Thinking about getting back in to the hobby, lots has change.

[Grossman56]

Pandora is the only 4-in-1 on the market and is an ideal option in certain ways. It's PNP so you'd need to get the radio/battery/charger separately, compared to an RTF Apprentice, but this is technically okay since you'd be able to invest in a full radio/charger that will one day fly the A-10 rather than the basic one included in the RTF Apprentice package. On the other hand, you'd be trading future compatibility for short term convenience.

It all begins with my question of what kind of time and money you wanted to spend. You can choose your level of engagement... quick and easy, or the longer/more developed road.

Yep, if you've had some stick time, get a Pandora and a radio with at least 8 channels. A Flight Sim isn't a bad idea either and you can use your radio instead of the one that comes with certain versions of the Sim. I have two people learning right now, I've buddy boxed with my Pandora and the one fellow who started off with an Apprentice is just upgrading to one as well. I flew the E Flite Super Cub for probably two months and hopped into the Pandora and flew the pants off her. I still love to fly it especially in the wind, she's my old faithful Labrador Retriever. Definitely not fast but she'll do exactly what you tell her.
One of my favorite things to do is to fly patterns with my students, just turning the airplane at the ends and then hold the radio up while she cruises back to the other end. 'He who puts in the less inputs wins' game. The Supercub hangs from the ceiling, the Pandoras (I have two) still fly regularly. As well as the rest of the fleet which consists of warbirds and an Avanti.

Grossman56

[Woodcock]

OK, well how about a littler real advise, I'm quite literally full of this stuff. Go buy yourself a "Hobbyzone T-28 Trojan S RTF with Safe". The price of this thing is a wopping 128 bucks, and comes with everything! Follow the directions, turn on the safe feature, and walla your flying. How simple is that mate. It's a tiny plane, but it's taught many of a new RC Pilot. I would order an extra wing, a few extra props. It doesn't do well in wind, so you need to fly it during calm conditions. Then when you get bored with the flying around in safe mode, (you will) and you are fully familiar on how to switch it on and off readily. Start trying to fly with it switched off a little at a time, quickly switching it on anytime you feel in trouble. Make sure you keep it high, but not to high.

While your mastering this, you will need to decide on what radio you want to hang your hat on. The one you would like to hang your hat on in the beginning, so to speak. I highly recommend a Spectrum DX9, it's a little pricey, but you wont be out growing it for a while. My main reason for suggesting this radio is this. There is a whole host of, "Bind & Fly" airplanes that are offered for sale, "With the safe feature included, just like the T-28 micro I'm suggesting for your first plane". The Safe feature is always a good choice for beginners, in my opinion. But man it your new hobby, LOL They do make less expensive Spectrum radios, ya can get a DS6 for a couple of hundred bucks. Not quite as good because of some missing options, but will work just fine.

Listen make sure when you go flying you don't do it around a bunch of trees for obvious reasons. Focus in the beginning on watching the plane closely, making sure you know exactly what the orientation of the plane is, going, coming, right side up, up side down etc. Flying these models are very visual. Very important.

For your second plane, I would recommend a, "Turnigy EFxtra racer". Don't let the name fool ya, LOL. In my opinion it is probably the toughest plane on the planet. You can crash this plane three ways to Sunday, and it will just keep coming back for more. It's foam, but totally reinforced with carbon rods from top to bottom. It looks really cool too. It is a hand launch, but if you put an Admiral 6 channel receiver in it with gyro and bail out, you will be totally amazed. Just activate the bail out function throttle it up and toss it into the sky, (not the ground) and it will literally fly it's self into the air. I like this model, they're still one of my personal favorite planes, I actually learned to fly on this plane early this year. In addition to being tougher than a boot, it fly's slow great, and I have yet to out grow it. Once you've mastered this plane, you are ready for much more challenging models, like those Freewing Jets. : )

So advise is what you make of it mate, you ask for it ya got it. Use it don't use it. But there it is man.

