I need trainer/help?

Any wind is too much. Buy a REAL plane.

I'm Los Angeles area, can somebody help me? Probably.

Should I join AMA? Yes. And a local club, too. Look at

for an AMA listing of clubs in your area.

IMO, most small "park flyer" types are harder to control than larger glow fuel or even larger electric planes.

Good luck with it. Dr.1 Driver "There's a Hun in the sun!"

| >Bought aerobird challenger, seems too hard to control. May be it's too windy | >that day. | | Any wind is too much. Buy a REAL plane.

The Aerobird is a real plane. It's even got three channels.

Some of the best times I've had flying have been with planes with two (slopers, mostly) and three channels.

| I'm Los Angeles area, can somebody help me? | Probably. | | Should I join AMA? | Yes. And a local club, too. Look at

for an AMA listing | of clubs in your area.

Allow me to play the devil's advocate ...

The AMA will offer insurance, but a homeowners or renters insurance policy probably will too. A local club will probably provide a place to fly, but they very well may make fun of your choice of plane, and they may also work on drawing you all the way into the hobby, with all the costs that that entails.

If all you want to do is fly in the local park, neither the AMA nor a full fledged club is going to offer much. A little assistance from somebody more familiar with the hobby will help though -- they can check over your plane, make sure it flies well (so you know that any problems are you and not the plane) and help you get through the problems you're having.

| IMO, most small "park flyer" types are harder to control than larger glow fuel | or even larger electric planes.

Yes and no. Your standard 0.40 trainer flies a good deal faster than this plane does, and is much less crash resistant. And with generous dihedral, it'll be more self-correcting than most four channel planes. The biggest problem I've had with these sorts of planes have been the very limited control authority -- but for a beginner, limited control authority is a good thing, as long as the plane is trimmed right to begin with. But it's very hard for an absolute beginner to trim a plane right or to even realize that it's not trimmed right ...

In article , Doug McLaren wrote: ... | | Any wind is too much.

I forgot to comment on this.

As an absolute rule, you never fly in wind faster than the top speed of your plane -- because you'll lose it downwind immediately.

Slower than that, it becomes an issue of how much wind you can fly with, with how much turbulence you can handle. Trainers and other planes with limited control authority are at a big advantage in heavy winds, because they can't recover from bumps in time before they smack into the ground. Also, smaller planes are at a disadvantage, because a given bump will knock them more out of control then they would a larger plane.

I don't know how fast these planes fly, but I've seen them and they weren't that slow -- perhaps 30 mph? If so, a 10 mph wind shouldn't be too much of a problem if you know what you're doing. But certainly, if you're not very experienced with the plane, the less wind the better.

As to joining the AMA, I may get flamed for this, but if you are going to keep your activities confined to small electrics at parks and such, I fail to see the reason for joining the AMA. If you decide to go with larger planes, and glow power, than yes, you need to join the wonderful organization known as the AMA, because you will need to be tought by an instructor at a club, and you will be needing to fly at club fields. Try flying in the very early morning or the last half hour of daylight when there is no wind, and let us know how your aerobird flies in this condition.

Join the AMA! It's not just the insurance! Nearly all clubs will require it. The clubs will provide you with new friends who will be very helpful and a flying field which will assure you have a place designed to fly. Ignore the boobirds who are too cheap to join either AMA or a club. They spend hundreds on airplanes but won't spend a few bucks a year to belong to a great organization which got us the frequencies we use, etc. You may decide to move up to a different aircraft some day. Most clubs have members who are instructors and will be happy to help you if you are a member. The benefits far outweigh the 'cheapos' who are loners and don't join anything. Fly Safe! Have Fun!!

The little aerobirds should not be sold to beginners in my opinion. They are very difficult to control and any amount of wind is awful. A good .40 powered trainer flies much better and is easier to learn on but you will have to join a club to have a good safe place to fly it. And besides, the club will have instructors. DONT try to learn without an instructor. You'll crash and get discouraged. With an instructor and a buddy box you'll solo in no time!

All trainers should be electric! (not small and flimsy, but electric in the .40 size)

I first started on .40 glow, with instructor, and I dont know how many deadstick landings we had to do because either the plane came in too fast, or the idle became unreliable, so going round for a second attempt wasnt an option.

Now I have a .40 that could idle all day and still respond to a full throttle, but the one in the trainer was awful.

Anyway, all who started on that trainer became masters of deadstick landings (and that's not a bad thing) but it wasn't too fun in the beginning when you had a strong tailwind and a 1/2 mile to the field. and low altitude....

Well, it isn't cheap, but I dont expect the beginners to buy it, I was thinking more like the club trainer (it was the club trainer that was unreliable, not my first plane). And for a trainer type, you wont need 3D capability, just decent airspeed...

And it is a bit on the expensive side as a club trainer too, but that is money invested, not wasted. And I'm willing to go down a bit in size from the .40, but not too much for visability. Once the money is invested, electric flying is cheap, clean and reliable, and with a few extra batterys, there is virtually no ground time, and that's a good thing when you have a group of people waiting for airtime.

