Vapor77

Hello All!

First Post here!

First Off, let me say I can't thank everyone enough here in the forums. I wish I had this back 15 years ago!

Well, I just had to share this story!

I flew glow trainers back about 15 years ago and just a couple months ago decided to get back into the hobby. I decided to stay with electric and small parkflyer aircraft because of the field I fly in (about the size of 3 football fields but surrounded by tall trees around the entire perimeter).

I don't consider myself a beginner but since I had been out of it for awhile I thought I would start out slow and work my way back up. Therefore I bought a 4CH trainer (Begin Air direct from Park Flyers). I decided on this purchase after reading through many reviews and posts and it fit all my requirements (4CH, trainer, basic arobatics, slow flight capable, hand launch capable, belly landing capable - due to tall grass).

I could not be happier with my decision! The plane arrived in excellent condition and fast shipping from parkflyers. I also purchased the Hi-Mag upgrade engine and also the Li-Po battery and charger upgrade. I flew the first 10 flights with the stock 480 powerplant and the stock Ni-MH battery. Performance was adaqute and the battery life was about 10-12 minutes (WOT all the time!).

The Begin-Air is a great 4CH trainer. It will do rolls, loops, inverted flight, figure 8's, etc.) and even a few other manuvers with proper timing. It's not an arobatic or 3D plane by any strech but it is more arobatic than you would think. It also flies pretty fast! Documentation says 50 mph with stock engine and I believe it! However, I will admit that's in a slight dive. The plane is super atable and I have hand launched it the entire time. After I got comfortable with it, it was time to install the Hi-Mag motor and Li-Po batery. The lower voltage of the li-po decreased the power/performance slightly but the higher powered Hi-Mag motor off-set this loss and with this combo it flys basically the same as the stock configuration but now my flight times are extended to about 16-17 minutes (WOT all the time!). No bad tendices, very predictable stall performance, no glitching of any kind, rock solid!

I have now flown this plane for 2 months and have been very happy with it. I have got about 25 flights under my belt without incident. The closest I even came to a "crash" was the very first landing which went a little long since the Begin-Air will glide what seems like forever. It went to the tree line and I pulled full up elevator just before it was about to hit a tree and it hit the side of the tree with the landing gear at just sat down on the ground without a scratch! Since then I have begun my decent much further out and have had no more troubles with the landing. I even began landing with the landing gear in my front yard in tall grass for the last 10 or 12 flights with no issues.

However, all that changed today. I had my first crash today. It was 100% my fault. I got home very late from several family functions and the weather was perfect for flying all day long and I was a bit bummed out by not being able to fly (but family comes first right!). So I get home and th sun had just set behind the tops of the trees. Plenty of daylight left (so I thought!). At first everything was going great just like always. However, it started to become darker and darker. It got to the point where the plane was getting hard to see and this is when my troubles began. I knew better and the thought was going through my mind the whole flight that I should bring her in becasue I could begin to tell I was having a hard time telling the proper orientation of the plane due to the lighting conditions. But I was having so much fun I pressed on (big mistake).

I got the plane up to about 150 feet and very far away from (me beginning to look like a spec in the sky). Even under good lighting conditions this was not a good situation and as dark as it was it was even worse. I completly lost orientation and as I struggeled to get it back it began to go down in a stall. I was beginning to panic at this point and forgot all about cutting the throttle. It went into the tops of dense 50 ft tall trees straight down at full throttle. Even as far away from me as it was I began to hear the most awful sounds a RC pilot can hear due to the echo from the valleys I could hear every last bone jarring smack, crack, thud, and pop. It sounded horrible! It hit what seemed like every branch of about 5 different trees and then since it was still under power it deflected off of the last tree went UP believe it or not clipped the top branch of another 50 ft tall tree then went straight down (still full throttle) and believe it or not drove right into the middle of the only road with miles of my location (asphault at that!). Just my luck! Hundreds of acres of soft tall grass and it had to land right in the middle of an asphault road. When it hit the ground the echo coming up from the valley below sounded like a 22 rifle goin off. CRACK!!! It was finally over. I ran back to the house and jumped into my truck to retrieve the plane before someone came around the blind curve and ran over the thing. Although I'm thinking at this point it won't really matter. I finally get to the plane and what I saw next was just simply unbelievable. The plane was sitting in the middle of the road right side up on its landing gear IN TACT. I could not believe my eyes! I picked up the plane and the only thing wrong with it was the elevator surface was tweaked to one side. I simply twisted back straight and tighten up the two thumb screws and it was good as new. The only other damage (if you want to call it that) was the nose was scuffed where it hit square on the nose and it hit with such impact that it put a slight crease in the fusealage at the up-right. Also I had to tweak (bend) one of the landing gear wires a little to straighten it. That was it! Believe it or not it was ready to fly again right then and there! I took it back to the house and lokked over it carefully and checked all the control surfaces and the throws. No problems found at all! I was still in amazement.