Best of luck to you in your new endeavor.
Woody

[Woodcock]

One last thing mate. I have crashed all three of my EFXtras in virtually every conceivable way, broke a many of props, but have never broken the air frame. This is very important to beginners, because there will be plenty of crashes for sure. The first time you take one of your first planes home in 3, 4, 5 or more pieces you will understand how important it is to have a really durable plane. FYI

[rifleman_btx]

I 100% concur with that!

[thisguy65]

Kinda jumping subject for simulators...Real Flight the best one?

[xviper]

I've had several. Some people like this and others like that. It's like eggs - fried? scrambled? over easy? Personally, I found RealFlight to be not so "real". Undoubtedly, it has the most in the way of user settable parameters but I could never get it to feel like the real RC model. I found Phoenix the better one, but that's just me. It's also cheaper initially and in the long run as the updates are all free. RealFlight comes up with update packs that you have to buy every year or two.

[Woodcock]

Kinda jumping subject for simulators...Real Flight the best one?

I use it a lot. First thing ya gotta have a computer with enough horse power to run it. Get the Real Flight 7 or 8. What ever you do, "DON'T GET REAL FLIGHT X", it\s a total piece of junk. I bought the X version, non of the existing real flight models that are down loadable to RF7 will work with RFX. I have really regretted it a lot. As a matter of fact I'm going to contact Motion next week to see if they can down grade me to RF8. RF8 supports VR. But if you don't care about the VR, I would get the RF7.

Woody

[BRGT350]

I bought one of the newer Phoenix sims off of eBay and then found a really cheap DX6i to use with it. The sim works ok, but everything seems to be stupid easy to fly. If I used the simulator as a guide, I could fly anything made. There is a giant turbine A-10 that flies easier than my real life UMX Timber. I crank up the wind and difficulty and everything is still really easy. I do use the sim in the winter to help with muscle memory and a break from homework. It is nice to try out aerobatics that I don't have courage to try with a real plane. Having helped a few people learn to fly this summer, I can say that the buddy box method works really well to get flying. For somebody with flight experience, I wouldn't think it would be needed.

[thisguy65]

Thanks guys. Stop by small hobby store today on the way to pick up some material to later machine for a customer


They had it! A10. It was huge

They also had Carbon Club S. That was the bird Motion RC recommend since I do have some, some, experience.

They had real flight up running as well, think it was a real old version. Was running on a basic desktop with XP. It was cool but prepsective didn’t seem so real as it was hard to justify when to turn in for final approach to land.

speaking of PC power for these simulators my laptop has 8gb video hard (gaming laptop) that I use to design parts and write code for my CNC machine.

[boomer108]

Well if you just bought all the stuff you just mentioned, you've got the rc bug big time.LOL:Cool:

[xviper]

Thanks guys. Stop by small hobby store today


They had it! A10. It was huge

If it was a local hobby shop, it was most likely the FMS A-10 as almost all hobby shops in N. America carry Horizon products, which means predominantly FMS. The Freewing A-10 is even bigger, more powerful and also more money and sold pretty much by only Motion RC and overseas by RC Castle and a couple of other smaller online shops in China. Although it's possible that your hobby shop brought in one for display purposes, it is doubtful.

[thisguy65]

If it was a local hobby shop, it was most likely the FMS A-10 as almost all hobby shops in N. America carry Horizon products, which means predominantly FMS. The Freewing A-10 is even bigger, more powerful and also more money and sold pretty much by only Motion RC and overseas by RC Castle and a couple of other smaller online shops in China. Although it's possible that your hobby shop brought in one for display purposes, it is doubtful.

It was the FMS. I'll admit Instantly think Freewing when I see FMS, not sure why. They just had it in the box next to a F-18 (FMS) It was mostly Horizon. How do they compare with Freewing? I've read on here Horizon may have some proportions off than of the actual plane but it may be beneficial in performance as to why those proportions are not 100% correct or there's about at least.

Well if you just bought all the stuff you just mentioned, you've got the rc bug big time.LOL:Cool:

I didn't buy anything just went to look, see what they had and put my hands on it. I did like the Carbon Club S however.

