To the Nay-sayers concerning the C0-Pilot....have you ever flown with it?

Jerry

have with HAL, was unnatural, had to keep the stick over, even turned down i had to, and then it responded slow anyway. didnt like it.

Kind of tangential to this discussion, but one thing a few of us have noticed at my field is that the best new pilots, the fastest learners, are the guys that stayed on their first trainer the longest. We have guys that get a trainer, get soloed, then go right to something more advanced. They are ok pilots, but they have a lot of accidents and don't seem to handle the plane as well. On the other hand, there are a couple of guys who have stayed with just their one trainer for an entire season, well past when they soloed, and once they moved to a more advanced plane, they really seemed to handle it better.

I don't see any reason someone couldn't learn on a well mannered low-winger. I do think some guys really need the stability of a modern trainer, while some guys don't.

But whatever you do, spend the time to learn to fly it well, don't be rushing yourself.

I responded to alot of these threads and rather then restate those opinions. I'll leave it like this

Start out on a tame low winger IF:

1. You can find a qualified instructor willing to teach you with it.
2. You don't mind the alleged increased potential risks of destorying it.

Bottom line its your money and your time (provided you find a willing instructor). Some people can do it others can't problem is you will only find it if you are one of the former rather then latter in hindsight

Montague,

I agree with you 100%....I encourage all my trainees to stick with the trainer for as long as possible - you will really learn the basics.

The same with full-scale - those pilots who started flying a tail-dragger really know how to use the rudder :-)


Jerry

I have to completely disagree with your here. If your learn properly with a Co-Pilot attached to your trainer then,

1.) Confidence is instilled from the first flights.

2.) To learn properly the gain must be adjusted and the student weened off.

3.) The Student should be given proper instruction from the first flight.

Most of our students come to we instructors because they have no prior skill in flying a model airplane. By the time they are ready for takeoff their Knees are shaking and there nerves are shot. "My God, that's my $400 investment being pushed into the air"

The FMA Co-Pilot has the ability to recover your plane at any attitude in less than a second. Yes, you have to hold input to overfide the computer, but again the gain can be adjusted and should be. So, why not allow a student to save his investment, stop shaking and have a little fun flying with a Co-Pilot installed.

Guys, I've been in this hobby over forty years and the Co-Pilot is the next best thing to Proportional Radio. I have a question, why do those that have not tried it bash it?

If you wont to try a low wing as your first trainer the by all means install a Co-Pilot and have some fun instead of wasting several hundred dollars in a second.

it has the abilty to save the plane that quick if the gain is right up correct? if its like HAL that is, on low gain it simply has less throw on the surfaces and so cant fight you as hard. that then means at low gain recovery is slow.
on the other down side, with sudden recovery at that quick, high speed stalls, snap spin are all possible which the co-pilot should sort, but not quickly.
at low speed if you stall, it wont apply power, it'll just pull up, it wont let the plane dive to gain speed.
i guess if you install it so it keeps the plane at a certain nose down angle that its diving enough not to drop speed to below stall.
i admit i've never actully used my HAL unit as i brought it SH to try the prophang thing Don Incoll had his set up for. i did think about using on a plane so i could fly it low without hitting the deck. I've heard all sorts of things about putting it in helis, the wind drifts it off to a van, it stops and backs up!, also about trainers dissapearing off into the distance jumping hedges and any thing in the way

ok then, let me put it this way. when you are having a first flight, you should be 3-4 mistakes high, with an instructor you trust. for me anyway, that was enough confidance. i was so thrilled and trusting in my plane, and instructor, i wanted to go up again as soon as i refueled. i was faster to ask than my instructor was to say either yes, or no. if you have a good trainer, unless you do something stupid like pourposely stall, or something along the lines of that, the trainer will correct for not only itself but you as well. i would recomend the pt-40. but also, your instructo should be you copilot, not a little electronic device. if everything is properly done, it is completely uneccessary. as about the .50 size engine, i have clocked it at less than a minuet less time on full throttle than my .46. the extra power comes because the engine is ringed. that means that only a small area is rubbing, or making contact with the sleeve. .04 cubic inches alone will not give you 10% more power. i recomend it because, when you get into trouble, especially when you are learning, a good but not excessive amount of power is a great thing. probably the best example of that was at a fun fly. i was doing a 10 foot inverted pass over the runway with my easy s[port, with the 50 sx ringed. i had a brain fart and rolled it off in the wrong direction. i ended up over the pitts, and the only reason i was able to get out of it, was becasue of that engine. it was able to hang vertical after an accidental lomshevak over the pitts. i never would have made it out with 10% less power, and once again, the fuel consumption is infintecimally more than the .46. also, it will last longer, because of the less wear between the sleeve/piston fit. i would recomend that engine and guard that opinion with my live. the pitts were crowded, and i could have easily killed somebody, but that engine saved not only my expulsion from the club, but also possibly lives. that could have even had the club shut down.

use LOTS of epoxy on the wing joint.....this plane needs lots.....had a bad expeariance cuz i didnt use ALOT of epoxy

what size engine did you have on it? my friend's wiong came apart because he had a .61 fx in there, using higher than recomended throws. his wing broke off and he lawndarted it past the pits and into the parking lot. that was his fault though, because of the engine size and the throws. here is a tip when joining the wing. wrap masking tape around the edges of the surfaces you are joining, put more than enough epoxy on, and press it down hard, so all the excess oozes out, so you have all the wing can handle inside. it is a good idea to hold the wing halves together using rubber bands tied together, keeping in mind the plane has low dihedral. however, you can adjust tensions on the front and back sumply by moving the rubber bands. follow the instructions WORD FOR WORD except with the mounting of the fuel tank. they reccomend fastening it to the airfram with silicone glue, but that causes the fuel to foam. instead, isolate it with foam, and don't hard-join it to anything, and you will have a lot better engine performance.

you could always put a wing spar in during the build.
and when you join the wing, dont just expoy the wing band, you leave a weak edge, take the expoy its self out about a inch past the band, a diamond band shape is even better to spread the loads.
personly i'd add a 1/16th ply spar after the wings are joined if i was worried, use a hackasw balda to cut a slot maybe 6" out into each side, 12" slot right on the thickest part of the wing, then fill the slot with PVA and slide some ply in. when its dry i trim the ply sticking out the top and bottom of the wing to lend it in.
i did this on a fast delta, a 160MPH crash didnt break that join.

Is it impossible to learn on a low wing.........no. Some can do it far better then others. The problem is how do you no you can do it. The fact is you cant until you fly. The EasySport should make a great trainer though. On the other hand a trainer can be a lot of fun, you ve not really lived till you saw a pt-40 come by 10 ft up ...inverted.......in a 20 mph breeze.

Dan

done it. i used to do 10 foot inverted passes on my pt-40. it has rather large control surfaces on it. i could do an outside loop