Hello,

I have 16 years RC experience in scale model ships and submarines, mainly scratch building. Suffice to say I have a very good understanding and hands on experience with radio control systems and electronics. - But I have absolutely zero experience in RC plane construction and or flying them.

I would like to give RC flying ago but have been somewhat put off by what I have heard - frequent crashes resulting in planes lost and therefore the hobby can be high cost. To that end I would nonetheless still like to learn a bit more and try. I live only about 6 or 7 kms from the WRCS flying field.

Have read a bit about your site and the club looks quite friendly. In terms of starter equipment and not wanting to make too huge an initial outlay if I don't like it what options would be avaliable for me / what would you suggest in terms of learning to fly and purchasing a starter trainer model plane?

I appreciate your club has fees - and am very understanding of the fee structure etc as being part of several model ship clubs these are the norms of the hobby, especially the insurance side of things, but should I not like the hobby, the club membership might be wasted. Do you have perhaps have limited membership I could get to see how I go?

I am interested in electrically powered flight and have been looking at the Hobbyzone Super Cub -which seems to be aimed at me the "beginner" and seems to be very inclusive.

link to Hobbyzone Super Cub
http://www.kellettshobbies.com.au/Home/ ... fault.aspx

Hope you can help.

many thanks

John Slater

Just read your beginners section - duh - sorry should have seen that prior to posting.

Would still value advice though on starting out and choice of plane being the Hobby Zone super cub or something else.

I did try and click on the Contact for Dean Shuback (re fixed wing) but the link did not work.

This is the other planes I am looking at Thunder Tiger Piper Cub RTF
http://www.kellettshobbies.com.au/Home/ ... fault.aspx

And the Cessna Flyzone
http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/arti ... le_id=1078

J

Everyone will have an opinion on what to start with - electric or IC, preferred model, preferred radio etc. We have a club night 12th May at 7:30pm at Tennis Cove, or a scale day at the field on 17th May. Come along to either and have a chat with a few people. We are planning to put a club trainer together for people to have a trial flight or two, and the instructor links have also been fixed now. A part of our membership fee covers the annual insurance, too, but please come along and talk through the options.

I don't have direct experience of the models that you are looking at, but you might want to consider what you'll need longer term. Some of these come with radio and you'll find that very limiting when you move on to the next model - in terms of range, suitability for larger models, availability of parts etc. If you choose one of the packaged options, it might make the next step more expensive, whereas if you choose an airframe, motor and radio as individual items, you can make sure that the expensive bits aren't (largely) redundant for the next model.

Good luck, and we have plenty of people who would be delighted to help you.

Clive

Many thanks Clive, will try to get the field on the 17th and ask some qiestions
Thanks

John

Slats wrote:Hello,

I have 16 years RC experience in scale model ships and submarines, mainly scratch building. Suffice to say I have a very good understanding and hands on experience with radio control systems and electronics. - But I have absolutely zero experience in RC plane construction and or flying them.

I would like to give RC flying ago but have been somewhat put off by what I have heard - frequent crashes resulting in planes lost and therefore the hobby can be high cost. To that end I would nonetheless still like to learn a bit more and try. I live only about 6 or 7 kms from the WRCS flying field.

Have read a bit about your site and the club looks quite friendly. In terms of starter equipment and not wanting to make too huge an initial outlay if I don't like it what options would be avaliable for me / what would you suggest in terms of learning to fly and purchasing a starter trainer model plane?

I appreciate your club has fees - and am very understanding of the fee structure etc as being part of several model ship clubs these are the norms of the hobby, especially the insurance side of things, but should I not like the hobby, the club membership might be wasted. Do you have perhaps have limited membership I could get to see how I go?

I am interested in electrically powered flight and have been looking at the Hobbyzone Super Cub -which seems to be aimed at me the "beginner" and seems to be very inclusive.

link to Hobbyzone Super Cub
http://www.kellettshobbies.com.au/Home/ ... fault.aspx

Hope you can help.

many thanks

John Slater

Hi John, Welcome aboard... My 2 c would be to simply come along on any Sunday and meet some of the members and have a look at whats going on and what some opinions are, yes they will vary no doubt depending on who you speak too, but its all good and part of the learning curve. At the very least you likely will be given some good advice that will assist you to narrow down to the better options. Some of the online web forums can also offer up much information and are just another great place to ask modelers and get opinions on a wide variety of models and products... (see web links below)

One thing that I personally tend to recommend to "EVERY" newcomer to R/C flight these days is to seriously consider the purchase of a good quality R/C flight simulator. The advantage here of course is the cost saving initially, especially if you then decide its not for you....
The newer R/C sims are absolutely invaluable for assisting with primarily overcoming the initial hurdle of real inflight visual orrientation and control reaction and correction input. On top of this is the fact that some R/C sims now allow you to plug in your own transmitter, the one that you will be using for your real R/C aircraft, thus allowing you to become very familiar with your own transmitters primary controls and its layout with complete functions such as rates and control mix functions and switches and such without having to worry about the additional pressure of actually risking a real model. The simulator may even help you decide which real models you would prefer to fly for real as the better sims are truly that close to giving us reality based real world feed back now days. Yes they offer trainers through heli's, scale models and even turbine jets to try!

Whether it be fixed wing glow, electric. Helis's, gliders or even jets a good quality R/C flight sim will give you some great feedback and goes along way in assisting the learning process in my opinion.

These are two R/C flight sims that I highly recommend and would consider suggesting -
http://www.modelrectifier.com/rc-produc ... lators.asp
http://www.realflight.com/

R/C websites great for information resources-
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/forumid_85/tt.htm
http://www.wattflyer.com/forums/
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/index.php


Cheers- Marty