1st Year Lessons

Hi folks- I wanted to write into the site and hopefully help out those people who are interested in starting this wonderful hobby. I learned quite a bit in my first year of flying, and I hope I can help out beginners to make better choices than I did.

I’ll mention here that I’m not getting paid for any of this; I’m, not a shill for any manufacturer or distributor. All these opinions are my own, and are not representative of Circle City flyers or anyone else. If you have differing opinions or more advanced knowledge of anything written here, I suggest sending those ideas to the webmaster at the site.

The first thing I learned about RC flight is that it can be expensive. It can be, but it doesn’t have to. Depending on the type of flying that you want to do, it can be relatively cheap compared with other hobbies (like golf, for instance). To keep the hobby reasonable, I can suggest a few things:

For a first plane, you’ll want to get a trainer. The most important feature of a trainer is survivability. You will crash if you spend any time at all in this hobby. Look for a trainer that will be able to survive a crash and be able to fly again with a few simple repairs.

The first trainer that I was successful with is called an EasyStar, and its made by Multiplex. The advantages of the EasyStar:

Big wing—long soaring flights that give plenty of practice and smooth, slow flight. The wing is up high on the aircraft, protecting it from ground impacts. The wing will freely break away from the fuselage with a hard impact and does not tear easily. I’ve had several hard impacts with the ground and trees, and have never damaged the wings.

High pusher motor—located up high, behind the wing. The motor placement almost guarantees that your propeller will survive a crash. I have my original plane with the original prop over 1 year later!

Material—The EasyStar is made from EPP foam, easily repairable with a bit of CA.

The disadvantages: the EasyStar is big and light, which means that small amounts of wind can make a big difference in the way it flies. Flying a bird that gets tossed around in the wind can be pretty intimidating to a beginner pilot. Also, the EasyStar has no aileron control; a clear disadvantage when trying to learn flight with coordinated movements. Of course, another disadvantage is that it can become boring to fly. I still have my first EasyStar: it is outlined with glow strips for night flying—and that’s really the only time I take it out.

The ideal trainer is high-wing, with an 80” wingspan and heavy enough to withstand light breezes. I have a Hobbico electric trainer with about 50” of wing, which is OK, but no great shakes. Perhaps others out there can write in with suggestions?

There are many advantages and disadvantages to both gas (or glow) and electric planes. Some are listed here:

Gas or Glow	Electric
You can easily fuel the plane and fly. Fuel is relatively cheap; a 1 gallon container will usually last several day’s worth of flying.	Batteries are expensive, and many times you will run out of battery before you’re ready to go home for the day, which means that you have to wait for batteries to recharge.
Fuel is messy. Planes get covered in oil and gas, and have to be cleaned regularly to remove greasy residue.	Electric planes are very clean and require little external maintenance.
Gas planes are loud, and require designated flying areas.	Electrics are quiet, and can be flown indoors, or in the backyard without offending the neighbors.
Larger, heavier planes can be made and flown (relatively) cheaply; they fly more like scale planes.	As the size of the electric plane increases, the cost increases dramatically. Just the batteries of a large RC plane can cost several thousand dollars.
Gas engines require tuning and knowledge of operation and components. They require tools and logistic planning to be flown reliably at the field	Electric motors are plug-and play. A couple of drops of oil (when recommended) is really all that is needed to keep an electric operating.

The list can go on forever. Most intermediate flyers have several gas/glow and electric models to fly. As you become more experienced, you will develop tastes and flying styles that will influence your decisions.

Owning and practicing on a good flight simulator is important for beginner RC pilots. A good simulator allows you to practice the maneuvers before you get to the field.

I saw the advantage of simulators immediately upon beginning this hobby. I travel a lot with my job, and the simulators helped to keep me interested and maintain some level of competence when away from my aircraft.

I started using free simulators that I found by Googling the internet. I bought a game joystick that had left and right sticks to mimic the radio that I would use to control my trainer. Soon, I discovered that several companies build cables that provide a USB connection to my computer, so I was able to fly the simulator with my own radio.

These simple simulators were fine to use at first, when I focused on controlling the aircraft in level flight. They allowed me to get the hang of turning the aircraft left and right when I needed to and how to perform basic landings and takeoffs.

As I started moving away from trainers, I needed a more life-like simulator. I chose RealFlight G3 by Great Planes because of availability—the hobby shop right down the street carries the simulator and the five expansion packs with different planes and airports to fly.

