part of this hobby for me is the building/repairing planes you ought to give it a try.
it will give you invaluable expierence plus the dammage on your plane is pretty minor at one point my NEXTAR looked like a half peeled banana and after repairing it I flew it for quite a while after.
the servos that come with the NEXTAR as I remember are Futaba 3003 servos there OK but not ball bering the 3004 is a bit of a step above in Quality I ended up selling mine when I retired my NEXTAR.
as for the S.K.senior your not really going to advance with it more like a sideways move they fly great and are a docile plane but its not going to help you learn to fly the twist any more than the NEXTAR.
this is the progression my NEXTAR has taken.
repaired with red monocoat,the only covering I had handy at the time,hanging on the rack by the T.V.
stripped of covering after some more tune up repairs and mods fitted with its new OS 61fx.
finished with floats and a new life after collecting dust in the corner for a couple of years without radio or engine.
you could also turn it into a tail dragger several have on RCU its also a pretty cool conversion.
and a shot of my new gear location if i decide to go back to land flying I will turn mine into a tail dragger also.

I may have a difference in opinon in when to cut someone loose on a plane, it would take me too much to type all that in, so I will just drop it.

Cover my expeses out to Vegas and I will have you hovering that Twist on the deck in a day and have you doing rolling circles with that NexStar. May take two days for rollers.

BigTim, impressive pictures. You've got me thinking that tommorrow I will take the Nexstar and see what I can do with it. After all if I fix it and get it flying again and crash it sometime I won't feel that bad about it because I was about to trash it anyway. I've never covered anything before either. Can I just cover the repair part or do I need to take off all the covering? Your also saying to use the broken wood and just glue it back together? Thanks for the help.

YNOT tempting offer but unfortunately I don't have that kind of money. If your ever in Vegas and are willing to help at that time I'm sure I could make an arrangement that would be satisfactory for both of us.

sure you can glue most of the wood back together as long as you have the parts from the broken section just be carefull to go slow and do a good job,( check my other post about repair around the gear).
fit the pieces of sheeting into there respective places and use thin CA to glue them back together.
I like the aplicator tips they control the glue so it goes where you need it not everywhere you don't.
med.CA also has more filling power if there is any gaps that need extra glue/or tight bond wood glue works well it just takes more time to set up sometimes clamps and or rubber bands come in handy for holding repairs also
check the formers in the fuselage at the break to see if they need a bit of glue also thin CA will soak into tight gaps and reglue areas that you might not be able to reach otherwise as well.
at the gear area you might need to use some epoxy depending on the level of dammage for that extra strength the landing gear needs.

no-you don't need to remove hardly any covering at all,just enough to access the broken section for repair,you might be able to iron the old stuff down and just patch the gaps.
I did mine because it was so beat,then just a little WT covering on the bottom of the fuse,I would pull the AFS sensor and cover that hole also.

if you run into any trouble just ask i started in the hobby back when you had to build your own planes to fly so I am into the building aspect also.

after having my boys I decided I would come back and start flying again, almost 5 yrs now,I had alot of building time already from years of control line and RC kit building.
but WOW! was I surprised when I saw you could order a built, ready to fly plane, for about the same price I paid in the late 70's my CredCard couldn't come out fast enough.
I have several kit built planes now, as well as a few ARF's I am hopelessly hooked again mostly on WWII warbirds.

That's a fairly common break point on a Nexstar. I broke mine in just about the same spot when I was learning to fly. The repair was fairly easy and we (my instructor and I) were flying the next weekend.

One thing. You said you were using the instructor's plane in your original post. Perhaps I read it wrong, perhaps you meant that you used it only on your solo flight. But, if you had been using the instructors plane all week, perhaps it would have been best to fly the Nexstar with the buddy box before attempting to solo. If you had been flying it all week, then I stand corrected.

I highly recommend our student flyers that they buddy box with an instructor for the first few flights for their second plane or any time they may feel that they need a little help with a new 'design' or something that is totally different from what they had been flying in the past, such as going from a high-wing trainer to a low wing second plane. That's just a suggestion and not meant to be critical by any means.

Congrats on your solo. I know how it feels, believe me. And it always feels great as an instructor when a student solo's.

Snacker,

Your experience is not all that unusual. A lot of new pilots find ways to crash after the solo. I dunno, maybe it's a mental thing or whatever. Life is "different" after the solo, and some times the mind takes a brief vacation at the wrong time.

