hey! i live in a small area. i am looking for a good airplane that is fairly cheap (-130) that would be good for a small area. particularly im looking for something durable. but on webbsites you can never tell what the wings are made of. i am looking for something with a plastic-covered-styrofoam wing, and if possible, a foam fuselage so that a little um....yeah....water landing wouldnt hurt it too much. um....dont mention that in a reply....i know im gonna get busted on for saying "im gonna land an airplane in water!" but oh well.

The price is very limiting... $120 including radio and engine? You can barely get a decent 4-ch radio for that.

durrable and cheap airframe... look at www.spadtothebone.com. There's electric power versions showing up now too. (plus some designs easilly convert to electric using foamboard to replace the coroplast... foamboard is lighter.)

The airplane can be made waterproof... the radio... not so easy. Try not to hit the water. (until you have a float-plane... [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img] )

ill try to avoid the water. im not gonna be doin any middle-of-the-lake landings or anything, but when im flying it might get its nose wet. do you have any suggestions for a plane? foam isnt a must...but it could help. ive been looking at the mini piper and the air vector. anyone got any info on these? the review of the mini piper looks cool. but id like some info from someone thats not a reviewer. lol... and the air vector seems pretty cool, but is it durable???

i got 150

Check the Dec. 2002 RC Modeler for a review of Toytronix's Hawk 3 electric outfit. Also, Toytronix's ad has been running in their mag for some time now and shows a pic of the Hawk 3. The company's website is www.toytronix.com The Hawk 3 costs $130. complete w/3-channel radio, crashproof plane, a spare wing, spare tail, extra props plus has a good-sized 380 motor, built-in speed control (for when you upgrade later to a transmitter with proportional throttle), 2 nicad packs, etc.

To keep the cost down, they made the receiver a 3-channel, but only used two proportional channels on the transmitter (1-rudder and 1-elevator), but used a simple on-off switch for the motor. And, with a bright orange finish, a large 40" wingspan, landing gear AND a no-crash-damageable pusher-prop design, it's got the whole shebang going for it.

I got one of the first ones last spring and just love it. DO buy the optional field charger for $30. more as it not only handles NiCADs and Nickle Metal Hydride battery packs, but will DISCHARGE the packs first, then automatically start charging them so the NiCADs don't take a "memory" set like what happens when you use a charge-only charger. And, it works on both 120 volts AC (home) as well as 12 volts DC (car), so you can recharge the first pack while you're flying on the 2nd pack.

The other economy thing I did was to buy two 4-packs of Nickel Metal Hydride AA batteries at Wal-Mart for the transmitter (it takes 8 AA batteries), then went to Radio Shack and bought a cheap battery holder that holds 8 AA batteries plus I bought an extra twin-lead connector that mates to the field charger. I soldered this connector onto the positive and negative contact points on the battery holder so it just plugs into the field charger's connector. This way, instead of spending countless bucks on replacement AA batteries for the transmitter, I can recharge them the same as I do with the receiver packs, then pop them out of the battery holder and right into the back of the transmitter.

As a handcapped senior who did not want to mess with building or drop a large wad the first time out, I'm quite satisfied with the Hawk 3 package. Check it out!! Good luck. (And no, I am not paid to hype this plane, but having worked for 20 years as a computer systems configuration specialist, I did a lot of research on most of the others before buying this system. There are others similar packages out there, but most of these planes are smaller and rapidly get a bit hard to see which way they are heading when they get out over 100 feet away, plus NONE had a 40" wing and bright orange for this complete, ready-to-fly price.) John

If you can strech the budget to $200... you can get a low end 4-ch radio, a MAgnum XL .40, and build a "SPADET-LC40" (Free plans at www.spadtothebone.com ) And still have a little left over for fuel.

The 4-ch radio will transfer EASILLY to other planes. The Magnum engine will survive several years (unless you smash it in a crash... ) The SPADET is a nice looking trainer.... (and introduces you to the wonderful world of recycling signs to make airplanes. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img] )

Your obvious option is the T-52 trainer by JKaerotech, it's easy to fly, small, indistructable, and CHEAP!
www.JKaerotech.com
I have NO affiliation with them I just know it's a great bang around model.

Best of luck.
Scott