Advantages of simulators: You can purchase software that comes with a radio-like controller, which is great if you only have a ‘trainer’ radio without a slave port; the beginner pilot can set up wind conditions to mimic actual conditions on the field; you can fly many different types of aircraft and notice how different each model flies; you can edit the aircraft characteristics, like airfoil, engine, paint schemes, etc. Simulators have recently been very helpful to me by providing a safe platform for learning how to program my own radio. G3 allows me to connect my radio and use it through the included ‘G3 radio’. I can set up planes on the simulator to match planes that I own, and reasonably test mixes for knife edge, hover, and other functions. More important, I use the simulator to practice the positions of the radio’s switches, so I am comfortable controlling my real aircraft without looking down at the radio while the bird is in the air.

Disadvantages of simulators: It is still different from flying the real thing. Simulators are tools to help you fly; they don’t replace going out to the field and actually flying. I am always amazed when I go weeks without flying the sim (because I am busy flying real aircraft), I sit down to do a simulator session and it feels like I’m doing it for the first time. Likewise, if I haven’t flown my aircraft in a while, it takes a couple of flights to get back in the groove no matter how much time I’ve spent on the simulator. Lastly, the good simulators are pretty spendy; expect to pay between $150 and $200 for a good quality simulator. In my opinion, its worth it.

By the way, there are plenty of really good simulators out there. I have heard great things about AeroFly Deluxe… folks that use Aerofly are passionate about how good it is. If you look in a couple of RC magazines, there are other high quality sims available.

When you buy your first trainer, chances are that it will come with a radio. These radios are fine for beginners, but are often lacking in functionality.

When you start flying more complex aircraft, you’re going to want a better radio to fly with. My first good radio was a HiTec Eclipse 7, which has 7 channels and allowed several mixes and programmable mixes and 3 different flight modes. The Eclipse 7 can be used with trainers, more advanced planes, gliders, and helicopters. It has model memory, so you can program in different aircraft and store the individual programs in memory. That being said, the radio was adequate, but somewhat difficult to program because of its limited display.

The radio I fly now is the Futaba 9CAP super. I bought it because it offered many more capabilities than the Eclipse; I had purchased a plane that employed separate servos for each elevator, and I wanted a radio that could handle that without using a mixer in the aircraft.

The Futaba radio is more expensive than the Eclipse, but much easier to program. I find that the graphic displays that Futaba offers are far more intuitive than the hard to remember acronyms that the Eclipse uses. Another advantage is when programming mixes, the Futaba allows you to choose what switch does what functions, and you can assign several functions to a single switch; the Eclipse has fixed switch assignments, which forces the flyer to memorize complex switch patterns to fly in different flight modes.

A lot of experienced flyers at the CCF field use JR radios, which are also excellent. JR radios have similar capabilities as the Futaba, and the flyers at the field that use them really like them.

When looking for a radio for a follow-on to a trainer-radio, I suggest the following:

7 channels, preferably more: The more channels you have, the more stuff you can control. With more complex models, you will stat using flaps/spoilers, smoke systems, ailevators, retractable landing gear, etc. I thought my 7 channel Eclipse would be carry me through a year of flight, but it didn’t.

Graphic display: I became an expert at programming the Eclipse, but the ease of using a graphic display to display dual-rates, exponential, throttle curve, and programming mixes is amazing.

A second battery: The battery that typically comes with the transmitter is small, around 600 mAs. If you have to adjust settings before a flight, that doesn’t give you much time before a recharge is necessary. I recommend purchase of a transmitter battery that has at least 2000 mAs (you will probably have to order it through a custom battery shop, such as Batteries America on this site’s ‘links’ page). With a big transmitter battery, you can take your time to set up the aircraft exactly the way you want it without having to take additional time to charge before you fly. Keep the little battery on hand as a backup.

1^st, buy a battery charger that gives specific information about batteries. I’ve flown glow and battery powered planes, and the majority of crashes (the really expensive ones, at least) could have easily been avoided by using a charger/discharger that gives specific information about the condition of the battery. To understand why this is important, lets review a little bit about batteries:

Nickel-Cadmium (NiCad) batteries are generally heavier and have lower capacities than other types of batteries. Why use them at all, then? They are cheap, and provide nearly constant voltage until discharged. When treated properly, NiCad batteries last a long time and have a very shallow slope signature (meaning that the charge drops very slowly) even under high draws. NiCad batteries lose typically 20% of their charge over a one month period. NiCad batteries may also develop ‘memory’ (I say ‘may’ because NiCad memory is not a proven phenomena, though it sure seems to exist). I think it is important to discharge NiCad batteries completely when you are through using them, and to store the batteries with no charge. If you charge the batteries completely, fly, then discharge the batteries completely, your NiCads will last a long time and keep you flying.

