Looking for help here...

I am trying to select a nice beginner plane. I've read many of the recomendations posted throughout this section and am a bit concerned that if I go with a full blown trainer that I'll get bored with it quite quickly and end up wasting money I really may not have had to. The Nextstar recieved high marks for trainers but it appears those who purchased it (and the $ they spent) were looking for more almost after the first few solos. I know the plane can be souped up a bit by eliminating the speed brakes and wing fixtures but is it worth it? Maybe but I don't know.

Some other posts discuss starting with a high-wing semi-symetrical trainer. The Megatech Nitro Capital offers a top semi wing that is adjustable from 6 degrees dihedral to straight after skills improve in ARF for $139. Another mentioned was the Hobbico Avstar 40 in ARF for $100 but I don't know if its dihedral can be adjusted later. Of particular interest was the Goldberg Falcon III at a nice price point for a kit around $80 and I saw it mentioned as a beginner trainer eventhough it has a semi-symentrical wing. I'll don't mind spending the time to build from kit as it will crash at some point and I'll be better educated to fix it.

Planes are cheap. Radios, engines, and accessories are expensive. I don't want to buy a package trainer and find out later that the radio & engine can't migrate upward with me.

Anyway... Thoughts on a Trainer that can be easily flown offer some more fun later on would be appreciated. I'll be flying over open fields with 2 ft of dense weeds so maybe a crash wouldn't be catastrophic.

Thanks

I learned with a Sterling Fledgling. it's a .40 size Semi profile Shoulder wing much like a Falcon III
No problem with a good instructor.

I've also had a a Falcon 56 and an Avistar.

They are all good trainers that you can have some fun with after you crank up the throws a bit.

My Step Son has an Eagle II.. It's a good stable plane but he'll get bored quickly after he solos.

If I had to pick an ARF I'd get an Avistar or a Falcon III

Or go bigger and get a Senior Falcon.. order a 2nd wing and built it flat when you are ready to start aerobatics.

If you've got a good instructor (you do have one, right? ), I'd personally recommend the Avistar. It's a nice plane with lots of room for growth. It can be relatively gentle as well as highly maneuverable. Any good 6 (or more) channel radio should give you plenty of room for expansion. I wouldn't go any less than that, and if you can swing it, a 7 to 9 channel would be even better.

Just my thoughts,

Erik

Good grasp of the realities. The flat bottom with dihedral has a nice tendency to fly the plane level, giving a solid "at rest" position from which to work around. It also is throttle sensitive to climb or descent, which has both good and bad points later on. You will note, however, that even some high wing sport planes carry a few degrees of dihedral (as do most low-wing warbirds). It ain't all bad to have.

First question I would ask is will you have help from en experienced R/C pilot to get your plane trimmed out and do the first few take-offs and landings (at least) for you? That makes all the difference.

If you want a relatively good compromise kit I would recommend the C.Goldberg Falcon III, but use low rates and bleed off speed before the landing approach. I know lots of flyers who have stables of planes and have years of flight-time and they still wheel out their Kadets and Eagles for relaxed flying or as ski or float planes. I enjoy flying most anything, myself.

From your post I would suggest the Avistar and not worry about the dihedral. The dihedral is less than a standard trainer and reducing it won't make a lot of difference. A little dihedral makes landing easier becasue you won't need to be constantly correcting to keep the plane level while landing. The Avistar has a nice combination of sturdy build, stable, and aerobatic ability. With a good 46 on the nose the plane makes a good second type plane after you have passed your wings. [8D]

For my first flights I'll go to a club and seek help but I live in the middle of nowhere on Virginia's eastern shore and the closest clubs I could find were over the bridge in Hampton Roads & Virginia Beach (2 hours away). You also mentioned possibly upgrading to floats later on which would be very nice as there are numerous calm estuaries of Bay around me that I could take-off & land from. Is the flat bottom wing better for water take-off/landing on sponsons? That would be a good justification for a flat wing trainer that I could upgrade to a water plane later on.

