Alas, this is all that's left of my first trainer.......




It's been stuck on my garage "passed-on" wall for many years, but will never be forgotten.

She was covered in (wrinkled) green Ultracote and I will always remember thinking I was ready to solo.....She was so beautiful, and I was invincible! A champion. A wizard. I could DO IT!

I took her up by my self ...AND IT STARTED TO SNOW!!!!

There must have been 1/4" of snow on her wings and she didn't handle like I was used to. Sluggish. Not on my channel. "I DON'T REALLY HAVE HER" "OH, God help me"

I screamed to my instructor "HELP!!!!" "HELP!!!!!!!!!!!" "HELPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All he said was"That's a GREEN plane and it's unlucky" You're on your own, I'm not touching it!" "That plane made it SNOW!"

Out of desperation, I landed her. Not pretty, but in one piece.

I'll never forget my solo as long as I live and I used to take her out before I'd fly a new build, just to calm the nerves.

Lost her in the sun......but that's another story for another day.

Keep that first trainer. She's your good luck charm!

-dave-
Medford, Oregon

Some vidio of practice for wingless trainer racing:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...50417417372649

I must admit,I've only actually been flying for 13 months,but by finding as much time as I could to learn I did.
I'm now no where near the best pilot at our small provincial club,maybe slightly above intermediate would be the only comparison
I've now been given the task by "MY MENTOR"[ instructor] to help with training new pilots.
I can't believe the buzz and fun I get from helping people to fly the "TRAINER"that I learnt on to get the same enjoyment as I did from this plane
My instuctor thinks it is good that I can relate to what new pilots are going though,the blinking eyes,the sweaty palms ,the lack of breath
I still reckon the best feeling I get is seeing my trainer plane helping somebody else experience the pleasure of this "HOBBY"<"ADDICTION"[8D]

After reading a few posts on here and talking to my instructor at the field, I converted my Tower Trainer into a taildragger.

I would love to see some pictures of the tail wheel setup on these conversions. Thanks!

Mine was a little tricky. I had to make the bracket out of an old main gear [link=http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXK163&P=V]strap[/link]. Then for the wire, I drilled a hole thru the elevator and into the rudder. Then I epoxied the [link=http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXD850&P=0]tail wheel[/link] wire into the rudder. I have several landings on this now and it's held up very well. I'll get some pictures on here tonight.

I just added a trainer back into my hanger, and I'm enjoying it.
BTW, I have a float kit on the way![sm=shades_smile.gif]

I had a Kadet Senior and loved it. I sold it because I didn't want to crash it. I am going to get another one for those last flights of the evening when the wind is calm, the shadows are long, and they look so serene in the evening sky.

Great! Looking forward to seeing an actual conversion.

Thanks!

Excellent suggestion!

Now I know what I'm going to do....

and add to that floats...

Poor rudder servos. []

Bank the turns and do it in dirt. Then you can add wings but to the top. Be an outlaw sprint Nextstar running on Nitro man that is cool. Sounds bad too. Could be a new form of dirt racing. Nextstar Outlaw Sprint Dirt Planes. lol.

Here you go, BigDog.

Put floats on it & use it in the Winter & off of water. Change throws and have a ball

Hello Sempiterna. Actually we never outgrow out trainer. As we get better at flying that wonderful trainer can be set up to fly a little more aggressive and it can also be the plane you bring to the field just to relax and not have to worry about landing gears, flaps, hooking up extensions, etc. I love my trusty trainer. It goes with me every time I go to the field.

p.s. I just switched from the Futaba 6 channel 72mhz to the DX7. My trainer now has a spektrum receiver in it. Happy Flying.