What did YOU train on? and why? what didu like best...?

You too?

I learnt THAT stuff on Eric Cluttons 049 powered 'sharkface' in 1965 Still available from RCM&E plans. Honmebuilt 3.5watt transmitter XTAL controlled (very radical) homebuilt 5 transistor supereregen reciever (germanium)and an Elmic compact escapement.

No engine I owned HAD a throttle. The diesels wiould lose power and sputter in dives. The Babe Bee was stupendous.

Then I left for college, and didn't touch a plane till 2000 or so ....

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher
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At that time I had three engines at most. None came with a throttle but following model magazine articles we fashioned "throttles" to restrict the carburetor intake while closing off the exhaust port with a flapper or rotary kind of arrangement that clamped on the engine. As I said, our throttling made about 1000 rpm difference or in more cases than not completely killed the engine. Which in retrospect was probably a good thing on the occasion where you ran out or forgot to wind the escapement rubber. Realize also that these were planes that today you would hang a .46 on or more for normal training and we had at most a .19 on them. I recall the awe of seeing a guy come to the field with a .45 on a Live Wire Cruiser.

Reply to
Red Scholefield

The Eagle II I had still had rubber bands, no options for a tail draggerthat I can recall. I don't know if the mostly lite ply it was constructed out of was heavier than normal, but it just seemed heavy and sluggish for the size. Granted I could have bolted on more power. These were my impressions of it on reentering the hobby. BTW - Built hte wing with the "sport" ie minimal dihedral, almost flat. As in a previous post, several people have told me it really needed wider ailerons. PCPhill

Reply to
PCPhill

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I seconded the opinion on the GP PT40 on personal experience, particularly the older way-overbuilt PT40 kits. One needs to make coordinated turns, or those trainers don't behave properly in the air. When done properly, the turns are SMOOTH and graceful indeed.

Reply to
Pjtg0707

Maybe they are running equal up and down throws on the ailerons. The adverse yaw problem can manifest itself if that is the case.

Dihedral helps the model turn properly, not hinders it. It is amazing how many people misunderstand dihedral and see it as a villain. (Not you, Paul)

Many times, it is the positive incidence in the wing of trainers that causes the trainer to fly like a dog. Most flat bottom wings will still develop lift at two degrees negative angle of attack.

Ed Cregger

Reply to
Ed Cregger

Last I heard, dihedral was used mainly for roll axis stability. Planes with lots of dihedral tend to return to neutral following aileron input. Those with little dihedral tend to hold the bank. Dihedral does increase roll coupling when rudder is applied, but I'm curious as to why it "helps the model turn properly".

In the absence of dihedral, application of rudder creates yaw. Use of ailerons creates roll. It's possible to turn an aircraft using either. Roll, by itself, doesn't cause a turn. For that to happen, elevator must be applied so that the aircraft enters a bank. With lots of dihedral, only rudder may be sufficient. But, a well coordinated turn may require all three elements.

Jim - AMA 501383

Ed Cregger wrote:

Reply to
James D Jones

Specifically, dropping a wing causes a slip to that side, which in turn causes the dropped wing to fly at a greater angle of attack to the apparent wind than the other one. This increases the lift of the low wing, while decreasing that of the high one, thus returning the aircraft to a wings level condition.

Rudder input, just like the dropped wing, causes a slip. Again, with dihedral, the forward wing flies at a greater angle of attack, and you get a bank in the direction of the turn.

Incidentally, swept wings generate the same effects...

-tih

Reply to
Tom Ivar Helbekkmo

None here.

An earlier comment was made that the Eagles lacked aileron authority.

T'aint so.

My other comment was that far too many 'instructors' fail to teach the rudder, leaving the newly-fledged pilot at risk of dumping the model when in a low-and-slow flight regime : on final.

Folks who learn to fly making aileron turns, vice having learned to make coordinated turns, _tend_ to have more problems with the ever-popular 'tip stall' business, when they could have prevented the Figure 9 Maneuver altogether if they'd known what the rudder does.

