I tried to get into electric rc a year ago with a Skyfly & had no luck with it. I felt that the 380 motor was too fast to learn on & the plane broke easily. I want to try again & I think the mini slinger looks like a good choice. The 180 motor ought to be a little slower & the plane looks pretty stout being a "flying wing" design. The prop. in the back is always good too & no landing gear to bend up. I've been practicing a lot on great planes flight sim4 at my LHS & really want to get into electric plane rc. Do you guys think this is a pretty good plane for a beginner?-Thanks.

if you can maintain well controlled flight and land smothely, go ahead. zagis are pretty durable anyway. i went from A SS to a formosa via a sim and i did fine. you will also want to learn how 2 trim yourbplane on a sim too. hope this helps!! pm me if you need help w/ anything!

I disagree.

I have never flown the Mini Slinger, or any flying wing-type plane, but I can't imagine learning to fly on one, though I'm sure it's been done.

I recommend starting with a traditional trainer-style plane such as a Slow Stick or a HobbyZone Super Cub. It is important, in my opinion, to learn on a plane with conventional control surfaces. In addition, traditional trainers are slow, stable, and will even fly "hands off" to some extent. All of these are important when you are learning.

I'm sure you will get plenty of recommendations, and I wish you good luck with your decision.

- Jeff

You can learn to fly on any plane you want. Some planes are easier to fly, though, and make learning easier.

Can anyone who owns a mini-slinger or a flying wing tell me how it's flight characteristics are?

Have you read this [link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/article_display.cfm?article_id=738]review of the Mini Slinger[/link]?

- Jeff

-Yeah, I've read that review. It looks to me that a wing might be a faster flyer than I should start out on, though I'm not sure. They just look pretty durable to me, which would be good.

Get a high wing trainer-type plane to start with. Most of the electric planes with brushed motors and NiMH battery packs don't fly very well (power to weight ratio suffers greatly), you're better off going with a brushless motor & LiPo battery power setup. With that said, the brushed/NiMH powered park flyers from Hobbyzone seem to fly better than most other brushed powered planes I've tried. The Hobbyzone Super Cub (480 motor/gearbox), Aerobird 3 (380 motor), and Firebird Phantom (180 motor), all seem to fly pretty well.

http://www.horizonhobby.com/Products...ProdID=HBZ7100
http://www.horizonhobby.com/Products...ProdID=HBZ3600
http://www.horizonhobby.com/Products...ProdID=HBZ4700

Unless you have tools/workbench and experience building/modifiying you should buy an RTF plane.

Whether a Wild Wing - http://hobbypeople.net/gallery/160525.asp or
a Swift II - http://www.nesail.com/detail.php?productID=5482 or
a Mini Slinger the following pretty much applies to them all ---

"Being almost indestructible, with quick assembly makes SWIFT II a suitable choice for beginners. However, don't be fooled by this, because SWIFT II is a high performance and agile model capable of advanced aerobatics."

One way to determine how interested you are in starting and FINISHING a build project is to read page 2 of the this Wattflyer thread on the Mini Slinger - http://www.wattflyer.com/forums/show...t=22221&page=2

Because the 180 motor that comes with the wing is more for indoor flight or outdoors with NO wind 90% of Mini Slinger owners immediately upgrade the power plant. This is evident from the following excerpts taken from page one. It is not uncommon for parkflyers to get carried away with the need for speed/power. All Wings have a good slope glide ratio for beginner pilots, but as you can read from the following EVEYONE pulls out the 180 brushed motor and goes brushless.

"I really like these planes because they are very forgiving when you wreck, they handle windy conditions when most everyone else is grounded, are very fast with the proper set up and I think they are great trainers."

"My slinger is dead. I let my brother try to fly it. it was sort of windy and my other slinger fell off the car. I went to pick it up and during that brief time I heard ' Oh no! I can't stop! I can't pull out! NO! NOoo!' I saw the mini bounce about 2 ft up. electronics flew everywhere. Tore the motor/battery tray in half with the motor destroying the mount, ESC came off with the velcro and styrofoam still attached, elevon control horn ripped out, winglets broke off along with splintered wood, and the front off the nose is broke, busted and in pieces with some foam missings."

"Both planes are way overpowered, mini even more so. I put the mini into a serious dive and it turned into a duck. I only needed a shotgun. Luckily, it didn't fall apart. I had to reinforce with some carbon rods and now it flies like on rails. Remember Estees rockets and how they blast off? the mini is a rocket with wings."

"I've turned several Mini Slingers into wavy piles of foam using a Speed 280 brushed motor w/stock prop and a 1000mah 3s LiPo."

"My big slinger is dead. I was just plain stupid with it. after I put in the carbon reinforcements, I thought I could do anything... EPP foam might have helped, but this styrofoam and wood didn't hold up to my complete stupidity. hit so hard the rods are bent. might tape her back together, but don't think it will be able to handle stress."