The good news is I have 1000's of acres of open land to fly over (very attractive compared to my buddies who I'd watch fly north of Boston out of a parking lot every Saturday. One had to get the superintendent of the local mall to let him on the roof to recover his crashed plane). Unless I can find some other local people, I'll be flying by myself after some brief instruction but my guess is they are out here... I just can't find them. They'll hear the buzzing and find me once I start flying.

The high wing more so than the airfoil I would say. Properly attached floats give any wing the positive incedence it will need for lift. Getting the step where it ought be and keeping the wing up where a rouge wave can't tap it are more important. Trainers usually have "long legs" and a high wing that help on both snow and water.

I will say this: at our club's float fly 80% are flat bottommed wings.

The handling charactoristics of a trainer have little to do with flat bottom airfoils or semisymetric airfoils. Dihedral, wing loading, CG location, tail moment, thrust angles, etc. is what makes a trainer a trainer. I'm pretty sure you could build a trainer with a perfectly symetrical wing. I think most trainers have flat bottom airfoils because there used to be a time when there was no such thing as an almost ready to fly or ready to fly model airplane. If you wanted a model airplane, you used to have to buy a kit and build it yourself and flat bottom wings are simple to build.

Hi

If you were going to have a regular instructor i would recomend a semi symetrical high wing trainer. But if your mainly flying on your own you need somthing easier to fly.

A flat bottomed wing 3 channel plane might be a good idea once set up, trimmed and youv'e had a few lessons, its possible you may be able to learn to fly without an instructor.

You say your on the coast are there cliffs? perhaps you could learn to fly using a epp slope soarer.

Simon

B.L.E., the other items you listed do indeed add to a charachteristics that make a trainer but to say that >"The handling charactoristics of a trainer have little to do with flat bottom airfoils or semisymetric airfoils"< is just silly. [8D]

Well, not quite silly. But the flat bottom certainly makes the throttle able to control lift and so it's possible to trim for level flight and climb with added throttle for easy take-offs. And more importantly, land by lining up with the runway and gradually reducing throttle to bring it in gently.

Take your favorite symetrical wing aerobatic airplane and make it more nose heavy than normal, now adjust the elevator trim to compensate for that nose heaviness during normal (1/2 throttle) cruise. Now see what happens when you add throttle. That's right, it climbs! Now shut the throttle off and, voila!, it goes into a shallow dive.

OK, now move the CG back on your favorite flat bottom wing airplane and see if you can still use the throttle to control lift.

A coincidence does not always mean a cause and effect. We usually only find flat bottom airfoils on trainers and symetrical airfoils on aerobatic airplanes so we assume that the airfoils give these planes their handling properties. That's like assuming that tobacco causes crime after observing that the prison population has a much higher rate of smoking than the population at large.

.

Um, yeah, but that's like cutting off your feet so you don't bump your head in a short doorway. It would not be an efficient way of inducing lift. Movable flaps would do it without inducing drag at the higher speeds a symmetrical is designed for.

So you're convinced it's a coincedence trainers have flat bottomed airfoils? A flat-bottomed non-tapering airfoil is also almost impossible to stall into a snap roll, they just drop at the nose. Yeah, I could also give my horizontal stabilizer several degrees of negative incedence and my symmetrcal winged planed would be throttle sensitive to lift. But the drag would be fierce and it never would fly well level.

Symmetrical wings give wide speed envelopes without needing trim adjustments. Trainers have no need for wide speed envelopes, so the advantages of the flat bottomed wing make it a good choice.

The constant chord (non tapering) symetrical wings found on Ultra Stiks are also almost impossible to snap roll unless you get the CG way back and have a lot of elevator throw. You can most likely re-engineer an Ultra Stik into a reasonable trainer by adding dihedral to the wing, moving the CG more forward, and reducing the recommended control throws.

I also have a Pocket Rocket with a cambered (flat bottom) wing that has a bit of taper and it will snap roll just like tapered symetrical airfoils do. This plane also has dihedral since it is a two channel rudder and elevator plane. No throttle, you just wait untill the Cox .020 TD runs out of fuel to land.