I know nothing about model airplanes or RC stuff. He was throwing away three of them all in perfect working order before he moved. Two had Nazi emblems on them so I skipped over them. Gave me the plane and two batteries for it, said I would need to get a four channel controller 2.4 ghz I believe. I tried looking it up online it's a six year old model that is discontinued. Cats seem to like it.

You might as well put that in the closet and leave it there until you have the skills to fly it or join a local club so someone can train you with a buddy box. That’s a 3D plane that is made to do all the craziest Aerobatics possible which makes minor stick movements have a huge impact and they are built very frail to keep the power to weight ratio very high.

Otherwise it will be a pile of parts in less than 10 seconds. It does have a stability system built into the electronics (as3x) but it won’t be enough to save you.

You want to start with a high wing model that doesn’t have ailerons if you are learning by yourself. Look for more of a bush plane type that is 3 channel.

3 channel
Throttle
Rudder
Elevator

If you do decide to give it a go on your own please records it for all of us to enjoy.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 1s1k,

It's been years, but I remember it being tougher than I expected. Group I was with had a computer sim to practice, I crashed a lot, glad I wasn't responsible for flying the plane we designed/built.

By the way we’re the Nazi emblems really Nazi emblems or were they black Red Baron (Celtic) crosses on a red plane.

One had swastikas the other had the baron crosses on a biplane. I wasn't sure if that was something related to Nazi Germany, but I just did a quick google search and found that it predates Nazis (cursory search). Luckily he said it was the hardest of the three to fly. The swastika one was the easiest to fly he said.

Wife made a good point that I didn't think of. Should have taken all three and paid for a controller by selling the other two. I thought about it, but don't have that much room in the van. Now thinking about it, I should have used the swastika one for flight training and sold the other. Oops.

1. Go to a local Hobby Shop and ask where the nearest RC Flying Club is and ask if they have any instructors that can help teach you

or / and

2. Purchase a RC Flight Simulator and you can try to learn that way.

I hope any of this helps. God Bless !!!

Now, now. Don't beat yourself up about it!

At least the cats are entertained!!

I haunted this website for several months until I convinced myself not to buy one. They have several low-priced introductory planes, if you look in their "Ready To Fly" section under "Airplanes" that come with radios and batteries.

https://www.horizonhobby.com/c...dJzNCvRoCLBkQAvD_BwE

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
One had swastikas the other had the baron crosses on a biplane. I wasn't sure if that was something related to Nazi Germany, but I just did a quick google search and found that it predates Nazis (cursory search). Luckily he said it was the hardest of the three to fly. The swastika one was the easiest to fly he said.

Wife made a good point that I didn't think of. Should have taken all three and paid for a controller by selling the other two. I thought about it, but don't have that much room in the van. Now thinking about it, I should have used the swastika one for flight training and sold the other. Oops.

You could've practiced flying the one with swastikas over the local mosque......and if you crashed it there.....ohhhh well.....LOLOLOL

2.4 ghz controllers aren't that much money. Even if you crash it, it will be fun until you do!

Towerhobbies is the website for good quality low price RC stuff. I think they even white label radios and servos. Definitely get yourself someone to teach you for the first few times so you don't vaporize it. Have fun!

I used to fly long ago. I found myself spending so much money, that I stopped, and transitioned to real full-scale planes.

Got my private pilots license and then, we had our first kid. He's now in college spending all of the money I saved by giving up my habit of drilling holes in the sky.

I am not an RC airplane guy, I only fly full-scale airplanes that I sit in, but looking at the configuration of that model my first thought was: "Aerobatic. Very responsive. Not very stable. Probably not the first one to learn with."

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
Towerhobbies is the website for good quality low price RC stuff. I think they even white label radios and servos. Definitely get yourself someone to teach you for the first few times so you don't vaporize it. Have fun!

I used to fly long ago. I found myself spending so much money, that I stopped, and transitioned to real full-scale planes.

Got my private pilots license and then, we had our first kid. He's now in college spending all of the money I saved by giving up my habit of drilling holes in the sky.

My short stint in RC flying was as part of the team mentioned above.

My time spent in actual planes was cut short in similar fashion to you, only I went to college & couldn't afford to fly anymore.
In high school, I had a free Cessna 150 to use (just had to keep fuel in it), and an instructor that charged $75/lesson regardless of duration.

