My goal is scratch building, yet I have zero experience working building planes...what kit would give me a good learning experience towards this goal?...even if the kit isn't a good trainer for flying, since I'll be flying at a club field with a buddy box...also prefer something realistic, not a stick with wings...power gas or electric...

Many thanks,
George

I would build a Goldberg eagle 63. They look like a real plane kind of and will teach you a bit. Then build a couple other kits and learn some more. Then on to scratch building. You could probably do it sooner, but kits teach you a lot. Then when you run into problems in a scratch kit about how to do something, you may have seen it in a kit and know what to do. I have scratched a few and I seem to always modify something to make it better. Wouldn't know how or what to change if it weren't for the hundreds of kits I have built. Have a ball, its a great hobby.

Literally ANYTHING by Great Planes

Great Planes (same company as Top Flite) are excellent kits. Also, you can't go wrong with Sig or Midwest. They're great too. The Sig Kavalier is a nice build and a great second airplane after you've mastered your trainer.

My first kit was the Sig Four Star 60. I didn't even know what a trailing edge was when I started it. CA was a surprise to me," Geez I only touched my finger to it", the plane came out straight and flew great

Since you have a goal of working toward scratch building, I'd recommend a [nearly] all balsa kit -- as opposed to one with cut plywood fuselage parts.

I say that because in scratch building you will need to deal with fitting and aligning fuselage parts. Unfortunately, a plane like a SIG Kadet LT-40 or a Goldberg Eagle will be an outstanding trainer with the highest probability of building true because they use alignment techniques that are not very practical for scratch building and materials that are not the best for scratch building... so they really do little to teach you about building fuselages other than show you what a good one looks like once it's built.

As for wing construction -- egg-crates such as found in the PT-40 Mark-<whatever's newest> will similarly deprive you of the learning experience in the wing department.

The skills you'll need include shaping and fitting parts (shaping can be a little creative, but fitting should to be pretty precise); aligning similarly shaped parts (pretty precisely with or without tab-and-slot aligners); ad libbing (i.e. engineering on the fly for things like installing control systems that plans tend not to define too closely where kits often define things very rigidly in advance).

In today's market, you're not too likely to find a trainer that's great for both teaching you to fly and teaching you to build, but something in-between should be available with some of the benefits for both skills. Or, if you make friends with a rabid builder real quick, you could get them to coach you through a scratch-built project. There are a lot of good trainer plans out there.

Al makes a great point. With that in mind, I would recommend the Sig Kadet Senior and Senorita airplanes. The fuse requires lots of parts cutting and alignment. The planes come out light and are great to learn on. I would use a transparent shade of covering such as transparent yellow, blue ect. It's a shame to cover up all of that workmanship.

I agree whole heartedly with Al Stein. If you really want to be a builder, then steer away from "modern" kits. All they will teach you is sub-standard ,short-cut building techniques. GP kits are not all that great in my opinion.

A Sig kit will force you to learn a lot of techniques that will be necessary if you decide to scratch build.

Sig kits are very well designed and are designed for builders. Goldberg kits used to be excellent as well, but I haven't built one since Carl passed away and I'm not sure if they are the same construction techniques and quality as they were many years ago.

My web site is all about being a model builder. It's not the best site or the only site, but it should provide plenty of information for you if you have a little time to read over some of it.

PS. I'm glad you want to build. Not enough of us left any more.

I built a GP pt 40 with zero experience and the instruction book
on that kit itself is like a self course in RC modeling.I built many kits after that but i still had the best experience on that fist kit.I'm moving on to scratch building and and have enough confidence
because of that kit.

Hi Boys, I think I disagree with Al et al ....it really being a matter of degree. The poster has ZERO experience building. ZERO.....
The GP kits I've built may have been designed for success, but they (especially the PT40 kit for 1st timers) had a lot of building and setting up tips that stay with you., and of course you get better and by doing.
If I didn't know which end of a tool to hold, I wouldn't be looking to turn out a Faberge' Egg or engineer the Brooklyn Bridge the first time out. YMMV

ps whats wrong with the pt40 wing-beside too much dihedral? isn't the dchannel/spars/shearwebs/ribs construction typical for the most part)

Jaguar - First, I don't want to get into a fight about GP kits. Suffice to say that the couple I built were not very good quality in many ways. Other builders have had better luck with them than I had.

