Well, I thought I did ALL the right things...Found a club, got my Tower Trainer 40 ARF balanced, all radio components worked the right way, batteries charged, field box battery charged, all ready to go! Got to the field, found some nice friendly folks with experience to help me get the engine (Como .40) tuned. Got a Buddy-Box connected, set the plane in the middle of the runway, applied full throttle...and the goofy thing just sat there!!! We had someone give it a little push...still nothing. [>:]

Sure it had rained a bit the previous day, but other planes were leaving the field with little resistance. The tiny 2 1/2 inch wheels that came with the Tower Trainer ARF couldn't even be seen through the grass. I went to the LHS (conveniently located at the end of the field) and got some 3" wheels. Now all I have to do is wait for the weather to break, and hopefuly have a maiden flight this weekend.

Moral of the story...unless you can fly off a paved runway....get the 3" wheels! PS: It also will help keep the prop from "cutting grass" in the wet spring season

Or you can get your own "Marc" who lives near the field and likes to mow 2 or 3 times a week 2.5's work well for me, even when a bit soupy.

At our field, "cutting grass" isn't such a bad thing Anyway I fly off a grass field and my Hobbico Nexstar would kinda do the same thing, I saw instantly that jump up to 3" wheels really did make a difference.


TakingFlight96

3" wheels are cool...you can see them better...sometimes when the model is way younder..all i can see is
little black thingies sticking out of my model to be able to identify if the model is inverted or not

Yeah..I tired wraping mono or tape to the wires get rid of the play. They don't last too long.
They last longer if I wrap it in the correct direction.lol

After a while..you just break down and go tail draging.lol
it's like killing 3 birds in 1 stone. Stiffer landing gear, can install correct dia axial, and tail dragging.

Um.. how about 3.5" wheels!!! I hate it when the prop acts as a vertical lawn mower and the trainer, with or without a student, can't get off the ground.

A good flying site is a big bonus, try cutting the grass and otherwise keeping the field in good shape. It;s worth the effort.

I fly off a grass feild and I have seen some planes with real small wheels.

Here is a copy of our news letter you can see from the pics we have a manicured feild. We do have a few retired guys down here that do a tremends job keeping our feild in tip top shape.

I am the guy with the Dolphin and wearing the Harley. http://www.manateerc.com/newsletters/2008/july-2008.pdf

I do most of my flying in a 100 acre field behind my house. the grass (weeds really) are often quite tall and hard to power though for take offs, but there is a small area of fine gravel/dirt that is very easy to roll on. so we usually take off on the good surface and land in the weeds which do a really good job of slowing the plane down on landing.

also when taking off in the high grass in can help to pull back on the elevator to lift the front wheel out of the grass, which seems to help the plane speed up.

I fly off of grass and as long as your prop doesn't cut the grass it doesn't what size they are.