"I pulled my Mini off the wall and went to fly and burned another 280 last night, installed a BB 280 brushed motor thinking it would be better, it smoked during break-in, so I found a bushing brushed cheapo and broke it in and am ready to try again today. I really need to get a brushless set up for it..."

"I flew it with the new 280 motor and it's a screamer again, really a fun little wing. The motor came out of a Great Planes F4U Corsair, I have 2 and built both brushless from the get-go. Stock prop. The motor bolts right in and if you use a 1000mah 3S lipo, it balances perfect."

"BTW this model uses the RC unit (with a elevon mixer added) and battery out of a Esky Lama 4 and works quite good for me on the 2S 7.4v stock LiPo. At 220grams it can fly extremely slow but also get up to quite a speed and I've acheived flight times of 55 mins. with a 1000mAh LiPo."

Yep, I'm coming to the same conclusion that a quick learn beginner with several hours a a good Flight Simulator could buy an E-flite plane and use it as a beginner trainer with the help of an instructor(mandatory). So, if you've got the money to outfit an Edge 540, Mini Showtime, Jenny JN-4, Piper Pawnee, Beaver, etc you could make the jump. However, in most cases parkflyers teach themselves which means lots of crashes and buying replacement parts and making modifications while traveling down the learning curve. If you don't have access to a club field and an instructor you should buy a beginner RTF trainer. It doesn't have to be 3-channel rudder/elevator/throttle. A 3-channel aileron trainer with fixed rudder is just as valid for a beginner plane.

-Can you really go wrong spending $60 for the Firebird Phantom RTF? It looks like it comes with a lot for the money. Maybe I should give this one a shot to learn the basics of flying before buying a plane that's ARF to fly like the mini-slinger.

If you live in a sheltered area and not on a Minnesota or Dakota prairie where too many days are too windy for a HZ Phantom then buy it. The advantage of a brushless wing is that it can penetrate the wind. After you fly the HZ Phantom and eventually get a brushless foamy you will understand much better what penetrating the wind is all about.

I flew the Phantom on a pretty windy day for a demo at a hobby shop last year. I was pretty impressed with it, considering the price. I almost bought one myself to play around with at a local park (I still might)!

There are two things I've heard to watch out for:
[ul][*] The tail boom is weak where the control lines come out to go to the v-tail control surfaces. A few newbies here on RCU said they broke theirs in short order. So you might want to reinforce it. There were instructions somewhere here on RCU telling how to reinforce/fix it just using a piece of carbon fiber rod, dental floss, and some CA glue. Basically you CA glue a CF rod under the weak point (the control line opening), then wrap dental floss around the tail boom and CF rod rod on both sides of the opening, and soak some thin CA into the floss.[*] Turn off the "Anti-Crash" electronics before you fly it (the instructions tell you how to do that). Several guys here at RCU have said the Hobbyzone anti-crash features do more harm than good.
[/ul]

A foamy can handle abuse and still keep ticking. For $60 you can buy two XPV Mini (27 & 49 mhz). You don't need to spend a ton of money as seen in the following two replies.

"My son and I got a chance to fly our XPV Minis inside a medium sized gym the other day. What a hoot. This is the first plane I have owned that could be easily flown inside a gym. Between the two of us we covered most of the air space, let several other people learn to fly and then chased each other around for a while, all on a single charge.

You have to grab one of these planes next time they go on sale for under $20! Even at the regular price around $30 they are a real good deal." - Fisher


"So I go out an buy another XPV Mini and give it to this 70 year old guy who just bought a $100,000 dollar Audi Sports car (the one they advertised during the Super Bowl).

I get a call from him the other day and he is talking about how cool his new car is. He presses a button on the dash and the headers open up and the whole car lowers for sport mode etc....... Once he is done telling me all about how wicked cool his car is and how much he likes it he gets a bit sheepish and tells me that he has just as much fun flying the $14 XPV Mini I gave him as he does driving his car.

I have purchased 6 of these things and they all fly great." - Fisher

You can read more at this Mini XPV thread--
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_54...key_xpv/tm.htm

Those are two channel "toy" planes. The Phantom is a 3 channel plane that is more of a "hobby quality" plane. It does have non-standard electronics (an all-in-one board with the receiver, speed control and servo electonics on one board), but then a replacement fuse with the electronics costs less than most standard receivers alone.

Deleted - Double Post!

I'm leaning more toward the firebird phantom because of it's size & 3 channel capability. The mini xpv's do look really neat to get for flying in my backyard or something for my kids to fly. (they'd have to get it away from me first, though.)

I just pulled out my SkyFly & pieced it back together & found out I need about $25 in parts to get her ready to fly again. I need: a new wing, horizontal stabilizer, vertical stabilizer & a canopy. I think I'll go the cheapest route & give this thing another try for now.