However, all of us who came into the hobby prior to 1980 or so started with stick type kits. We managed to build them and they flew well. We learned more in building them than a person will from building a laser-cut, slab-sided model. That's the simple fact.

What I've actually seen is the guys who build these types of planes remain afraid to go farther because they think it takes a master craftsman to build Sig-type kits. That simply isn't true. They can be built by anyone who has a little patience and can follow directions. They aren't that hard to build and the directions and plans give plenty of detail. They typically build into lighter, better flying aircraft as well.

Newer kits make up for poor design by throwing in a lot of unnecessary wood. How many kits have you built that had plywood doublers from the firewall to the rear of the wing saddle? They ARE NOT necessary if the kit is designed properly. The new generation of models are designed for quick, easy building and sacrifice flying quality due to excess weight. Everyone who builds these things thinks it's the proper way to design a model and the problem propagates.

The new generation of "builders" that I have seen don't build planes that I would be proud to own. They don't have the skills because the kits don't require them. The only way a person is ever going to improve his skills is to challenge them with something more difficult.

My point is that if you want to be a builder, then buy builder's kits. If you want to put a plane in the air fast and are happy with mediocre flight performance, the go with GP or similar.

So a Something Extra teaches you how to scratch build but a Supersportster doesn't? (I know, not the Sig kit you had in mind ) I liked to go in graduated steps, and I try to add a new twist with each successive kit.(deviate from plans or supplied material) I just found my first kit to be an eye opener, and appreciated the helpful instructions and "heads-ups". Sometimes a frustrated beginner quits before they've really started(tragic) All that being said, I see were Al and others are coming from. PS I still think Guillows stick and tissue rubber powered planes are hard to get right!

First off, my thanks to all who posted their thoughts...I appreciate them.

I am leaning towards the Sig Seniorita kit for several reasons, though a final decision has yet to be made. One, I really want to learn how to build airplanes, and fly them. One of my goals is to scratch build some of the Granville Brothers aircraft, beginning with an R1. I think that most of the kits today still won't prepare me for such a task, since the fuselages are made out of ply instead of balsa. Perhaps they could teach me how to glue and follow directions, but they won't help much when I want to build an airplane from scratch.

Secondly, I bought a foam ARF parkflyer to learn some flying skills while I build, and the GD thing just depresses the hell out of me so badly that it sits, un-ARFed, in my closet. I read where someone called these meat trays, and to me, that's what they are. I cannot build/fly a foam airplane (though what works for someone else is their business).

Before I make the Seniorita plunge, any other kits similar that you guys know of? I checked Goldberg Products, and their trainers look to be of the ply fuselage variety.

Many thanks for your opinions and assistance.

Regards,
George

furyus,

After reading your previous posts and careful consideration I think you should forget the kit and simply start a scratch building project!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Look the the worst that can happen is that you are out the cost of plans and basic materials..

If you are unable to complete the scratch build you can allways buy a beginner level kit..

Remember something the main differences between kits and scratch building are detailed assembly instructions and prefabricated parts.

If you don't like your foam plane and think slab sided kits aren't challenging enough then just buy a set of plans and 20-50 bucks worth of balsa and have at it.

One piece of advice building airplanes is one aspect of the hobby and flying airplanes is another.

Using your foam airplane for practice makes good sense in more ways then I care to list.. Your unwillingness to use it for trainning purposes confuses me.. Why would you risk a plane that took hours to build when you have a disposable one??

Anyway each to his own. Good luck and think about just jumping in a scratch building

So he's got no experience, so what? My first kit was a goldberg falcon II. All the instructions you got were on the plan, no modern book with pretty pictures.

Get somthing you like the looks of, with a semi-symetrical or symetrical wing. The Golberg falcons are nice, sig kavaliers are good, etc.

Jaguar - I agree with you about Guillows kits. I was the most frustrated kid in the world trying to build those things. Instead of putting an age group on them they should say "Requires 30 years experience building 1/2 scale, museum quality aircraft using mustard glue and a dull knife."