I'll get around to finishing up my PP one of these days.

My dad was fully into RC after he retired. He would start new RC pilots on gliders - rudder and elevators only with a .049 engine and a fixed amount of gas to get you to altitude and glide back.

Even a caveman I could do it.

New to RC guy: "I got this screaming little RC airplane I want to fly!"

Dad: "Not so fast, hotshot."

quote:

Originally posted by 1s1k:
You might as well put that in the closet and leave it there until you have the skills to fly it or join a local club so someone can train you with a buddy box. That’s a 3D plane that is made to do all the craziest aerobics possible which makes minor stick movements have a huge impact and they are built very frail to keep the power to weight ratio very high.

Otherwise it will be a pile of parts in less than 10 seconds. It does have a stability system built into the electronics (as3x) but it won’t be enough to save you.

You want to start with a high wing model that doesn’t have ailerons if you are learning by yourself. Look for more of a bush plane type that is 3 channel.

3 channel
Throttle
Rudder
Elevator

If you do decide to give it a go on your own please records it for all of us to enjoy.

I agree 100%. I taught myself to fly years ago and started with a high wing foamie with a bit of dihedral (self righting with hands off the sticks) and it was frustrating with that rig. The foam made for easy repairs. I then moved on to a bit more acrobatic models and had some fun. After a couple years of flying regularly I thought I was ready for a 3d pattern plane - I did make one circuit without smashing it into the earth, but it was way too twitchy even with the reduced rates. I never tried to fly it again and lost access to an easy place to fly - I flew in a vacant city lot (used for festival parking a couple times a year) - seems someone had an issue with it and called the cops. I haven't flown since. Still have all of my gear and tried indoor electric helis and quads, but it just wasn't as much fun as fixed wing.

Good luck - lots of decent inexpensive trainers out there now that can be repaired and you could teach yourself to fly... even easier with an RC flight sim to get some muscle memory on the sticks.

Shawn

Flying the cats on that thing is a bad idea no matter how much they beg you.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
Flying the cats on that thing is a bad idea no matter how much they beg you.

Comeon, it would be AWESOME!

Assuming the cat suits up in its SharkSuit!

Black weights 18 lbs, he's out for sure. I'll have to do some calculations for Gray, he's only 12 lbs.

So you guys are telling me I should just throw the thing away before it costs me a small fortune?

What did you do with the $65? And what did he buy that made him think he needed to give you $65 and a airplane? Reminds me of that commercial where a guy in a bar wants to buy a round and he puts a lawnmower on the bar. The bartender points to a sign on the wall that says "No lawnmowers money only"

When I was in high school at age 16 I learned to fly in rag wing tail draggers, i.e. Piper J3, Piper PA12 and Piper PA18. Many years later I flew the Wichita "spam cans". Skip 15 or so years and I started building and flying RC sailplanes. Believe me, a real airplane that you can sit in is much easier to fly than a RC model. To be honest, I never became very good with the RC stuff. I always knew I would break it.

quote:

Originally posted by lastmanstanding:
What did you do with the $65? And what did he buy that made him think he needed to give you $65 and a airplane? Reminds me of that commercial where a guy in a bar wants to buy a round and he puts a lawnmower on the bar. The bartender points to a sign on the wall that says "No lawnmowers money only"

$65 is sitting in my center console of van, with the $10 one I got day before. He gave me the $65 because I quickly fixed his electrical problem for $135 and he for some reason thought it would be $200. He was a little strange, had no way to pay for services and said he needed to go to the bank. I told him fine, but it would cost him a half hour of labor for me to just sit there and wait for him to go to the bank, which is coincidentally $65. I said no problem let me call office and see if we have CC on file, we did have his wife's. I told him we were all set, we'd just use his card. Then he said hold on. Reached in his pocket and got out $200.00 and handed it to me and said just take care of me next time. Very odd, what kind of adult only uses cash? He was happy, same cost he expected so he didn't care.

Guy asks if I'm into RC stuff, I said no, he said too bad I'm getting ready to throw out three working airplanes. I told him I'd take a look, picked to one and helped him bring the others to curb, someone was happy. Hopefully who ever got them knows how to fly them not some 12 year old. He also threw out a ton of replica sci-fi swords. Some dude picked them up the second he put them on curb.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Skins2881,