Brendan Hughes

Have to buy a 40th birthday prez before Saturday, someone suggested an R/C aircraft.

Does anyone know about them, and would £200-ish buy a not bad beginner's model? I know the perfect guy to ask - but he's on holiday this week

Off to the model shop at lunchtime to see what they have.

I know the square root of f/a about this subject, so all help appreciated

Brendan Hughes

To add - I won't be able to get it mailed from a specialist website in time, so I'm after pointers to help me with the shops here, such as good/bad brands, control complexity, power system (are they battery or all petrol-engined?) etc.

jonnyh

Think you can get a pretty good (indestructable, ready to fly) electric powered one for around the £80 mark.


Heres a fleabay one for £55 eBay.co.uk: J3 GRASSHOPPER 1:10 ELECTRIC POWERED R/C PLANE (item 270067018738 end time 09-Jan-07 19:24:45 GMT)

davegtt

Dont get petrol just yet if your a beginner, its alot harder than you think, I went straight into the parkzone focker wolf and I just cant fly it but it is a low winged plane and high winged planes are the best for beginners, the parkzone J3 Cub is worth a look but you'll get bored fairly easy as its not very quick but will give you an idea on how to handle something more powerful.

Also wrong time of year to buy an RC craft, I hope you have the patience to wait until summer comes before you can fly it unless you have a local club that has an indoor day once a week.

Good luck. like I say it'll definately be harder than you first imagined.

Brendan Hughes

Thanks Dave. Have just looked at some FAQs and high-wing certainly seems to be the way forward. But is petrol so bad? I imagine the problem with electric is you kill a battery in 10 mins - and 30 mins drive to the field in order to fly for 10 would be immediately off-putting, for me. Unless he wants to buy 4 spare batteries and an in-car charger...

Weather in Portugal has been horribly wet in November, but not so bad this week thanks

pslewis

ModelZone - £79 for a decent beginners Electric one.

Petrol is noisy, expensive, and naff!!

davegtt

Batteries are not really expensive tbh although you can upgrade the batteries for more flying time. Problem with petrol is your highly likely to crash on your first few outings and will damage the plane and that 30 minute drive and 10minutes flying time suddenly looks appealing when your spending 2 weeks in the garage fixing the plane for another attempt

DOH... I forgot you were in Portugal, sorry.

FWIW Parkzone planes battery charger is actually an in car one anyway so your OK on that level.

^Qwerty^

If you buy a model with a glow plug engine and attempt to fly it without help, it WILL get smashed up, and that will be the end of it.

Not sure about the electric models, but none of them are indestructable no matter what the box/shop says.

IMO, unless your friend has a local club to join or somebody experienced who can teach them to fly a model, then I think you should think of something else.

Of course, if they already fly them, then no problem.

davegtt

Agreed with the petrol aspect of things but the electric ones will take a beating before breaking. I crashed mine a good ten times trying to learn to fly it and its still in good nick. plus if you do damage anything duct tape will rescue it until your confident you can buy a new plane once your more experienced. You can learn to fly the J3 Cub without anybody who is experienced.

Leslie

I did a great deal of R/C model aircraft flying a while ago and can well remember my early efforts.

The best starter is certainly a high winger since they are inherantly stable and providing it is high enough you can virtually let go of the controls when you have a little "difficulty" and it will do a lot to recover itself. A two channel control, ie rudder and elevator is easier to cope with initially and then you can progress to something more ambitious later.

Its a great hobby and I enjoyed a lot of competition flying when I learned not to crash so often

Les

Sbradley

**** me! A psl post that isn't complete bollocks!

Partial bollocks still, though. There's nothing wrong with petrol power apart from the already covered difficulties in flying it and the rather more important difficulties in finding somewhere you're allowed to fly it... I don't know about over there, but here the Local Authorities tend to have a bit of a downer on anything other than electric flight on the basis of noise, pollution (:rolleyes) and perceived danger.

Electric power is getting better. My Beaufighter (NOT a learner plane) will do about 20 minutes on a full charge. Rather less if I'm being a hooligan with it. The Twinstar I have does about 12 minutes BOFE, as does the Fw190. But the last one was originally a glider so doesn't really count...

SB

Brendan Hughes

Thanks alll Went to the model shop, they had an electric (I remember J3, don't guarantee the brand) and a petrol within budget. We reckon an electric with 2-3 spare batteries and a fast charger is a better choice for this particular guy as he's a bit impatient, and a petrol would probably be admired but then cursed and ignored.

Sbradley

You chose................wisely

SB

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

next do a funky helicopter for £60, nearly got one myself on sunday.

Failing that if you go for a petrol one, make sure you buy british and not an import. If you have to go the import route, make sure it is run on new shell petrol or tesco super, also fit a knocklink as well to check for det (if it does det it will look quite good though, especially at night), maybe an idea to get a remap as well.

Brendan Hughes

Thanks jay. The one we chose has a rear wiper - what does that make it?

Leslie

Japanese!

Les

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

*Sonic*

What I would like to know is how the hell you fly one of these !!!

Brendan Hughes

IIRC, according to the video, you don't!

51st state

brendan, as above have said i started with 2 channel electric, the cub j3 , i would not go for
the ones with the dihedral wings (turned up at ends)and V or T tail(T tail best) and pusher prop, once up they can glide so can be up for ages, make sure they use elevator and rudder for control not engine speed for climbing on steering!!
then i went into 4channel electric, like SB , twinstar, i went for GWS, they have a site, GWS formosa
they progressed to petrol, all self taught,
irvine tutor 40, trainer, futaba radio gear and japanese enya 40 motor, you won't go far wrong,
helicopters are extremely hard, crashed my petrol a couple of times, so got an electric to fly in the garden and cheaper to repair
before going back to the petrol one
steve webb , big shop, or towerhobbies.com , both good websites

pacenote

Try one of these - they are really easy to fly and easy to repair if you crash

http://www.modelspot.com/mpx/easy.jpg

HTH

Leslie

Those monster ones usually have a crew to fly it with different people operating the ancilliary controls like flaps, airbrakes,undercarriage etc. Pretty inpressive to see I bet.

Les

*Sonic*

I saw the video of the B52 take off, pretty impressive till the guy turned it round and crashed it

Looked very similar to what happens to me when I load up flight sim

The F-14 Model is fantastic though, how they manage to fly that and land it again

pacenote

Well all the ones I've seen fly have had one guy at controls. Modern transmitters have more than enough features for one person to control a plane like that - just more switches to operate and a bit of multi-tasking