The club trainer I was flying had an old OS .40, and it was tuned by the book by the club's expert (although many others claimed to be experts too), it was old and abused, and finally the club instructor flew it into the steel container we use as a garage at our field, he claimed it was radio malfunktion, my guess is that he was fed up with the oil soaked bastard that never did run, and just shortened the lifespan of it...

Everyone at the field was happy to see it go, and finally the club got a new trainer from the guy owning the local hobby shop, a shiny new plane that had been sitting on the shelf a couple of years, and a .40 he had to take back because he and the guy buying it never got it to run right... This one does idle, but it doesnt give the rev's you could expect, and it doesnt have any real power...

Still it was a bargain, it was a gift!

| All trainers should be electric! (not small and flimsy, but electric in the | .40 size)

Electics do have a cost sweet-point ... and let me tell you, 0.40 sized is much larger than it. A decent electric 0.40 sized trainer and the stuff needed to fly it will cost you a lot more than a similar glow setup. Also, it's nice if a trainer has a bit more power than is needed -- and in an electric, that's often hard to get.

| I first started on .40 glow, with instructor, and I dont know how many | deadstick landings we had to do because either the plane came in too fast,

Going too fast causes deadsticks?

| or the idle became unreliable, so going round for a second attempt wasnt an | option. | | Now I have a .40 that could idle all day and still respond to a full | throttle, but the one in the trainer was awful.

Sounds like you just had a bad engine.

| Anyway, all who started on that trainer became masters of deadstick landings | (and that's not a bad thing) but it wasn't too fun in the beginning when you | had a strong tailwind and a 1/2 mile to the field. and low altitude....

One of the first things a good instructor will teach you is to never fly far enough away without enough altitude that you couldn't get back to the field if the engine died RIGHT NOW. It's going to be less important for an electric, but things do go wrong there too -- I've certainly landed a few electrics that I could have sworn had a prop at the beginning of the flight :)

I now fly electrics and gliders most of the time, just because of the convenience, but a good glow engine can be very reliable.

You should have fired your instructor :-)

Seriously, any self-respecting instructor should make sure this kind of problem is corrected quickly.

Thanks for all the info. My plan is to learn an airplane that is small enough to fit in my trunk and don't plan on moving to glow plane coz of the oil cleanup and too many field equipment. However, didn't know flying club can loan the plane for me to learn. I'll probably join AMA and local club to do that.

Thanks

Hello Kin, Now that youve read through todays arguement over should/should not join AMA + get .40 glow instruction, Id like to add in here.

Basically you have to make an informed decision, based on what YOU want out of this.

I taught myself on an electric Slowstick.....arguably a little easier to fly than an aerobird, but i dunno, ive never flown an AB yet. Once i got to a point where i wasnt crashing constantly I decided that yes, i did enjoy flying. (duh) Yes i did want more planes, bigger, faster, noisier, etc. I happily ponied up the dough and joined AMA - primarily for the insurance and because its typically required for joining any local clubs. The bonus was the nice monthly magazine they send you. I recently joined a club too, and got a used .40 trainer as well. Nice bunch of guys - though it seems to vary greatly from club to club. For a kid wanting nothing more than to fly an Aerobird/Slowstick in an abandoned field, neither the club nor the AMA are necessary. If you fancy something a little bigger/faster/gas powered in the future, then i suggest joining now and asking for club instruction right away. I ended up joining anyway, and with club intsruction i would have saved some damage on my s'stick. I did eventually learn to fly it on my own, as will you. You very well might find a local guy whos willing to train you at the local park without AMA or club membership. Hobby shops are the best place to fish for those guys. Heck i would, but im in 'Jersey. Any excuse to get out of the house....

Best of luck, Mike

Really don't plan on flying any big scale/gas plane. The reason I buy aerobird is the Hobby shop quote me a 5ch radio, charger, esc, battery and plane for about $300. So I went ebay and got the Aerobird RTF around $100. I can spare $100 but $300 is too pricy for me and i KNOW i'll crash or lost the plane.

I need instructions/instructor to help me learn to fly/tune my Aerobird. OK, before I join AMA and club, can anybody help me learn at Sepulveda Basin/Apollo field, I can buy you lunch of something... The field is close to work, I can get there like early morning, lunch break, after work.

Thanks.

nothing more than to

the future, then i

joining anyway,

No. It won't help you fly your plane one bit.

jeboba wrote:

Who needs a club?

In your dreams.

In your dreams.

The benefits of joining a club.