They did have a "make a offer bin" did have some real flight software in there but it was olllldd. Simulation seems...seems.. to be a good way to get more pratice in when can't actually fly. I've just always heard of the Real Flight so of course I gravitated to that one.

[xviper]

It was the FMS. I'll admit Instantly think Freewing when I see FMS, not sure why. They just had it in the box next to a F-18 (FMS) It was mostly Horizon. How do they compare with Freewing? I've read on here Horizon may have some proportions off than of the actual plane but it may be beneficial in performance as to why those proportions are not 100% correct or there's about at least.

For me, proportions aren't as important as how it flies. In many instances, models have to sacrifice some "scaleness" in order to actually fly properly. When comparing FMS to Freewing, one has to exclude those who are firmly entrenched in one camp or the other. I'm not entrenched in either. I buy what appeals to me and what has the best specifications in my judgement. FMS got me into the scale arena years ago, so I can't say anything really bad about them. However, in recent times, Freewing has jumped to the forefront in many, many areas. I still consider FMS as being slightly ahead in the prop plane field by comparison, while Freewing is slightly ahead in terms of jets. I have many FMS prop planes and in the same token, I have many Freewing/Flightline EDFs.
By stark contrast, I have the FMS Tigercat instead of the FW one. I also have the FW A-10 instead of the FMS one. Both, in their own categories are excellent products. I just elected to go with what I did for numerous reasons, some of which are personal preference and some of which are based on my perception of which has the better attributes. I know people who have the "other" of what I have. Some have shown their deficiencies and hate them while some love them and don't have any problems at all. You just gotta do your homework if it's your money that's on the table.

[F22trainer]

I opted for that Carbon Cub, as I had experience as well, albeit 30 some years ago. Bought TX separate - not the RTF with radio included. At the same time I had converted my old 3 channel trainer and used a free simulator App on iPad! I did not use any of the special on the Cub like auto land or virtual fence, features except the beginner and intermediate modes. Screen shot of simulator app from jetstripes.

[thisguy65]

Got up with a local club. Going out to meet them tomorrow. They have Apprentice with buddy box, I can fly that the club uses to teach new guys. I'm excited but have a feeling I'll be going down the rabbit hole. Goals being Carbon Club S---then move in to a A10/B25

[rifleman_btx]

Sounds like an excellent plan to me! Welcome to the insanity!:Cool::)

[ICM]

Got up with a local club. Going out to meet them tomorrow. They have Apprentice with buddy box, I can fly that the club uses to teach new guys. I'm excited but have a feeling I'll be going down the rabbit hole. Goals being Carbon Club S---then move in to a A10/B25

Good way to go. I took the same route with the Apprentice and buddy box 6 months ago at my club. Great plane for training and beyond. Once I soloed, I bought my own and was hooked. You will be too. Although I now fly 5 more advanced planes, I still fly the Apprentice just cause its fun to fly.

[thisguy65]

Today was fun...SAFE system was pretty amazing. After knocked the rust off, got to fly with full control of the plane. On the way home told the wife lets get Ice Cream...she agreed. Luckly for me there is a hobby store on the way. Stopped in and picked up a Carbon Club and extra battery. Wife was laughing at me but she though the bigger scale planes they had (6ft wingspan stunt style planes) were pretty cool.

Need to get a charger that discharges/maintains storage mode. Suggestions?

[boomer108]

Today was fun...SAFE system was pretty amazing. After knocked the rust off, got to fly with full control of the plane. On the way home told the wife lets get Ice Cream...she agreed. Luckly for me there is a hobby store on the way. Stopped in and picked up a Carbon Club and extra battery. Wife was laughing at me but she though the bigger scale planes they had (6ft wingspan stunt style planes) were pretty cool.

Need to get a charger that discharges/maintains storage mode. Suggestions?

There are several good chargers. I use the Hitec X2 ac/dc , does everything you need in a charger and at a little over 100 dollars it can't be beat.

[rifleman_btx]

Something like this, for me the 4ch version is what im planning to buy once things settle down for me.