Hi - I am very involved in RC Monster Trucks but saw a show the other night on the Park Flyers. I have never flown an RC plane before. How hard are these park flyers to fly - can I buy one and fly it the same day or do I need to start with a "trainer"? Any suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated.

You might have better luck on the electric beginners forum.

I would highly suggest a trainer. The park flyers are made really cheap, and a lot are made of egg carton type foam. They are very easy to break if picked up wrong, and easy to destroy when you fly into the ground. Like any other RC plane, they are not just something you can pick up and fly. They are not all that easy to fly. A lot of companies advertise them this way, but I think that is so they can sell a lot of parts. It is really false advertizing. You could start with a sim and learn it. That would help a lot. A .40 size trainer is a lot easier to learn on.

get the aerobird from www.horizonhobby.com or www.hobbyzone.com great plane flies very well...

He speaks the truth, but they are not that fragile either. My stryofoam Piper has taken several breaks, but epoxy fixes them right up with no adverse effects. Balsa, however, is a bit harder to fix. My mini piper was easy to learn on, and now I've finally learned how to fly the thing, easy aerobatics and slow (sometimes fast ) flight is what this is about. I've tremendously enjoyed it, you can check it out.

Get the FMS simulator that aeropal gave you, its free so the flight physics are lame, but the basics of flying toward you and control movements can get you started.

Hobby Lobby

Mini Piper Forum]

Just wondering howiedog but did you see the show on DIY?

I just started flying (did 1/8 and 1/12 scale cars way back) and picked up an Aerobird. I could not recommend it enough. It is very tough and very easy to fly. I don't understand why they push it as an "next step" plane, I did not have any trouble using the elevators to help with landing and quick take offs. I could not fly in my field with a 2 channel. If you are not confortable with the elevators then just don't use them. If you buy one you will probably want to get an x-pack as well. You will want the extra control you get with the bigger tail. I would also move the control lines to the holes nearest the tail right away, you get almost no control at all with the stock tail and the lines connected to the center hole. I have had mine for about a month now and have flown quite a bit with it. I take it to work with me and fly at lunch.

The guys at one of the LHS's here have been flying the firebird outlaw (the twin engine one) out in the parking lot, and one guy took some of them to a family gathering type thing, and had a 5yr old flying one around by himself in a couple of flights.

So, some park flyers are really easy for someone with no airplane experience, but others are a bit harder to handle. I have a GWS A-10 that is a lot of fun, but isn't something someone with no flying experience should try.

My aerobird flies like a rock. Terrible plane out of the box to fly, zero control. They should have made the X-pack stock on the plane.

How about a personal review of the Aerobird from a new RCer, me. I looked at
the Firebird II, XL, Fighterbird and the Aerobird. With three channels you
can do a lot more, so I went with the Aerobird.

I was not interested in building. If I spent a month building and then
wrecked it, I would be crushed. I wanted a RTF that could take some
punishment.

I am a first timer. However I am also one of these guys that goes into intense
research when I get interested in something. After several months of research,
talking to people, flyers and non, I bought an Aerobird. It is a super value
but there are other good starters. Here are the plusses and minuses in my mind
of the Aerobird.

Very inexpensive and rugged for a three channel starter - $140-$170
The plane comes complete and fully assembled. Charge the flight battery, put
on the wing, put the batteries in the transmitter and up you go! Even the
batteries for the transmitter are included.

New flyers like me are going to crash, so you don't want something costly to
start with. There is a full line of parts available at reasonable cost. You
can replace the whole main fuselage for $49 including the motor and all the
flight electronics. A wing is $15 and the tail is $9. So, if you crash badly
you can get everything for under $75 and you are back in the with a three
channel plane.

Batteries and charger:

The battery will run for a full 5-6 minutes at full throttle and 10-12
minutes+
at half throttle. Many planes in this class run 4-6
minutes. And unlike many of the 2 channel starters, it comes with a peak
charger that you can use in your car. If you pick up two spare batteries you
can stay in the air all day. A full charge takes about 40 minutes.

Another plane I liked was the Sky Scooter Pro, now the Pro II. You can get it
as a base plane and motor and add your own electronics or get it ready to fly
with a 72 MHZ Hittec 3 channel radio for about $150. This was my second
choice to the Aerobird. I like it a lot!

The Aerobird also has an X-Pak hop up kit available for $30. It includes a 7
cell battery (the basic is 6) and a larger tail. This makes the plane faster
and more maneuverable. So, once you get good you can soup it up! I bought the
X-Pak when I bought mine. I will used the 7 cell as my second battery and saved
the tail for later. And I don't agree with the comment above. The plane flies fine on the 6 cell.

WIND

All new flyers should start in winds under 5 MPH so that you are learning to
fly the plane rather than fighting the wind. I didn't do that and crashed a
lot because of the wind. However, now I am very comfortable flying this plane
in 10-12 MPH winds. Handles it very well.

27 MHZ vs 72 MHZ Radio

The Aerobird uses a 27 MHZ radio which is assigned to general use for planes,
cars and boats; mostly low end stuff. There are only 6 available channels. So,
if you have a kid with a RC car in the same area where you are flying, and he
is on the same channel you are on, and he is close enough, when he switches on
his transmitter, you will lose control of the plane and probably crash. Even
with 72 MHZ radio systems, this will happen if you get two flyers on the same
channel, but 72 MHZ is dedicated to airplanes. High end RC cars are on 75 MHZ
so they won't interfere.

The flight control is a single stick radio with rudder and elevator on the
stick. Throttle is on a slide on the left top. It is similar to a Futaba or
Hitec single stick arrangement. I find it very comfortable to use and other
flyers who have tried it say they find it easy as well. You will find it very easy to transfer these skills to more complex radios later.

If you are going to join a club, check with them. Some clubs will not admit 27
MHZ based planes because they can't be flown with a buddy box, a training
system, like a dual controlled car, that is used for pilot training. After
long consideration I bought the Aerobird, but these are things I took into
consideration. My club, www.lisf.org has many firebird pilots, so the
Aerobird was welcome The Sky Scooter Pro, mentioned above, is on the 72 MHZ
band set-up so you don't have any of these concerns.


Resources Aerobird, Sky Scooter Pro

Here is an internet site that sells the Aerobird. They also have a
link for a video of the plane flying:
http://www.parkflyers.com/html/aerobird.html


As I said, my alternative plane was the Sky Scooter Pro. It had been about
$260 RTF, but they recently released the Sky Scooter Pro 2 at about $150 so
you might want to give it serious consideration.
http://www.servocity.com/ServoCity/...._airplane.html

Videos
http://www.hitecrcd.com/Funtec/videos.htm

So, that's my evaluation of the Aerobird and why I purchased it. I fly as
often as I can. I have about 50 flights on my plane since the end of March.
I am fully self taught. At this point I am just loving it. My friend has a
Wingo and liked flying my Aerobird so much he bought one too. Another club member who has not has a lot of success with other planes is flying the Aerobird like a pro in just a few days.