A Trainer Not to be Overlooked!!
 

Yesterday I had the pleasure of flying a Carl Goldberg Protege 60. Having been a flight instructor for some time now I have flown many different trainers and was expecting more of the same. In actuality, the Protege delivered quite the opposite. The first thing I noticed about the airplane was how well it handled. The Protege is very responsive while still maintaining very smooth maneuvering characteristics. Many trainers are either terribly unresponsive or "twitchy," but the designers of the Protege managed to strike a perfect balance between response and controllability for beginners. The wind was gusting slightly, but the Protege took it in stride and penetrated the gusts very well for a trainer; It wasn't like a hot knife through butter like some large aerobats, but very good nonetheless. For those of you who are past the buddy box the Protege can still deliver a delightful flight. This airplane does not immediately "balloon" when increasing the throttle. In fact, the airplane gently noses up and climbs steadily just like it should. After I climbed way up (it wasn't my airplane, so I didn't do anything low) I did some rolls and inverted circuits. After I was satisfied at the airplane's roll rate and rudder authority I did some rolling circles. They weren't the prettiest since the airplane was so high I couldn't feel "plugged in" to it. Like I mentioned, this was not my airplane, so I didn't want to disrespect the owner by doing this lower. This trainer actually has the rudder authority for some good looking hammerheads if you keep a little throttle on it. It doesn't need loads of opposite aileron input in the hammerhead because the low amount of dihedral cuts down on roll coupling with rudder. The only thing I noticed is that at some attitudes the airplane overrotated slightly in the rolls. This could also have been partially because I'm used to my fast coreless digitals - I'm not sure.

Anyway, this airplane is for students and intermediate pilots alike - Don't overlook it!

RE: A Trainer Not to be Overlooked!!
 

What a remarkable coincidence, I just started flying a Goldberg Protege .60 ARF recently! (Nathan flew mine):

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_7662195/tm.htm

It's worth also pointing toward MinnFlyer's excellent review of the Protege .60 ARF here at RCU:

http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/a...article_id=901

Unfortunately Tower Hobbies has the Protege .60, along with several other Goldberg ARFs, listed as "Temporarily Unavailable." I'm only guessing, but I think they wanted to sell out the existing inventory because they were covered with Ultracote/Oracover. Now that they're "temporarily unavailable," Hobbico is (hopefully) ordering another run of ARFs but the new ones will likely be covered with Monokote.

The Protege .60 ARF, Senior Falcon ARF, and Skylark 70 ARF are all on "Temporarily Unavailable" status and all three are wonderful airframes. Hopefully they'll be back in stock soon with one kind of covering or another.

RE: A Trainer Not to be Overlooked!!
 

Hey, that's my airplane in the background of the first pic!! How'd it get there? :eek:

.......And my fuel jug was full. Three flights after that picture was taken my jug needs replacement. [:@]

RE: A Trainer Not to be Overlooked!!
 

I think Goldberg airplanes are WAY too overlooked by most fliers. I have a Senior Falcon from the 1970's (it even has a Webra 10ccm <0.61> engine on it!) w/ a 70" wingspan and a 14" chord and if I had a nickle for everyone that's told me "Hey! I learned to fly on that!"; well, I'd have a big sack of nickles..... ;) Goldberg makes some REALLY nice quality planes that (at least mine!) last FOREVER and are DURABLE beyond belief!!!! They're just GOOD QUALITY PLANES! Plain and simple. Any plane that is older than my wife and STILL flying after all the "learning wrecks" REDEFINES the word "DURABLE" :D

I love mine to death! I just got rid of it's central "bellcrank" aileron mechanism and replaced it with 1 servo per aileron. Of course at the SAME time, I pulled the fuel tank out (...actually "chopped" would be a more accurate word) so I'm going to have to wait for my new tank to get delivered before I see how the servo/ailerons act.

I got it as a "gift" from my father-in-law and he SMASHED that thing into the ground enough times to turn ANY OTHER plane into a pile of splinters; this thing is a WARHORSE !!!!

Goldberg is even SO COOL that when I called them and explained that I had a 1970's Sr. Falcon and would LOVE some of the ORIGINAL decal logos for it, they sent them to me free of charge with a letter saying how good it was to hear that a 30+ year plane THEY BUILT was still flying strong!

I'm not knocking other trainers. I have a great Tower 60 and even an old SkyBox Fly40 "trainer" (until this plane, I had NO idea that you could use bathroom silicone to repair a plane..... i swear i'm not kidding! [X(] -> but it was free after someone happend to "hit the ground with the wheels" vs "landing" and split the fuselage. It took me about 2-3 LAZY hours to fix and now, so hey, FREE PLANE!). All the planes fly very well, but the Falcon is just something special

Goldberg is a TOP QUALITY company that makes a GREAT PRODUCT !

RE: A Trainer Not to be Overlooked!!
 

I'm glad Ed pointed out my review of this fabulous airplane (Or I would have done it myself)

I was HIGHLY impressed with the Protege

In fact, I sold it to a guy in my club and it's his favorite plane.

Personally, I think Goldberg has one of the best hangars in the business. Not a dog in the bunch!

RE: A Trainer Not to be Overlooked!!
 

