Hi folks - I learned to fly on a regular trainer. I eventually crashed this and based on advise from this forum I did not buy a warbird for my second plane even though I wanted to. Instead I bought a super Sportster 40. After a few months with my Super Sportster will I be ready for a warbird? If so is there anything I should avoid? I have always wanted a Zero.

My first two planes have been ARTF. I want to build a kit next - would a warbird be a very difficult thing to learn kit building on as compared to some other planes? Should I just go ARTF for the warbird too? I know Flair do a very nice (but expensive) Zero ARF plane.

TIA,
Photoniq.

Unfortunately, there aren't too many kits available for a Zero. I am just finishing up a Marutaka Zero but I wouldn't recommend it for a first kit. I can, however, highly recommend the Great Planes P-51 kit. It is not difficult to build and is the nicest looking of all of the sport-scale P-51s out there. It is also a very nice flying and easy to land bird. No bad flight characteristics at all. If you should choose this kit, I would also recommend that you build it with fixed gear and forgo the complexity of fussing with retract gear. Learn to fly this one and save the retracts for a next, more scale warbird.

Thanks for your reply Steve. I am exactly in the same position as I was when choosing my second plane again i.e. your heart wants you to go one way and your head says go another. I am talking about the choice of retracts vs fixed undercarriage. I will definitely go with fixed undercarriage as you suggest. I fly off of grass and I am not confident of having the skills (even in 3 months) to land it without breaking the (expensive) retracts.

I will keep the P-51 in mind, particularly given your comments about it being a nice intro to the world of kit building. To be honest though, I wanted something a little less common (which is why I am avoiding the spitfire too).

photoniq

Kyosho makes perhaps the best looking/ most scale accurate .40 size warbird ARFs, and they make a retract ready Zero. By all accounts I have read, the Kyosho ARFS are relatively light and easy to fly.

An alternative, is the funscale .40 sized Zero ARF, which is not retract ready, made by a company called SeaGull. If retracts are not important to you on your first warbird, this may be the best choice, as it would be the easiest to fly.

In my opinion tho, the best all around .40 size, retact ready, 1st warbird ARF is the Great Planes AT6. At about $170, it is a great value for an easy to fly, acrobatics capable AND scale flight capable, rugged warbird ARF. AND, you could always transform it into a 'Hollywood Zero' by recovering it and adding a Zero canopy. For those that don't know, a Hollywood Zero is an AT-6 whch has been slightly modified and repainted so that it closely resembles a Zero. These are the aircraft that are seen in Tora Tora Tora, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Midway, and other movies/ TV shows.

CorsairJock,

Apparently you missed the statement in the original post stating that he wants to build from a kit for his 3rd plane. I too would have recommended a number of ARFs except for that stated desire.

You are right, I missed it, so sorry.

Well, in THAT case, there is the Wing Mfg. Zero: a .40 sized sport scale warbird which you can build with or without retacts, and easy to build and easy to fly and durable foam wing kit. Now available in either the old 'short kit' version OR the new laser cut ful kit version.

Photoniq,
Have you ever considered something from Skyshark? I am building a kit from them right now and it is my first plane. I am flying a trainer right now and am getting a low wing ARF while I am working on this. But I have the fw190a8 kit and it has been really easy for me to build. The instructions are not as good as I think they could be, but good enough to be me through it so far. They do have a japanese Aichi Val which has a fixed landing gear so that you are not tempted with the retracts. Can't really compare to any other kits as I havn't had any experiece with other kits to this point. Anyways, hope this gives you something else to look at.

Do you guys think I am much better off with an ARTF than with an kit? It seems there is much more variety in the ARTF market...

You might want to try an ARF first. I am just now getting used to my H9 150 size P-51. I've been flying for two years now, and can fly the wings off my Extra 300, Pizazz and Nobler- but the warbird is a different animal entirely. By the way the P-51 is my first ARF- someone gave me the Pizazz after crashing it.

The H9 P-51 is supposed to be very forgiving- and it does fly well. But it wants a long rollout on takeoff. And landings are much hotter than I am used to. And yes it will tip-stall if you let it balloon too much on landing. And while you can get away with "banking and yanking" it actually needs a little rudder to turn nicely. And I am still getting used to working the retract and flap controls...

So far my Mustang has survived my "learning curve" without a major mishap and I am starting to get comfortable with it. I know I would have been a nervous wreck learning to fly it after spending 3-6 months building it!

But... my next warbird will be a kit

I undestand that skyshark kits are awesome but that the instructions are less than complete and they assume the builder knows certain techniques. I guess this means it would be no good for me eh?

I just finished my second Top Flite P-47 kit. I realy fun and nice kit I think. You can take a look at my site and se some pictures of the kit while I was building it.

Sorry if my english istnt that good but hope you will understand anyway if you read the text on my website.

[link=http://www.henrikrosen.com/NewP47.htm]Top-Flite P-47 Gold Edition[/link]

We don't recommend our warbird kits for a first time builder. They are very easy to frame up but they are fully sheeted - which is the most difficult part of building. We don't explain how to sheet a plane, although we do give instructions on how to apply the sheeting to the different areas so it will lay correctly. We also don't go into detail about installing servos, receiver, battery pack, fuel tank and engine. You can download our instruction manuals on our website if you want to take a look for yourself. The Val and ME109E are the newest kits and will have the most complete manuals. If you are still considering one after reading over the manual, I would stay away from the Stuka, Dauntless and the Avenger - they are the most difficult to build because of flaps and other more complex areas. Otherwise, our kits all build using the same techniques.

Mike Grey
Skyshark R/C

Mike - i'd probably have a word with the folks at skylark if i were you.. they have the dauntless down as a model which only requires basic building skills... I had been considering it since there are some really good build threads I can follow along with on another forum. I think i will wait until i have built another kit first. I will eventually buy one though - i have just heard TOO many awesome things about skyshark