The Best Trainer

[Dewey H Lee]

Hey Gman just viewed your video. It was great. Your planes look great. It's given me a new appreciation for the hobby. How about posting one on the gun and engine smoke on the wings and cowl. I'd like to start trying to do something like that with my birds. We just had a guy in our club that's about finished with a big B25 and it is geogous. Flack marks,bullet holes, exhaust stains. Looks like it's been through hundreds of missions. He's just never at the field hardly when I'm there . Man ld just love to sit and watch him working on one for a while. I have pictures and if I can get my son to help me I'll try to post them on the forum. All I have is internet on my phone and so maybe he will know a way to do it. Nice job again.

[Guest]

Well I finally ordered a Pandora! I need to get some stick time on a trainer before I go back to my warbirds. It has been close to 1 year since I have flown anything and the Pandora should get my confidence back up for my other planes waiting to be flown again and I have a Freewing Mosquito that still needs its maiden flight! My Grandson told me the other day that he would like to learn how to fly as well so the Pandora will be getting a lot of flight time on it.

[Grossman56]

You'll love it! Now, I have never flown mine with the nose wheel, Hippie 64 (Bryan) has, so he's the guy to talk to about that. I've flown mine in top and bottom wing configuration, I didn't find a lot of difference, all the same, I'd suggest that you try high wing first. Lets talk throttle for a minute.
I'm sure that there are as many thoughts on this as there are pilots out there, but here's mine.
I'm a click counter!
On my DX8, I set the throttle trim so that one click gets the prop to turn over, two will start her taxiing. By revving the motor up while holding the plane stationary by standing over it with my legs blocking the horizontal stab, I know that the motor is producing a sufficient thrust by click 6 to get the plane airborne. So all I have to worry about is 4 clicks to get her in the air.
So, my main mission is to keep that plane going straight down the runway. I line her up and feed in two clicks, is she straight?, adjust if necessary so that she is straight (Note: the pull is to the left most of the time due to prop torque, so add a little right rudder to straighten) Two more clicks, is she straight? correct if necessary. Now at this point she's running down the runway pretty well. Personally, I like this point of take off so I let her run, again, keeping her straight with the tail up. Then I'll feed in the last two clicks and get her off the ground, I may have to give the elevator a small bump, to break ground. Then, I give her all the throttle and hold her straight while she gains altitude, safe height, throttle back to one click over half and bank, turn 180 degrees and check trim, if you trim at half throttle, anything less will peel off altitude anything more will increase it. Fly the pattern, find landmarks to do your turns over so that it brings you out over the runway with minimum corrections. If I decide to do maneuvers, I'll increase throttle to three quarters and retrim using so many clicks, so that when I go to land I can reduce the trim by the same amount of clicks and I'm back to trim at half throttle. Set your altitude and speed on your base leg, do your 180 to final and reduce throttle, this will depend on whether you are landing into the wind or if there is a wind. I like to keep the prop in the game, so I usually leave two clicks on, not sure where what click your on? I shut the throttle off and advance two clicks. Aim the plane for your nose! Get a good rate of decent happening, you can control this with the elevator, more will extend your glide. just beware of your decent rate, you may have to add a click of throttle, usually, I don't. Now the fun part!!
My wife and I have made a game of this.
When you get to the last foot or so, you have to time when to pull back on the elevator to raise the nose slightly so she'll settle down on the runway, its more instinctive than anything, you'll get it
One correction/clarification, I put my battery all the way forward so that its touching the wooden battery hatch deck, which will mean nothing to you unless you have down the mods to yours that I have, which you haven't so never mind...
What you have is a stock Pandora, but once you get used to flying her, these are the mods I've done to mine that you may want to consider.
1)Replace the stock ESC with a higher rated one, stock is 30A, I put 50A in mine.
2)Replace the stock motor with the 3536 kv850 which is the motor used in the RocHobby Waco
3)Replace the stock Styrofoam wheels with Dave Browns, so much better!

This will allow you to put the battery in the access hatch rather than the battery hatch. In mine, the battery hatch is where the ESC is now. I ended up putting that one square of weight in the tail on Pandora Two as well. It allows me to put the battery all the way forward, call me crazy!
Of course, using this mod is only beneficial if you want to leave yours set up in low wing config, as I do.

Grossman56

[Guest]

Got my Pandora 2 days ago and started assembling it yesterday and I am discovering it has some missing hardware such as the screws. Anyone else have this problem on this plane?

[Grossman56]

What!!??
I know the screws are pretty well guess work, but there were more than enough. I found an old plastic ruler I had kicking around to measure the length of the screws to figure out which one they were talking about, trying to translate the Chinglish was a challenge but that's part of the Hobby.
Worse comes to worse, get ahold of Martin at Motion RC and he'll get it straightened out I'm sure

Grossman56

[XF-15DCC]

Hey Baron,
Have you thought about just replacing the missing hardware? Not sure who builds the Pandora but I had issues with a Flyzone Beaver (Screw heads snapped while tightening) and replaced most of them with better hardware.