It's not that trainers won't turn on ailerons alone, it's that they shouldn't be _flown that way_ because the student is missing out on a valuable learning opportunity.

$0.02 Cheers, Fred McClellan the dash plumber at mindspring dot com

Reply to
Fred McClellan

Reply to
Penguin254

Hi

Like most flyers above a certain age, I didn't "learn to fly RC" on a specific model but, in effect, served a long apprenticeship from a very early age and just drifted into RC.

I started off on solid balsa chuck gliders; learned the basic theory of flight on these and how to trim them - the effects of changing CofG, altering wing incidence, what happens when a wing is warped, etc. I then became bored with these, so graduated to small free-flight tissue covered gliders. Having become fairly proficient flying these, I got more ambitious and built some free-flight powered models - can you still buy dethermaliser fuse??.

Deciding I wanted controllable models, I then moved to control line (U-Control in the USA???) and learned the effects of elevator control (and elevator trim) and how to repair badly damaged models. This phase lasted several years and taught me how to start model engines (and to fault find when they wouldn't), how to strip them down and how to clean and remove earth from the insides.

By this time, I had left school so saved up, bought a single channel RC set with a clockwork escapement and learned to fly rudder only (Veron Robot - a plane I still have fond memories of). A talented friend of mine then built me a very basic 2-channel proportional set (this was 1967) so I learned to fly proportional rudder and elevator - no throttle at this stage. I remember that the servos were slightly larger than cigarette packets. Deciding this was great fun and being envious of my friend's 4 channel set-up, I then invested another few weeks pay, added another 2 channels and flew fully proportional - at present day wages the cost of my RC gear would probably be well over £1000 ($1500). It was extremely basic and had nothing fancy like servo reversing switches - I soon got into the habit of building planes with the pushrod on the correct side. This RC gear was fitted in several subsequent models until I eventually sold the lot in order to raise money to buy an engagement ring - Ah the folly of youth. I would point out however that I bought more modern RC gear - and new planes - as soon as possible after the novelty of marriage wore off.

Learning was a long process - I built my first chuck glider aged about

9 and my first RC model aged 22 (a 13 years apprenticeship), but I learned a lot and, unlike the new generation of flyers coming into the hobby, I know why planes stay in the air, how to trim them without relying on the Tx trims, what is going to happen when you move a control surface and possibly more importantly, I can give a fairly shrewd guess as to the probable reason it just crashed (probably pilot error)- instead of just jumping up and down screaming "The radio's gone dead, the radio's gone dead".

Regards

KGB

My email address needs "altering" before use

Reply to
A.T

I bought my first RC plane in early July....an Avistar 40 ARF with an OS .40LA.

Had flown full-scale for about 10 years off and on. Flew on the RealFlight G2 sim while I was assembling the Avistar. Flew my first solo on the first flight of my first plane (no buddy box training) in early August (had some engine-break-in problems). Was flying aerobatics toward the end of the first flight and formation with a buddy of mine by the third flight. Flew 7 times the first day. That was in early August. The Avistar is a great trainer....forgiving, yet maneuverable. I usually do normal and reverse cuban eights, inside and outside loops, aileron rolls, 4- and 8-point rolls, inverted flight, square loops, loops with rolls on the top, and vertical rolls (can get 1 and a half with this engine). Now, I'm at the point where I need something more. Am looking at the Goldberg Super Chipmunk as my next kit and will use an O.S. 0.91 four-stroke in it. After that, I'm going to be scratch-building a 30% scale Rutan Long-Ez from the full-scale plans (of which I have a set) with a US Engines 41cc.

I have a Futaba T6EXA radio....which is a great radio for the price.

All in all, it's been a lot of fun. It's cheaper than full scale, and I still get to do something with flying. The field we have here (at Eglin AFB) is a great place to fly and the people in the club are terrific.

--Rich

Reply to
Bozo_01

It's more fun as well unless you do aerobatics full scale, my plane won't however.