They are much harder to build than the average R/C plane.

I also agree that building any plane is good experience. The problem is that a lot of newer guys won't try kits that require more experience because they think they'll be too hard. That's why I suggested one of those kits to begin with. They'll see they aren't that difficult and they will already be over the mental block regarding stick kits (Sig-type).

Jaguar - I have to admit that when I came into the hobby, the local hobby shop was all about helping people. One of the guys who worked there actually came to my house to help me through my first trainer. I know that's hard to find nowadays, but I'll do it personally for new guys in my club and so will several others. I also invite these guys over to my shop to help them through it. I hate it when a new guy quits due to a bad experience. I had bad experience after bad experience when I was a kid because I had no help, had no clue what I was doing, didn't have a place to build and didn't have any decent tools. The only thing that kept me going was a strong desire to build models. If I hadn't had that drive I would have quit before I turned 10 and probably wouldn't have looked back.

So I agree that for most people, their first model should be a success story. If that means a simpler kit, then it's all well and good. It's easier to give advice when you know the person and have an idea what their tolerance for frustration is.

Not sure what you mean by going in blind. As I said before the main difference between a kit and scratch build is the pre-fabricated parts!!!


Maybe I'm misunderstanding you defination of scratch building?

I define scratch building as building from a set of planes and fabricating your own parts. Since the designer of the plane already knows all about airframes all I got to do is build the model to the planes.

If by scratch building you also mean that you are going to design the plans then yes I would agree with you that understanding basic aerodynamics would be a minimum requirement.

That's mostly true to you or I , but I think that to somebody who hasn't built a kit, the biggest difference may be instructions.

Without good illustrated instructions (a very rare thing when buying plans), even a pretty straight-foreward build-from-plans project can be a daunting undertaking for someone who hasn't yet built a kit. Some of the parts and how they go together can just be too hard to picture unless you've seen a couple of versions of them before. The instructions (if they're good) provide that mental picture that the new builder needs to be able to get things together right.

In the sense of not having the ability to picture what things are and/or how they must go together, I think that working in the blind is a pretty good metaphor.

Al stien

I do agree with your points. Just seemed to me from the posts that this person really wouldn't be satisfied with a beginner kit?
And building one kit (especially a begginer kit )IMO isn't going to help that much if his second project is a scratch build. He might as well skip the kit and buy a book and use these forums during his project. Like I sais in my first post if he can't complete the scratch build project what is he really out in terms of money 100 ? and what will he have learned about scratch building and kit building in general ? My point was only that it wasn't impossible to start out scratch building and it isn't terriably expensive.

I may have read more into it and made some assumptions

Or they could go straight to www.spadtothebone.com and save a heap of money, time and stress

If you are wanting to learn scratch building a plane then buying a kit is no help unless you have been an ARFY ever since getting into this hobby. Get a set of plans that are easy to read and follow, like an Ultra hots, and just do it. That is the only way you will ever really learn. The kit is already cut out using machines that you don't have. You must learn the technique of cutting and sanding each piece of wood so when you are done you have cut your own kit.

Crashem, I appreciate your ideas, but you're giving me far too much credit...I don't think I could scratch build from the gitgo without the benefit of understanding how a plane goes together...Al had it right when he interpreted my "blindness" as to how things fit and where they go...I collect plans for Gee Bees, including two authentic Vern Clements R1 plans, the same used by Delamr Benjamin, and I can almost envision how to go about a build...but I think I'll go with a kit first (and maybe two and three).

Woodsy, I think I'll stick with balsa and glue for now, but you SPADers have some neat ideas...ceertainly I'll SPAD before I try another meat tray...

Regards,
George

My advice would be to get a couple of kits under your belt before you tackle a scratch build project. There is much to learn about aircraft structures, control systems and the inherent precautions and due diligence that must be taken at all time to ensure an aircraft's airworthiness. In aviation, failures are not acceptable because they are most likely catastrophic.

With that said, I would suggest a modern day laser cut trainer kit that will be quick to build and therefore, quick to expose you to aircraft structures and systems. I've heard the Sig LT-25 is a great kit and a great flyer.