New pilot
 

I've been debating between a gas or electric for my first airplane, i've been looking more into electric, but i just saw an add for a tower trainer 40 RTR for $259 and all that i need is about $100 in extras to get it in the air, i have a few gas cars so i'm not completly new to the r/c gas world, i also purchased realflight g3.5 a few weeks ago so i have countless hours on that,

just looking for some opinions on weither i should go with gas or electric

thanks

RE: New pilot
 

Hi

Go for the gas trainer, the one thing you need when learning to fly is plenty of flying time, unless you buy a lots of batteries and are constantly charging your not going to achieve that with electric planes.

Simon

RE: New pilot
 

Do you have access to a club/instructor? The glow is more fun for me and most electrics that are worth having are very expesive. The others are underpowered toys. Keep in mind this is just my opinion.

RE: New pilot
 

Real airplanes make noise and puke oil! Enough said.

RE: New pilot
 

Light weight electrics are more at the mercey of the wind and there will be many days too windy to fly electric when Nitro would be fine,

RE: New pilot
 

besides why go electric when you could go nitro and smeel them sweet fumes :D

RE: New pilot
 

thanks for everyones opinions, does anyone think that this plane would be a good starter (it's the same one i mentioned up top)

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...=LXCXF4**&P=ML

RE: New pilot
 

I had one, but just sold it. I relly liked the plane and it will do anyone fine for anything. Their are alot of trainers out their and I have used a few of them and they all seem to be fine. Myself, I did not like the the tower engine that comes with it because it was very hard for me to get it set to run right. I am told if you get the engine running right and broke in it is a great engine. However instead of messing with the tower engine I just sold it and put and O.S. in it. The O.S. is more user friendly for me.

RE: New pilot
 

It's a good beginner package. Stable flyer at reasonable price with no "gimmicks" added. A lot of experienced pilots keep a trainer in their hangar. I managed to crash mine last fall due to servo failure. It was 15 years old.

RE: New pilot
 

There simply is no difference between flying gas or electro for a beginner. You can fly the same big trainer electric. Wether or not a plane is stable or sensetive to wind, has nothing to do with the engine that's in it, but it's size. There are plenty of .40 size electric engine replacements.

Gas is cheaper to start with, tho you have to take fuel costs into consideration as well. If you fly a lot (>300 flights a year) electric is even cheaper.

If i were to begin again now, I would go electric. Simply because it's cleaner, the engine doesn't quit on you and (if you fly as much as I do) it's cheaper.

It's simply not true that you can get more flying time with a gas engine. It's all a matter of how much money you got to spend on batteries.

RE: New pilot
 

Other factors aside, at the end of a flight for glow, you refuel, start your engine and off you go. For electric, you need to pull the wing off or a battery hatch and either replace the batteries or plug in a charger and wait 45 minutes to an hour before you can fly again. An instructor might have other new flyers waiting and not have the time to wait for your batterys to charge back up. Considering that 6 flights is considered a basic days flying then you would need 6 fully charged packs to last the day if you want to replace the packs instead of waiting for a recharge. 6 packs that are large enough to rival a 40 size glow engine in power is very expensive. At the end of the day you would have to recharge all your packs as well as your transmitter pack. Does E power still sound like the way to go?!?[8D]

RE: New pilot
 

The Tower Trainer 40 is an excellent trainer. But get the ARF and put a Thunder Tiger Pro 46 or an OS AX 46 on the nose instead of the RTF Tower Engine. The Tower engines can be tuned, but they take more fiddlin'.

Brad

RE: New pilot
 

Your figures are incorrect and, as i stated, it's all a matter of investing in the right equipment and batteries.

If you buy a charger that can charge your batteries at 2C (use balancer) and 2 battery packs, you can do 2 flights (say 30 minutes together) and then take a 15 minute break, do 2 flights, and so on. If you want to fly even more, you buy 3 packs and 2 chargers.. then you can fly continiously.

If you fly so much that every minute count, electric would even be a better choice. When properly charged with a balancer, a current Lipo will last for 2 years.

It's all a matter of money. If you don't fly much or don't want a high initial investment, gas is the better choice (imho). If you're going to fly a lot and don't mind a high initial investment, if it means you'll save money in the long run, electric is the better choice.

In the end you'll probably end up doing both.

RE: New pilot
 

Hi hezik

I didn't say you couldn't get the same flying time with electric, i said it was far easier to achieve with glow engines.

in theory not normally in practice to constantly fly:

with nicads or nimetal hydrides i believe you need 3 packs 1 cooling 1 charging and 1 flying.

with lipos i think you would need 6 packs and 5 chargers.


I do fly electric and glow.

Simon

RE: New pilot
 

What you choose for a power system depends on your particular needs, preferences and circumstances. I went for small electrics because storage and transportation space is tight and the nearest "real" field is further away than I really want to drive frequently. Also, the house is occupied by females who will not tolerate anything smelly indoors (except themselves of course....).

RE: New pilot
 

3 packs and 2 chargers will do. You don't have to top the lipo's off when charging, just omit the last 15%, since it takes 50% of the charge time.

For instance, say you want 3500mAh flying capacity. Then buy 4000mAh packs and charge them with 8A (using a balancer) to about 3500 mAh. That will take somewhat less than half an hour. So fly, charge, fly, charge, fly charge.. you can fly continiously that way.

It's not really easier to achieve with glow engines, its cheaper. Unless you fly a lot, in which case electric will be cheaper in the long run.

RE: New pilot
 

So what do you do you guys use for power at the field?!? We had power at our field for free at our field for a few years as a good will jesture because we didn't use much power but then they cut us off. Now its either use your car battery or ........???

RE: New pilot
 

You might pick up an old truck battery somewhere. Car battery is an option, but it might be wise to have the car run while charging, to prevent depleting the battery.

On our field we have a huge truck battery connected to a charger connected to mains. That way ppl can draw heavy currents. I guess that's a luxury.

RE: New pilot
 

Hi hezic again

I'd been sort of wondering about that had noticed the the charge rate goes very low then takes ages before the alarm sounds.

Will try that next time, thanks

Simon