I want to get into the sport but have no way of contacting a club for training or have time to juggle a trainer between collage and work… so I think I will attempt to do the learning on my own. Is there and "indestructible" plane out there that would be good for be to buy as a first?

-e

If you don't have time for training then you don't have time for this hooby. Learning on your own is very dangerous. You could not only hurt yourself but possible others. Look for another hobby if you don't have time to learn the right way. And to answer your question NO there are no "indestructible" planes. If you are serious about the hobby then get join a club and do it right.

If you are on the web you do have a way to contact a club:

AMA site: http://modelaircraft.org/templates/ama/

Good advise already given above!

EXCAP232

I think you'll need to go for a park flyer. I've seen people destroy the durable ones, but you can buy spare parts. Learning how to fly is a small part of it. If you go with the typical .40 sized glow-powered trainer, you'll need a field, you'll need insurance, you'll need to learn how to tune the engine, plus the cost will be $400 to $500. Still, even with the electric park flyer, I've seen people launch and crash, launch and crash, over and over until the plane was no longer flyable.

The only problem with an inexpensive park flyer is I wouldn't exactly say it's the same sport that the rest of us are talking about here.

If you're intent on teaching yourself, get the Realflight G2 simulator and plan on spending an hour or so a day at it for a couple months. When you can fly and land most of the planes on the sim and keep them in one piece, you'll be able to fly a trainer on your own. I agree with the others though, it's best to find some help, but the sim is an excellent learning tool.

Hello Eauh. If you have questions about locations and clubs in the area,or about learning to fly,feel free to contact me on email. I live in Vancouver area and might save you some frustrations in locating things.

No such thing as an indestructable plane. According to the instruction booklet that came with my Fighterbird, it's virtually indestructable. Yeah right.

Anybody want to buy a slightly used Fighterbird with a 2 piece fuse?

although a few people have said they arn't any indestructable planes, they're are, well kind of.

You'll probaly see them advertised as virtually indestructable, some are very good whereas others are useless. I wont mention the company but one company shows you their plane with what looks like a car running over it, on much closer inspection it is actually a car tyre, i've seen this crash and it aint great, nor does it look great even before it crashes, personally it is a poorly designed plane.

however

There are a few very good virtually indestructable planes. I can't remember the exact name of the company who makes them but it is a very good plane as i know a guy who owns one, i've also seen it fly. He was telling me about how he got a deadstick after exiting a very low manouver and basically he ended about 50ft above the runway with no power and at 0 airspeed. For some freakish reason it tail slid down to about 30 ft, flipped over and hit the ground pretty fast and hard. Apparantly the only thing needed replacing was the prop and reciever crystals, obviously he wasnt going to show me but he said that he's quite confident that he could hit it into the ground from 100ft and easily still be ok, just some minor replacements but he wasn't willing to show me and i dont blame him!

Anyway i saw it fly and as well as being virtually indestructable, it is a very nice flyer.

Look around some catalogues, you should be able to find a good one but ask around if you can.

One option you may want to explore is the Hobbico Sturdy Birdy. A friend of mine is learning with it and it is a rather forgiving airplane whereas my Tower 60 Trainer isn't. As far as hard landings go. Here is the link to the Sturdy Birdy if you want to take a look.
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXK965&P=7
Good luck!
Al

that is the biggest load of crap i've ever saw....is that any way to give someone confidence in this hobby.
sure he has a lot of things to do ,but he can make time.maybe between classes or something.

i've been learn own my own for a little wile now,and the plane i use is the T52 Trainer from JKaerotech.it is built from foam,coroplast,and colored packing tape.sounds very durable huh.well it is, i've had over a hundred crashes on it and it still flying.the only i've had to replace is the props.they keep breaking some how.


here is the web site if your interested WWW.JKAEROTECH.COM


thanks john

Doesn't sound like you're doing too good.