I learned on a Duraplane 40 several years back. Took 3 days to solo, 3 months to the second plane, and another 3 to my first CAP. So, in 6 months I was flying CAPS and never looked back.

I have flown many trainers having helped others to learn. The 60 size trainers are easier I think for a newcomer to handle. The 20 size trainers I would avoid like the plague unless you have a paved field as it's too hard to get off of grass that's not kept short. The balsa trainers come in lighter and seem to be easier to start with, and they're not more likely to crash and be destroyed anymore than a Duraplane is. I've seen plenty of those gutter pipes broken to know they are tough but do break. They are quicker to rebuild however.

I think I liked flying the Kadets most, but with similar setups they all fly similar to me, i.e. they're slow plodding unresponsive beasts that you have to manhandle to get to do anything resembling fun...

In other words, I like my CAP's and find planes that don't respond quickly like they do to be perfect trainers. They are fun to go fly on a day with

20+ mph winds, more fun than the law should allow.

The second plane I trained on was a Stinger 40, at the time I remember thinking it was a challenge to fly, their weak point is the fuselage side where the sides are only an inch or so tall, very easy to break in half. I'm not sure you'd call it training as it was all by myself, but it was the second stage in my flying.

The third plane was a 40 sized CAP which wasn't a big leap over the stinger beyond being more responsive and being easier to snap.

The fourth plane was a 1/4 scale CAP and was actually easier to fly than the 40 sized versions, more stable and easier to see. On landing it's a bit different in that it exhibits ground effect more than my others did, and in fact is quite a floater if you're a bit too fast.

I have all my planes with the exception of the Stinger which hit a telephone pole dead center. Didn't even break the prop, but shattered everything else. The engine was the biggest part to come back down, the rest was the size of a half dollar. It was one of those moments where I didn't want to risk my CAP on ski's and flew the stinger on them instead. The CAP spoiled me to quick handling and so when I blew a landing, first time on snow and I found it really slides, I powered up and then noticed the telephone pole in the way. It's funny but my first thought was, it's going to take some pretty fancy flying to miss that, the second those was I can do it like this, the third was, wow, look at all the pieces floating down. I hit the transformer and the plane exploded into bits, never found the electronics. Since then I've flown the 40 sized CAP on snow and it's fantastic, handles really well and I could fly when others couldn't get their trainers off of the snow.

So, in essence all the planes I've ever flown were trainers in some sense because they prepared me for the next plane. I think my next plane will be either a Katana, Edge, or some warbird like the P38 or P40. I have the P38 if I'd build it.

What I hope is that the previous planes helped build the experience in flying to handle the next level. The Duraplane later flew with about 2 more lbs of camera gear to transmit back video, that taught me how to fly anoverweight plane with VERY HIGH wingloading. The Stinger was a stepping stone, not hard to fly, but it's faster than a trainer. The CAP's teach you how to handle a plane, by now you should be able to tell when a planes about to stall by looking at it. I can now almost feel like I'm in the plane, I get what I perceive to be feedback, like what I get when I fly my real plane. That is to say I can translate what I see into what seems to be the feeling of the plane, i.e. pull anymore and it'll stall. I believe it's got to do with noticing the subtle ways the plane moves and knowing that if it does it any more this will happen.

Every plane I've ever flown has taught me something, and I still get nervous flying somebody else's plane, even though I fly planes more capable.

I believe there's a plane out there that can humble anybody no matter what they fly or how long they've flown.

Reply to
Matthew P. Cummings

Reply to
Mitty Mit

I learned on a Sig Fazer because my buddy/training guru said I could do it...and I did!

tim

Reply to
Tim

Eagle 2 for $50 bucks from a swap meet....aren't all wings supposed to be warped like that.... powered with a YS 45....sort of like dropping a ferrari engine in an old Chevy pick-up to learn to drive.

Fixed it so many times the it finally hit the ground so hard pieces went everywhere.. What a sled....Loved it....Andy

We can make a box of wood.....FLY!!

Reply to
RCPILOT48

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