All I had read on the forums about the durability of this plane was right on! The pusher prop set-up saved me! I didn't even get the dreaded prop hit on the trailing edge! Still in amazement!

The only other thing I noticed was that the li-po battery (which is munted in the nose, which by far took the brunt of the collision) had a slight "crush on one corner (very small). It didn't puff up and it took a charge no problem! It flies as if nothing ever happened!

Simply amazing!

If any of you are wondering about purchasing this plane it has my absolute recommendation!

Sorry for the extremely long post but just had to share this story with someone.

Oh yeah, one note, I did tape the wings and all leading edges with clear packing tape so this might have helped the survivability.

I am once again hooked on this hobby and just purchased a full DX6 system and an accu cycle elite charger both here on the RCUniverse marketplace used and got great deals on both.

I am now about to purchase my next plane. Seriously considering the mini ultra stick (flew some sticks back in the day, they were a blast to fly). Also looking hard at the mini pulse XT. Also teh airfoilz edge. Just too many choices out there!

Thanks for listening to my long rant but just had to get that off my chest.

Happy Flying!!

SackOHammers

Hey, this is a great story. Thanks for sharing. Sounds like if I ever decide to move to four channel that this would be a good trainer.

Vapor77

I believe you would love it.

Don't let the 4CH scare you. In my opinion it's easier to fly than 3CH. I always tell people just go for it. I've had people with little to no flight experience at the controls of this plane after I have gotten them plenty of altitude and most pick it up quickly.

I don't think you can do much better thatn the Begin-Air for an aileron trainer!

Vapor77

Well,

I didn't get out as lucky as I thought I had in the above mentioned crash.

Evidently when the plane hit on its nose (full throttle straight down onto asphault road) it damaged the li-po battery pack (mounted directly in the nose of the fuselage).

I was charging the pack after the crash and noticed it was taking alot longer than normal to charge but I did get the green light on the charger indicating that peak voltage had been obtained. So I go to fly today and when I powered up the plane everything worked as normal but when I went to throttle it up it would barely turn the prop and the ESC was making a continuous series of beeps. At first I thought it was the ESC but I remembered the trouble of charging the battery pack and was suspicious of it.

I pulled it out and inspected it and noticed one of the corners of the battery had been smashed in a little. Based on my suspision, I put the stock Ni-MH battery in it and sure enough it worked. Already put another Li-Po pack on order (oh well, still not bad considering the above mentioned crash).

But the story doesn't end there!

With the stock NiMH battery I go to fly and all is well. I make about four laps around the field checking things out performing a couple loops and a short inverted stint. All seems well until all the sudden it sounded like the motor just quit in mid flight. At first I thought no big deal just glide it in since the Begin-Air glides forever. Problem was I was really too close to the landing area when it happened but was afraid if I went out and then tried to bring it back I might not get it back with no power so I brought her around and began my approach (another mistake) I could tell I was coming in too fast and it did not want to set down (wanted to keep gliding). Too late, commited now with no power to get out of it. Landed in my drive way but carrying WAY too much speed. WHERE'S THE BRAKES!! Hit the rear tire of my dad's truck and proceeded under his truck. Nearly pulled the wing clean off the plane!

Once again as a testament to how durable this plane is, I retrieve it and all that is wrong with it is the elavator surface is tweaked to one side again (easy to straighten back up). And a couple of the rubber bands were broken that hold the wing on. That was it! I'm telling you the packaging tape on the leading edges works wonders!

Now back to my engine stopping mid air (or so I thought). I begin to inspect the plane to find out what happened - crap! where's the prop! The sound I heard was the motor slinging the prop off at full throttle. Apparantly, the plastic prop had stripped from the previous crash. Luckily I already have two spare props that I ordered with the plane.

Lucky agian I guess you could say. A few new rubber bands and I'm back in the air again.

It's been one of those weeks!

SackOHammers

Man, that does sound like one tough bird. I'll also have to remember if/when I ever auger in that hard that I do a thorough check of everything.
I wouldn't want to be the recipient of a slung prop... embedding itself in flesh or something valuable. haha

Good stories... although they're entertaining... we don't want to hear anymore stories about crashing. For your own good. No more crashing. Tell us about some amazing acrobatic feats. hehe

Leo L

Vapor,

Thanks for posting your experience. Very good reading and a very good testament to the plane.

The E-flite Mini UltraStick (MUS) would definitely be a good choice for your next plane. That, or the ParkZone Typhoon.

If you want to really plan ahead, the plane after the MUS/Typhoon should be the E-flite MiniFuntanaX. Its the big rage at my field right now with four flyers currently flying it. My wife bought me one for Christmas, but I wasn't ready for it at that time. I'm now starting to assemble it.