Still, it looks like you had a very positive experience learning to fly. Crashes happen, and each should be a learning experience. By this definition, I have a lot of experience. Enjoy!

Snacker, Welcome to the Hobby! Congrats on the Solo! And if you think that’s a “donkey move� - my guess is that we’re all in the same boat!

About a week after I soloed I crashed my first plane. Then a couple of weeks later I crashed my second plane! I wasn’t able to repair my first plane - too much damage. But, I’m still flying my second plane. It’s probably been damaged 3 or 4 more times since that first crash and repaired each time. Just minor things like a short excursion from the runway upon landing removed the landing gear when I hit a rut. Or the time that I bounced a landing and the firewall separated from the front of the plane ... A year later I’m still flying that plane. It’s built my confidence in my flying skills and it’s taught me a lot about repairing. So much that recently I bought and built a kit!

I did replace my second plane shortly after that first crash. It enabled me to keep flying. But, my second plane is still my favorite. After all of the repairs and time that I’ve spent with it, it just has a special “place�.

This hobby is more then just buying an ARF and flying - if you want it to be. I encourage you to try you hand at repairing, it may open a whole new world for you. It did for me.

CGretired, I flew three different planes during the week. Mostly the Nexstar but I also did quite a few flights on the instructors Senior Kadet and some on my Twist 150. The Kadet was by far the easiest to fly and that is why I soloed on that one. It had a lot of power with the OS 91 on it and the control surfaces were bigger and so was the plane. Thanks for the congrats.

Jim and John, I just thought it was a "donkey" move because I didn't want to use the J word that means the same thing on this forum. I just thought the timing of it was ridiculous. Not to mention embarassing in front of my instructor. He though that I gave it to much rudder, which I probably did (after he pretty much told me hands off rudder on take off). He had just got done complimenting me on how confident he felt I was on my solo flight. BigTim and you guys have definately conviced me to try and repair it I'm going to see what I can do with it this afternoon. Thanks.

I know this isn't the crash and rebuild part of the forum but since some of you have already rebuilt this section of the plane I thought I might ask anyway.

I already used 5 minute epoxy to glue some of the plywood under where the landing gear connects to the fuse. One piece seems to be missing though. Is it ok to use balsa in place of this little section? See the upper right hand corner of pictures two and three.

I also had to break more of the underneath of the plane to access this area and am trying to glue it back like a puzzle.

Thanks for any help.

Wow I don't know why these pictures uploaded so big.

Hello; I have never heard "Donkey" used as a euphanism for something bad. Must be a regional peculiarity.

Trying to avoid saying "Jack Arse"

That is correct. [sm=wink_smile.gif]

Almost got my plane back together and took out the AFS. Next step, covering.

Reply to myself. I recovered and had my first solo, solo flight today(no instructor present). I did good and my instructor (not present) was right about people will talk to you (at the airfield) if you if you can take off and land by yourself. I had one hard turnaround and chipped the prop but other than that I consider myself a true rookie now. It's amazing the people that will volunteer help if they see you can fly, but not if you have no clue.

The rebuild and recover job was way easier than I thought. I have to thank bigtim, johndou and jim dines for insiping me to rebuild this plane. Bigtim specifically, I was about to trash the Nexstar and it's now my primary plane again. The landing gear is a little bent but it still flys great after the rebuild. Thanks guys.

I'm getting the courage up to fly the Twist 150 solo quickly(I did with instructor present). If I can fly, and I can land, "go fly the twist" like my instructor told me. I have to thank my instructor the most who I found in Model Aviation magazine. He is the best instructor I could have hoped for. Thanks again Ray.

Don't get in a rush to fly the Twist. You've just reached the solo point with your trainer, but you have a lot to learn about flying. Spend the rest of the year flying the trainer, and even a month or so next spring to knock the rust off. When you can fly aerobatics profeciently with your trainer, handle any emergency situation without panic, and can consistantly plant the main gear at the same spot in a smooth landing, then you'll be ready to move up. Too many pilots move up faster than they should and wonder why they trash their next plane that is way too hot for them.

Hogflyer

Ok, but it's aweful tempting. I just feel the need to fly more planes and I'm getting anxious.

dial in those landings you won't regret it,as for the landing gear the handy home vise will help with rebending the LG back into place,glad to hear the NEXTAR is back in service,I started in the hobby with kits, so a crash is just another chance to glue wood into something flyable