Nickel-Metal hydride (NiMh) are generally more expensive than NiCads, are lighter, and can be found in higher capacities. These are popular as flight pack batteries as well, especially popular with folks that have crashed planes because their NiCad flight battery went dead. NiMh batteries lose charge more quickly than NiCad batteries (NiMh batteries lose typically 30% of their charge over a one month period), so it is still important to charge them shortly before use. NiMh batteries are known to resist the ‘memory’ effect that may hamper NiCad battery operation.

Lithium-ion polymer batteries (Li-Poly or LiPo) are very light batteries that have a much higher capacity than NiCads or NiMh batteries (roughly 3 times the energy density) and discharge very slowly in storage. The combination of these characteristics makes LiPo batteries perfect for RC aircraft. LiPo batteries must be charged with a charger designed to charge lithium batteries to avoid the risk of explosion or fires. Discharge of LiPo batteries below the recommended levels results In the battery becoming unusable. It is not recommended to discharge a lithium battery to its capacity. The lithium component of LiPo batteries is extremely explosive if it comes in contact with water. Care should be taken not to short a LiPo battery, which typically results in the battery overheating and ultimately, destruction. Great care is required when handling lithium batteries, and I suggest using lithium batteries only after reading all of the documentation provided with the battery.

Having said all of this, a battery charger/discharger that tells you how many milliamps (mA) that has been charged and discharged from a battery is crucial. Testing batteries with a voltmeter is fine, but will give you only a general idea of how much capacity a battery has. Most batteries will display higher voltage on a voltmeter (there is no load) than on a battery analyzer (that tests the battery under a load). Additionally, using a voltmeter to test NiCad batteries is difficult because they carry very even voltage until the battery is almost dead.

I use a fairly cheap charger from Hobbico, called the Accucycle Elite, to discharge, charge, and cycle batteries. Since I’ve used the Accucycle, I haven’t crashed a single aircraft due to loss of battery power. There are many other fine chargers out there that will do the job, but I suggest that the charger you buy have the following:

LCD display: that tells how many mAs have been put in or taken out of a battery. This is a good way to monitor the battery’s health. After a complete discharge, you should be able to recharge the battery to its rated capacity.

Variable charge/discharge rates: A slow charge is great for the night before you fly, but you’ll want to be able to quick-charge a battery at the field.

Ability to charge NiCads, NiMh, and lithium batteries: Before long, you will want to fly different types of planes. Most light planes (and the combat wings) use lithium batteries for power because of their compact size and high capacity. It is beneficial to have a charger that can charge all types of batteries that you may want to use.

Temperature sensor: If you want to use lithium batteries, I suggest that your battery charger have a temperature sensor that can stop the charging process if the battery temperature exceeds acceptable parameters.

Connectors: I recommend that you use one type of connector for all of your batteries. This simplifies the charging process immensely. I use large Dean’s connectors on all of my batteries, which means I need only one adapter to charge my big planes, little glow planes, flying wing, and foamies. You don’t want to have an entire toolbox devoted to dozens of connectors for a few planes.

What goes up, must come down (or takeoffs are voluntary, landings are required). If you put a model in the air, there will always be a chance that it will become violently influenced by gravity and be destroyed. Expect it! Remember that 1) it is a toy, 2) you are not in the plane, and 3) it happens to everybody.

Talk to other folks who are more experienced. There are many fields around with all kinds of RC flyers that love to talk about the hobby. Seek these people out and take their advice under consideration. Few people are expert in everything, but many have a great deal of knowledge in specifics.

Go to RCUniverse.com: This website is filled with forums of people who discuss new equipment, old equipment, plane and radio setup, what engines to use with different planes, and what works and does not work. Members post planes and equipment for sale, and you can search for items by proximity to your zip code. I have bought several planes that were ready to fly within driving distance of my house. I consult the forums when choosing parts for aircraft or have questions about building techniques. It is an invaluable resource.