I must agree. I have a Goldberg Tiger 120, Goldberg Protege, and a Goldberg Skylark 70. All three fly just great. I went a step further with the Progege and used an OS .75 AX engine. WOW!! The review that Mike (Minnflyer) did pointed out that the plane flew just fine with the .55 AX but one was not available when I bought the ARF, but a .75 AX was. So, I bought that one and used it. It is a great engine and plane combination. One thing that totally blew me away with this was that it balanced perfectly pretty much "right out of the box". No additional weight was necessary. And this thing flys as good as anything else I own.. well, almost... :D

The only problem I have, if it's is in fact a problem, with one of my Goldbergs, is that the CG for the Tiger 120 was pretty difficult to set. I ended up using over a pound of stick-on lead in the nose to get it to balance out ok. But, that plane has an OS 1.20 AX and flys just like the rest of the Tiger lineup, and just as well as the rest of the Goldbergs. Just fine.

And my Skylark 70 with OS .75 AX.. well, that thing is on rails. Just a fine aircraft.

Yup. The Goldberg line-up has many winners and, so far as I could tell, and I've owned a few, none on the bad side. All great aircraft.

And, interestingly enough, I would use the Protege as a trainer, I like it that much, and it is easy enough to fly. With a buddy box, this would be a fine choice because when treated like a trainer, it will do it all. Then, for more advanced flyers, add a tad more throw and a more agressive flying, and it will behave like a more advanced aircraft. In my opinion, a good choice for sure.

CGr.

RE: A Trainer Not to be Overlooked!!
 

O.K. I'm interested in the Protege. Where might they be purchased since Tower has them on backorder? Tower shows a price of $149.99 (ARF)..... I would bet that when they come in at Tower the price will be a lot more!!!!

My favorite trainer to date is the Alpha 60 (ARF) and I purchased it for $159.00 and now they are at $219.00. [:'(] "WoW' nice jump in price!

These hobby stores are driving me out of rc flying fast. Where's a black market out there?

Any thoughts?

Thanks

RE: A Trainer Not to be Overlooked!!
 

Won't Tower allow you to backorder and get the current price?

$149 is reasonable for that plane. I got mine through our local hobby shop and he got it for me at the tower price, including shipping.

CGr.

Just checked. Tower doesn't list it as back-order so I guess it's a waiting game thing.

Isn't Goldberg getting picked up by Great Planes? Maybe that's the hold-up.

CGr.

RE: A Trainer Not to be Overlooked!!
 

CG......... You are probably right on all counts...... I think I will see if Tower will give it to me at the current listed price...........

My local store in Arizona will match Tower's prices on some things but we always have to pay sales tax. (10% AZ) Free shipping with Tower, no tax.

CG where do you get your fuel from?

I'm here in Montana for the summer and there is only on hobby store within 400 miles and they have not had any 15% airplane fuel for some time. Same with my local store back in AZ or I would have some of my bud's pick me up a case!

THANKS

RE: A Trainer Not to be Overlooked!!
 

Add high wind stability to the long list of the Protege .60 ARF's virtues.

We had our club's annual Labor Day Air Show yesterday to benefit Make-A-Wish of Nebraska. As proof that no good deed goes unpunished, prevailing winds were 20 to 25 mph from the S/SE with 30 to 35 mph gusts.

Since it was to benefit charity, I went ahead and flew the Protege .60 ARF in a couple of segments of the air show. It got up and down easily with little negative effect from the wind.

RE: A Trainer Not to be Overlooked!!
 

I broke out my Protege, been in moth balls for a year. Converted it to tail dragger, put an OS 70 on it and flew it this weekend. Flys just the way I remembered it, maybe a bit under powered with the 70, an 82 or 90 may be better. But it's a great relaxing plane to fly, lands on rails. I also put an 18 oz tank in it to extend flying time.

RE: A Trainer Not to be Overlooked!!
 

Wow! What is your longest flight time with an 18 oz tank and a .70 4-stroke, Munk Dog? I'd guess that plane could fly for 45 minutes to an hour on a tank with proper throttle management.

RE: A Trainer Not to be Overlooked!!
 

So far, I haven't flown it to dead stick. Just getting re-familiar with the plane. But I plan on taking it to the limits this weekend!! I will let you know........

RE: A Trainer Not to be Overlooked!!
 

I agree. I hope the Tower conglomerate buy-out won't or hasn't already killed them.

I have a Goldberg Hot Stik and it's a fantastic flier (NOT a trainer, though). I always liked the Falcon 56 and Sr. Falcon. From back when there were trainers and THEN you moved up to aileron trainers, then low wing trainers. Folks had more patience in the past. :D

RE: A Trainer Not to be Overlooked!!
 

I agree that CG makes durable products. My buddy picked up a CG Heritage Series Skylane 62 as his second plane (first being a Hangar 9 P-51 Mustang PTS, that he recently soloed). His instructor took him up on the buddy box for it's maiden. Very quick and responsive with an Evolution .46 engine swinging an 11x7 prop. It had a beautiful maiden until the landing. He had been having some issues with the nose gear on the grass airfield, and on landing, the airplane landed beautifully, but nosed over and flipped the plane on it's lid. The result, no damage done. Here's the pic:
http://www.davisbridgeaeromodelers.c...ylane_oops.JPG

Happy flying.