't beat the price

Charlie,
What damage was done to the prop?
I was ready to get the DUBRO skies but I guess here in NJ we saw the last of any good snow amounts.
Your right about the tail dragger. LOL.
You have to bring them in right the first time.
I fly a Luscumb and a Taylor craft (Full size) and they can feel real spooky on a grass strip.
Good thing ya had that snow huh?LOL
But ya had fun and thats what counts

I put mounts on just about everything for floats or skis. They are fun. My heli is a blast on floats. Everyone told me it wouldn't loop or roll with floats. Guess they were wrong. It does it all. What a blast.

I was so paranoid I followed the book to the letter. I also have an excellent instructor (even if he is my brother-in-law lol). I can't imagine doing any of this without help.
Al

Hi Flyboy,
I have a nice big lake right in back where I live.
It's over a half mile long.
I'm looking into floats also.
The lake is shallow so if I screw up on a landing I can wade out there and pick up the plane.
How much room do you need to pull the plane off the water?

Hi Al,
As soon as we get a semi warm weekend i'm taking a 10 year old Boy out to the farm with the Super Select trainer.
I already let him roll it around on a paved lot to get the feel of the controls.He picks up real fast.
I lost my Daughter and so I guess thats why I get so much enjoyment seeing some young kid witha grin bigger then their head and many times I wish I could have done it with my Daughter but Shes above watching

I put them on my Avistar, the only problem I had was the same as Charlie, the prop wanted to smack the nose ski. I had to make sure that it didn't flex up too much. After I fixed that, I was able to fly off the snow a couple of times. The skis really make the plane handle differently. All three of them had a slight up angle, so they gave quite a bit of lift to the plane. I had to dial in a bunch of down trim in order to get level flight. Also, high speed was out of the question. I couldn't really run at more than 3/4 throttle, it would get really squirley any faster than that. But hey when there isn't any other flying except flying with skis, I'll take the flying with skis, please.

Whirley Bird,

The prop. (an APC 11x5) was unharmed. I used my finger balancer and it was still neutral and has no nicks. The front ski had MANY pre-existing nicks, but the final straw was a solid hit on a very cold ski.

Just got another 5" of snow. Into the air again this weekend!

Hi Pigman,
I never saw any type of ski so I can only assume their flat on the bottom and want to ride smooth on the air.
OK on the hi speed problem but have you ever used floats?
I'm working on 2 planes here.
One i'm putting on a tail wheel.
That front wheel grabs a lot of air.
The other is a big airstrike and I want to put floats on it.
You have any idea how much the floats will slow down the speed?

Hi Charlie,
Well I guess it pays to buy a better prop for a few dollars more.
A shattered prop could have cost you the whole plane.
I have to get on and make sure I keep my fingers out of it LOL
Well,
We had about 1" of rain yesterday and then it turned into wet snow.
Took me over an hour to get the 87 Merc wagon (Queen Mary) door open so I could thaw the beast out.
Charlie,
What plane and engine are you running the 11X5 prop?

I've never tried floats. So no idea on the speed issue.