997Porsche

I'm planning on having a local friend teach me.. He's been flying for some time and builds most of his stuff from scratch.

He reccomended starting with a cheaper electric model to learn on... I'd be all for that as I could hone in my skills on basically a glider.

The other part of me says get a ARF gas trainer as the cost is almost the same, and I'm going to have to buy a lot of the tools/equipment anyways. Fortunately, he has a lot of land and mainly flies his planes there.. His uses a small area of his backyard which he cuts down to putting green length to land.. (and practice putting)

Usually calm winds, but occasionally it gets quite gusty.

As the time gets closer I'll pull the trigger on something..

A6Ordie

Ok here is a suggestion from some one fairly new to the hobby. If you are planning on flying electrics then go that route, but get something of a decent size. The bigger the plane the easier it is to see and control IMO. I built a SPAD [link=http://www.spadtothebone.com]Spadtothebone[/link] they have free plans to build all kinds of decent planes that fly fairly well. I built a Spadet which looks like most high wing trainers. I built it fairly easily having never built a plane of any kind in my life. It flew great! Did great in the wind. Wasn't as pretty as a balsa bird, but did the job for me. I crashed it several times, and it still flies fine. Best thing is they are very tough and easy to repair. Since I never had any type of airplane before I built the SPAD I didn't have any pushrods, control horns, motor mounts, landing gear, fuel tank, radio gear, engine, props, etc, etc, etc... so it was expensive to outfit it. I would of been better off buying a RTF set up. I did buy a simulator G3.5 and it really really helped. I got to where I could land the mustang in almost every condition i could throw at myself. After that, landing a trainer was cake. The worst thing for us newer pilots is orientation. I've lost everyone of my planes to that alone. Mark up your plane so you can definitely tell up from down! sign vinyl, paint, electrical tape, stickers... what ever makes it easy for you to see how it is orientated.

Ok, if I was to start over. I would find a real good deal on craigslist of someone with all the goodies for a decent price (complete plane, field box, starter, glow ignitor, fuel pump, etc) which I see all the time. Or I would buy a nice RTF set. Probably the H9 Alpha with the 2.4 gig radio. 2.4gig is the only way to go IMO if you are just starting out. If it was me, I would still build the SPAD though, because I will crash eventually and then I have something to put all the stuff from my pile of balsa wood into so I can fly again soon. If you have the extra cash you can just start early on your collection of ARF's that you plan on assembling ( I have 3 still in the box). After you fly your own plane once, your addicted. I hope you have already set aside the hundreds of dollars that you will be shelling out in your monthly budget Hobbypeople and their darn sales!! my tax return here yet???

Well, I hope my spiel didn't give you info overload, and might actually of been helpful in some respect.

Good luck!

Witterings

I think your friends advice is good advice, at this stage it really is just the learning process and what's going to serve best to get you through that stage.
You want something easy and slow to fly and as much as anything easy to repair.
I'd normally recommend the HobbyZone Supercub for someone teaching themselves but as you have some help and if you get some simulator practice as well I'd look at the MulitiPlex MiniMag.
You can build it as 3 channel rudder only to start and then when you're ready it takes about 5 minutes to plug in and cut free the ailerons for a 4 channel plane.
Strat it on quite low settings and a standard motor and then later upgrade to a brushless motor and increase the throws and move the CoG back and it'll liven it up to learn some aerobatics.

Mode One

The "Stick to the nose; or, Stick to the tail, is a method I've never heard of before and I've been around a long time. I started with powered airplanes and help from an instructor. Not long into this, I switched to sailplanes with rudder, elevator, spoiler control. On sailplanes, the rudder directional control reacted so slowly that it telegraphed whether you'd picked the correct response; or, not and if you had goofed up, correcting was easy to do. When I got back into power again, it was simply a matter of learning ailerons and picking up the low wing by moving the stick towards the low wing. There is also the method of always orienting your body to face the direction the airplane is headed; so, when coming towards yourself, your looking over your shoulder at the airplane.

There are many methods of skinning this cat! One method may work for one person and not the next. Eventually, you get to a point where reacting to what the airplane is doing, becomes automatic.

skyraider71

Answering the original question, I like the Goldberg Eagle II. It's lighter than some
other trainers, comes in kit or arf form, it can fly at a walking pace, and it's windows
make it look a plane.

hugger-4641

My Feedback: (6)

I'd agree with your instructor and Witterings. Starting out with a cheap electric is a good way to learn. You can fly and land them in smaller area's and glue+tape will fix just about anything that breaks. I also usually reccomend a Super Cub for these reasons, but with your real life experience using ailerons, you would probably be fine to start out with a Multiplex or an E-flite Apprentice. If you go with a glow trainer, I still reccomend the Avistar. You can move the CG back and glide it in on a dime or you can move Cg foward and fly it in hotter under some power. Its a very versital plane that will also handle floats. Happy Flying what ever you choose!!