My cousin showed up last week with his new Protege 60, OS 61, and Futaba 7C, and wants to learn to fly. He has been using a sim, and I had him on my Nexstar w/buddy cord a few times. His problem is that his reaction time is a little slow. And, we saw a Protege 60 at the club that was being flown quite well, and quite fast by one of the club members.
I do realize that it does not have to be flown a full throttle, but I was wondering if a three blade prop would help "slow things down" for him. If so, what size would you guys recommend? He already had a spinner and 12x6 prop that we installed, but have not flown the plane yet.
Thanks

Mesa, don't worry, the Protege will fly slowly VERY well with a 2-blade prop. This airplane is a dream!

I bought one based on MinnFlyer's review and recommendation. It is one fine aircraft. With it, your cousin will have the best of both worlds. It is very smooth and handles very nicely, like a trainer, but it is also very capable and can do an awful lot that trainers cannot do very well.

If you are going to be the instructor, then fly it once and I assure you, you will be hooked on it as a very good intermediate trainer. Minnflyer is right. It IS a dream. I love mine.

Take a look at his review and video's. I'm sure you will be impressed. He used an OS 55 AX in his review plane. I was unable to get the .55 at the time, it was out of stock and none were due in for month or so, but he had an OS .75 AX in stock, so that's what I put in. All I can say is WOW!! It was a nice combination with the .55 but I love mine with the .75.

CGr.

CGr.

I have a Protege .60 ARF that I train students with and fly for fun. It has a Thunder Tiger GP-61 engine and 12x6 APC prop on it. It's a wonderful primary trainer that is smooth, stable, and easy to fly; on full rates however, it is nimble enough to fly the entire Sportsman Pattern schedule.

If you want to slow it down, I'd recommend trying a 12x5 or 12x4 prop instead. That should allow the top speed to drop without allowing the engine to wind up too high. A 3-blade prop isn't necessarily slower than a 2-blade prop, it's just that certain 3-blade props like the Evolution trainer props are designed with a very shallow pitch.

Nice looking Protege, Big Ed. And I see you still have all your trim on the wings I thought I had ironed all mine down before flying it, but I missed one and it caused me some grief.. by the noise it was making I thought I had some flutter, but it turned out to be the trim. Blah!!! It came off in flight.. streamed behind the plane when I saw it. Then the stars came off one at a time.. I have two or three left now. Double blah.

But, it still flys like a dream. It just doesn't look as good as yours does. As I said, nice flying plane!!

CGr.

Minn: Do you know of a substitute for the Protege by any chance? Tower is out of stock and with the situation with Goldberg, I don't know when they will get more in stock. Reason I ask is because I was going to get one as a prize at an event.

CGr.

I'm watching this answer because I would like to get one also.

I don't know of any High-Wing plane like the Protege, but the Tiger 60 would run very close in the Low-Wing department.

What about the Hobbistar 60 ?

The Hobbistar .60 ARF shares many of the same characteristics of the Protege .60 ARF. I would expect it to fly very similarly to my Protege and it would be at the top of my list of planes to consider if I needed to replace mine.

Thanks for all the reply's. Maidened the Protege today. Very nice flying airplane. We just flew around at half throttle most of the time. My cousin did OK on the buddy box, but really has a hard time turning the plane without turning it on it's side. I had to take over several times on each flight. But, he really likes the plane, and wants to keep at it.
Thanks again