Just a thought.

Kevin

[doctormike]

I finally got tired of trying to figure out which screws are which and bought a digital caliper at Harbor freight. It's also handy for measuring your CG, etc. One of the best $20 bills I ever spent! Doc

[Grossman56]

ehw! Doc, your talking dirty, digital calipers? Great idea, I'll have to look into that!

Grossman56

[boomer108]

Hey Doc!

I picked up one of those to from Harbor Freight also, shortly after I got back into the hobby. There was a coupon for six dollar sale so I ran over and got one. Comes in real handy for measurements.

[Guest]

Well I dug through my stash of airplane hardware and I found some screws to get this Pandora together. I am hoping to get the first flight in this weekend!!!

[crankestein]

If one advice they told me at the club is to stay away from self correcting airplanes. Why? Especially when making that cognitive, motor connection, whatever it is called, it is key important that one does not carry bad habits down the road. I learn to fly with a thrown away hand me down balsa Hobbico nitro airplane. It is a must a buddy box, and fly three mistakes high if possible. And that is coming from the president of the club who said he refused to teach me using self correcting airplanes. If I am still struggling, thats what a flight sim is for...

A good trainer is the HK Tundra, it has no bad habits, easy to fly smooth sailing plane.

[wrongroad]

G'day gang,
As an instructor, I actually prefer my students to learn without any gizmos in place. This way they get a feel for what the model is really doing and learn that a bit of movement is quite normal.
Once a student has the hang of making the basic control inputs and doing them well, then I can suggest using the safety gear and gyros. To me it is very important to understand what the model does and why before letting the marvels of modern life take over.
I feel that safe units can mask a problem and the student is then totally unprepared when they go onto a 'normal' aircraft and the model gets away from them as they had never experienced the 'feel' of a near stall or the like.
I am not against the use of these gyros etc as they do help a model in flight, no doubt, but I fear that they can give a new pilot a false sense of security.
In my club, there is a pilot who uses gyros and safe units all the time. He recently purchased a model without such devices and has had to learn to fly all over again. Much to his frustration and cost. [plenty of crashes] A number of our club members were commenting how good he was flying. Another member asked them to switch off the gyros and see what happens. While there was no doubt that the pilot was getting better, some of us felt he would have been much better without the electronic help.
When I was motor racing, I would disable the ABS and ESP [slide braking to counter drift] as I was faster without the computer trying to out think me. With ESP on, if the car started to slide, the computer would put the brake on a certain wheel to straighten the car. I did not want that. I needed the feel of the machine to drive it better. I feel the same way about flying. I need to 'feel' what the model is doing to fly better. My personal preference.
It is worth remembering that the wizz bang gear can not always save you. You still need enough height for the equipment to save you. This is what I mean by a false sense of security. Some pilots think the razzle dazzle stuff can save you at all times....nope.
I am about to build a 134" Avro Lancaster and I am thinking about installing a gyro to help with the control of a large model. Why not? But I will learn to fly her first and then go for the 'co pilot'.
Regards and respect
Daryl

[OV10]

As an instructor also, I couldn't agree more that the constructive critique of Wrongroad is very much on the Rightpath. ;)

[crankestein]

Same thing I said, this is not coming from an instructor, but from the student point of view.

Highly recommend balsa airplane, but if not possible then the Tundra or something along those lines.

When on the sim, fly brisk days and low wing aiplabe instead of the trainer Hobbico on the computer.

Make it much more difficult, fly very far away, and bring it back. Watch YT videos of airplanes flying against the sun, been flown far away and figure out which way its going. A beginner error is the airplane tends to dissolve in the sky a d unable to recognize which way its flying. Watch a lot of those landing and take off videos, and watch them again and again. Watch crashing videos, and figure out what could the pilot have done better...

I have done all the above, plus the buddy box and I can do dead sticks and fly all afternoon, low wing and high wing trainers nitro balsa. The bigger the airplane the better, fly early in the morning, in the evening but never ever against the sun.

Good luck

[wrongroad]

G'day crankestein,
I was backing your statement and I think you are doing everything right. I would like to have you as a student. You seem to listen and take advice. That is appreciated by instructors, let me tell you!:Cool:
When your turn comes to be an instructor, am sure you will understand even more!
In my early learning days [and I still consider that I learn things everyday] I sat at the simulator every night and put on the landing program. And until I nailed ten good landings in a row, I did not go to bed. More than once I managed to mess up until two AM.:Silly:
One night, it all fell into place and the ten went back to back. I felt satisfied that all my hard work was paying off. Then I needed to translate that hard work into the field.
Keep up the good work, my friend. You will be OK.
Regards and respect
Daryl