Eauh,

I started with no club, no instructor, and an 'indestructible' plane. I was able to fly quite a few times without any serious crashes. The problem was not with destroying the plane, but learning to fly. I was reluctant to go to a club, and really wanted to do it on my own. Eventually, I did decide to join a club, and learn with an instructor. I learned much more, and never even came close to crashing my plane. If you have a club available, I really recommend that you go that way. It doesn't take any more time, and you will get more out of the time you spend.

Good luck,

banktoturn

This won't make me very popular, but I pretty much taught myself to fly with the help of a LOT of simulator time and a Kombat Airmadillo.

http://www.kombat40.com/

I own two of these planes and more often than not, they are the ones I toss in the back of the truck when I go flying. They are ugly, somewhat heavy, but they fly stable and can take a real beating. Last weekend I planted mine doing inverted passes over the field and had her back in the air in 20 minutes.

I would recommend getting the help of an instructor but I don't want to completely rule out learning by simulator. FMS simulator is free and is a great tool for learning.

FMS sim http://n.ethz.ch/student/mmoeller/fms/index_e.html

I also taught myself with the realflight G2 simulator. I flew on it for probably about 40 hours before trying an almost indestructible plane, the SPAD QHOR. I did just fine when it came time to fly. I was a little nervous, but I had been trying so much crazy attitudes on the sim, that I pretty much flew it like a pro. After getting bored of straight tooling around,, my only two crashes were while inverted, 5 feet off of the runway when I pulled out of it. The QHOR "wings" flexed too much and I lost aileron effectiveness. Result: Rudder got bent, broken prop. The only other time I crashed was when I got the QHOR into a spin (intentionally), and it did not have enough altitude to get out of it. The next time I tried from higher up, and I did get it out of it.

I do not necessarily recommend this for everyone. I have been building and flying control line planes, rockets, and real planes. I do have a private pilot's license. I have a good understanding of aerodynamics, physics, and engineering principles. I am also 42 years old. I have more discipline and delayed gratification capacity than an 18 year old. I waited to fly a real RC plane until I was CERTAIN that I could adeptly handle ANY plane on the G2 sim in almost any kind of situation.

I went out to the field and just flew the QHOR. No one there knew that that was my first real flight. No one even suspected. It is possible to do this. But IMHO, the realflight G2 simulator is REQUIRED. You will NOT BE ABLE TO FLY an RC plane until you have trained yourself on the sim extensively.

I was talking to a guy today who learnt to fly on his own with FMS and a lazy bee, if youve got plenty of room and aenouh cash for a plane or 2 learning on your own can be done no probs,.
spend a heap of time on sims with your transmitter hooked up and get a tough plane like an armadillo or SPAD www.spadtothebone.com most of all stick with it and dont get put off

Exactly. My QHOR cost me 6 bucks! I did not EVEN CARE if I crashed it. Took all of the fear away.

G2 helped me a lot (and I'm still learning the basics), but your greatest resource may be this very forum! Every question you could evey have, someone has had before. I use the search button for hours. I also read everything I can get my hands on that relates to beginning in RC. So between G2, just one session with a trainer at my local RC club, and plenty of reading, I was able to do it on my own. Then practice, practice.
Good luck!

the T52 is great....it's not really a hundred times but it seems like it.i also have a sim (G2 it the best).i practice every day.really i've only had like 10 crashes,mainly because it doesing have landing gear.
thanks john :bananahea

The Duraplane is fairly cheap and if you do break something, they sell replacement parts.

I learned on one and had a lot of fun.

If your breaking props while landing, remember to fly all the way to the ground. I was cuttin the power back to idle and trying to glide to the ground. More often then not, it stalled about a foot off the ground. This causes really hard nose landings and the gear will bend enough to let the prop hit the ground. Instead, you should keep enough power to prevent the stall until after the plane touches the ground. Then cut power.

Make sure any plane you learn on has ailerons. It's a lot easier to learn than just rudder/elevator.