spacecam said this an exspensive hobby. I'll second that. I have a spad and working on a stick 40 from Balsa USA. I have over $700 invested and still counting. Just made an order to Servo City over $40 and Tower Hobbies $138 today. Hopefully I can now concentrate on flying and not buying!

i have poured over $1000 into my cap you see in the avatar. unless you want a little daisy sunday flyer, it is going to cost you.

I have spent $250 just on my trainer plane (My dad gave me one of his old engines so that saved me about $100). It's expensive, but its all good. I bought a Futaba 6YG that way I can use for other planes when I get them and don't have to buy a new radio. I don't see the point of having a computer radio really...

When I get my biplane (3rd plane probably) I'll end up spending $500+, expensive when your dad won't help pay for any of it, lol. But he already has all the field equipment I need except a glow starter.

Now I only need him to finish his trainer plane (Been sitting in a basement for 17 years, just waiting to have the wing tips covered and a fuel tank installed) and then rebuild his WWI Biplane...

why did you get the yg? One of the huge perks is that you can save trims, atvs, timers, and even mixing individually for each model. the 6x has a 6 model memory. there are also 4 programable mixers. meaning, let's say you wanted to mix some aileron in with your rudder to get rid of that annoying roll effect. you could turn it on, and set how much it mixes. it is fully perportional, not not just off and on. all of that is unique to the particulatr model you have. also, another pig perk is that you can switch inbetween pcm and ppm (also called fm) which allows you to go from one to the other without buying a new radio. i have a futaba 8u, and i would not go any other way. Futaba stopped making them, and started making the 9c. the only difference is that the 9c has 1 more channel, and you can assign any channel to any stick, switch, or knob in case you are into battle bots. you can get a used 8u for the price you bought the 6yg for. buying a radio used is not a bad idea. they have no moving parts, nothing to wear out. they are jsut as good new as they are used. If you buy it from a guy who is getting a 9c, you can ask him to order it on the requency you have because they have a thing called a tx module. it contains all the transmitting stuff so you can switch frequencies just by swapping this little thing. you don't have to send it in to do it, and it is perfectly legal. it is just like changing out the entire broadcasting system in your yg. they are really the way to go. when you want to put on a gyro, have to mix in some controls to get rid of nasty habbits, want flaps, dual rates, anything, you need a comp radio. the cap 232 i fly now would not be possible without it. i sold my old 6x because it wasn't enough for this thing, so if you ever get into something like this, the yg wouldn't cut it at all. all the mixing would have to be on-board which is expensive and will weigh a lot. also if you ever want to put somebody on the buddy box, you can select which channels he has control over, and the programming for that model (ie all the stuff i mentioned above like atv, mixes, trims, whatnot) are mixed in with the inputs from the slave so that the all the mixes etc. carry over. the only thing that doesn't is channel reversing. it is also a more powerful radio than the yg. strongly reccomend you check out this website: http://www.futaba-rc.com/radios/futj80.html . whatever yoiu do though, don't buy their campac. you can make your own, i would be happy to give you the diagram. they charge about $30 for it. it costs you $5 to make.

you can find a used one at www.*********

it won't let me say ebay. it is www. ebay .com/. it won't let me put them together

Go to the swap meets. I was at an informal swap at my club field and found 4-channel radios for $20.00, .40 engines for $25.00-$50.00 and the airplanes were all very affordable. I've bought a lot of used equipment and saved a ton of money. BTW, I have 6 radios, 2, 4, & 6 channel, and not a computer to be seen, and I don't feel particularly deprived. All I'd use the computer features for is the multiple plane memory anyway, so I wasn't trimming each time I flew a different plane on the same transmitter. Just find out what kind of transmitters are compatible with the instructor's radios at your local club. Some clubs even have a club trainer that you can be learning on while you put your own rig together, and can possibly steer you onto some good used equipment.

well i went to the trainer field and i asked a few old dudes in columbia and they said that the firebird XL is what they started out with if u arent rich, one of them had a sweet Cessna and los of cool planes so im going to buy a firebird XL.

you won't feel deprived because you don't know whta the capabillities are. with a computer radio you are allowed to experiment. you will find things that are usefull to you, and you will be very happy with them. If you try and go back to a non-comp radio, you will understand what you were locking yourself out of, and won't have any desire to use the others again.