It costs money You get to have other people shoot down your plane. You get to have everyone except you know what is wrong with it. All different answers. You get to have someone else with 5 times your experience of smashing planes smash it for you. After you have waited for the third thursday in the month coinciding with a full moon and no major TV sporting fixtures, which is 'newbie night' - all 13 minutes of daylight of it. You get to have them all laugh at you when this happens. You get lots of help picking up all the cheap bits, but the expensive bits have gone missing, and the charger from your flight box as well when your back was turned. Instead of hitting a tree, you end up smashing the windscreen on the club presidents new porsche. This is why you have to join the AMA. He gets a new color job free every year from parking on the flightline. Instead of crashing alone, due to inexperience, you get to crash for a zillion more exciting reasons, like other people on your frequency, or other people in your airspace, in humiliating company... You get to wait on line for 45 minutes for a slot before crashing your plane in 45 seconds, instead of just picking it up and heaving it off, you have to switch off, go back recheck everything, wait in line 45 minutes before you can crash it again. You get the excitement of being buzzed by the club presidents new 90 powerd Ultimate at 3 inverted feet over your head, as you desperately try to work out which way your model is pointing, whilst someone else yells in your ear 'You should have never let it get that far downwind buddy' When its all reduced to matchwood you get to buy all your gear back from the guys that nicked it at the next swapmeet. You get to hang out with a saddo bunch of technonerds that smell of stale beer and glo fuel, who are so obsessed with the equipment that they hadly ever fly their planes, and don't enjoy it when they do, as they are constantly feeling challenged to perform some stunt that they are not capable of.

Join a club.

You know it makes sense.;-)

Kin Lee

There is only one club worth joining and its here

Ask in the general forum for any electric flyers in your area.

Any e-zoner worth his salt will be delighted to show off his superior knowledge, and help you get your plane up.

And if he doesn't smash it, you know you probably have found a friend too.

If he does, name him and shame him on the e-zone!

| The benefits of joining a club. | ... | You get to have other people shoot down your plane.

You can get that without a club.

| You get to have everyone except you know what is wrong with it. All | different answers.

Ditto. You can even get that here!

| You get to have someone else with 5 times your experience of smashing | planes smash it for you. After you have waited for the third thursday in | the month coinciding with a full moon and no major TV sporting fixtures, | which is 'newbie night' - all 13 minutes of daylight of it.

You seem awfully bitter. I never had any such problems with the club I fly at a lot. Well, I did almost get shot down once, and it was at the club, but they guy did realize what happened pretty quickly and apologized after turning off his radio.

| You get to have them all laugh at you when this happens.

You can get that without a club.

When my Lite-Stick disintegrated a few hundred feet up (I wish I had that on video! it was cool!) all sorts of people were laughing, including me :) No club needed!

| You get lots of help picking up all the cheap bits, but the expensive | bits have gone missing, and the charger from your flight box as well | when your back was turned.

I've never had anything stolen at the club. In fact, I've had stuff returned to me that I left behind -- once, when I put a note up `did anybody find a battery pack matching this description' and one because it had my name on it -- I didn't even realize it was missing when I got the call.

| Instead of hitting a tree, you end up smashing the windscreen on the | club presidents new porsche. This is why you have to join the AMA. He | gets a new color job free every year from parking on the flightline.

Odd. I'm not aware of any planes crashing into cars at our club in the few years I've been a member there.

| You get the excitement of being buzzed by the club presidents new 90 | powerd Ultimate at 3 inverted feet over your head

You must have joined an awfully loosly run club. The club I've flown at lot at (HCAM) is very serious about the flight line, and you'd get yelled at by everybody for intentionally flying over it. They might cut you some slack if you were a few hundred feet above it and only a few feet past it, but three feet up? Intentionally? You'd be cruicified -- and rightfully so.

I agree, this guy doesn't need to join a club, but they're not as bad as you make them sound. I did have a problem with another club, where I was booted out for daring to disagree publically with the management about their `owned frequency rule' (since it happened mostly online, it was easy to put details up at

But even in that case, it was mostly just a disagreement with one or two people, and I've found most of the club members to be very nice, helpful and friendly people.

I did post a few smileys mate.

Sure, most clubs are a bit better. But the fact remains its far more dangerous to fly at a club than in a field. The only benefit is you MAY get instruction and help. In my experience this proved not to be the case, and I DID lose some stuff from a flight box. And I DID crash a plane into a car, when a ESC died on me - fortunately it was mine, and it was a canvas backed land rover, and no damage resulted.

The club president DID take up my new plane and fold the wings for me.

I DID have to wait for many minutes to get a slot, and even if I crashed immediately, someone else on my freq said 'you switched off?' and procesed to fly the next twenty.

And teh club president DID do a fairly impressive low pass in a 60 powered ultimate. Which I thought was a bloody dangerous aeroplane even though he did keep to the rules. One twitch on the ailerons and off the flight line and into the pits....full of people.And as a newbie pilts I DID find it extremely unnerving to ahve other aircarft in teh air, aroud mine, starung up behind me, constant chatter and worse, advice and worst of all criticism of the 'shouldn't be allowed to fly here' sort.

I was CRAP. I couldn't fly barely at all - my experience was S/C RC from the 60's and control line. I need a LOT of concentration, I needed a LOT of space in wich to try and position things right, cos half the time the model turned the wrong way to what I intended. I got absolutely zero help at all. Training, it turned out was something that was available one week in two in one evening only, if anyne turned up to be nice, and, mostly they didn't cos the club didn't have newbies much (surprise surprise), and if teh wether was bad that was it for two weeks.

I felt as though I had wandered into a group of guys who all knew each other and went there to chat, fly their planes, and they had absolutely no interest in me whatsoever.

Which is fine, but be aware that many clubs are just like that.