Choosing a first RC airplane can feel overwhelming. In Episode 3 of the RC Plane Lab podcast, Ron and Tom explain what a beginner actually needs, how common airplane packages differ, why a simulator and an experienced instructor can save money and frustration, and what makes a good first trainer.
Listen to Episode 3
Episode length: 44 minutes, 15 seconds. Originally released: March 21, 2020.
What You’ll Hear in This Episode
- The basic equipment needed to fly an RC airplane
- Why a local flying club and an experienced instructor are valuable
- How an RC flight simulator can accelerate learning
- The differences between RTF, BNF, PNP, ARF, and traditional kits
- How AS3X, SAFE, geofencing, and buddy-box systems help beginners
- Why foam trainers are easier and less expensive to repair
- Recommended wingspan, dihedral, and channel count for a first airplane
- How much to spend and where not to cut corners
- Why electric power is usually the easiest starting point
- How good judgment and pre-flight checks prevent crashes
Episode Chapters
- 00:00 — Opening and introduction
- 01:09 — What a beginner needs to fly an RC airplane
- 01:31 — Finding help through a local flying club
- 03:25 — Why beginners should use a flight simulator
- 05:11 — RTF: Ready to Fly
- 06:01 — ARF: Almost Ready to Fly
- 06:53 — BNF: Bind-N-Fly
- 07:23 — PNP: Plug-N-Play
- 08:16 — Traditional airplane kits
- 09:49 — AS3X stabilization and SAFE technology
- 12:25 — How buddy-box training works
- 13:18 — Foam versus built-up balsa airplanes
- 15:07 — Recommended size for a first trainer
- 15:32 — Dihedral and self-righting stability
- 17:43 — Why a trainer is better than a scale-looking first airplane
- 19:10 — Three-channel versus four-channel trainers
- 21:11 — Repairing foam and balsa airplanes
- 22:55 — How much to spend on a first airplane
- 26:17 — Choosing a safe and legal place to fly
- 29:26 — Where cheap equipment can become expensive
- 32:30 — Manufacturer support after an equipment failure
- 35:44 — Satellite receivers and antenna placement
- 38:17 — Electric, nitro, and gasoline power
- 39:55 — Pre-flight judgment: if something is wrong, do not fly
- 41:04 — A simulator maneuver that ended in a real crash
- 43:07 — Contact information and closing
Start with Help, Not Just an Airplane
Ron and Tom recommend contacting a local RC flying club before making a large financial commitment. Many clubs have instructors, buddy-box equipment, or a club trainer that lets a newcomer experience the hobby with an experienced pilot nearby. If local help is not available, videos, podcasts, and careful research can help—but a flight simulator should still be near the top of the shopping list.
A simulator lets a student practice orientation, approaches, takeoffs, landings, and recovery without repairing an airplane after every mistake. It is also useful when weather or available time makes a trip to the flying field impractical. The hosts caution that simulator success does not guarantee that a maneuver will work exactly the same way with a real airplane.
Understanding RC Airplane Package Types
RTF (Ready to Fly) packages generally include the airplane, installed electronics, transmitter, and most or all of the equipment needed to get airborne. They normally require only basic assembly and battery charging.
BNF (Bind-N-Fly) airplanes include the installed electronics but require a compatible transmitter. Batteries and chargers may or may not be included.
PNP (Plug-N-Play) airplanes normally include the motor, speed controller, and servos but require the pilot to install a compatible receiver and use their own transmitter.
ARF (Almost Ready to Fly) models require considerably more completion than the name may suggest. The airframe is largely constructed, but the builder generally supplies and installs the radio equipment and power system and may need to glue or hinge major components.
Traditional kits provide wood parts, plans, and instructions, sometimes with selected hardware. They offer the full building experience but are not the quickest or easiest route to a beginner’s first flight.
What Makes a Good First RC Airplane?
For most beginners, the hosts favor an electric, foam, four-channel trainer. Foam airplanes are generally affordable and easy to repair with common field supplies. Electric power avoids the fuel, tuning, and additional operating knowledge associated with nitro and gasoline engines.
Ron recommends looking around the 36- to 42-inch wingspan range because the additional size and weight generally make the airplane easier to see and less easily disturbed by wind than a very small model. Dihedral—the shallow V shape formed by the wings when viewed from the front—also helps a trainer return toward level flight.
They recommend starting with four channels rather than three. A four-channel airplane adds ailerons and lets the student learn the control arrangement commonly used on more advanced models, avoiding the need to relearn rudder-stick habits later.
Stabilization and Training Technology
AS3X uses gyros to reduce the effect of outside disturbances and make an airplane feel smoother. SAFE can add bank-angle limits and self-leveling behavior. Some trainers also offer geofencing or a holding pattern that can give the pilot time to hand the transmitter to an instructor. These systems are valuable training aids, but Ron and Tom encourage pilots to work toward confidently controlling the airplane themselves.
A buddy box connects a student’s transmitter to an instructor’s transmitter. The instructor grants control while the student is flying and can immediately take it back if the airplane gets into trouble. This provides real-airplane experience with a safety net that electronics alone cannot completely replace.
Budget, Equipment, and Safety
A first trainer does not need to be the airplane a pilot owns forever. It may eventually be passed to another beginner, replaced as skills improve, or accumulated enough repairs to retire. That makes a reasonably priced RTF trainer a sensible way to learn whether the hobby is a good fit.
The hosts distinguish between saving money on a first airframe and cutting corners on critical control equipment. Transmitters, receivers, servos, and batteries directly affect control and reliability. Name-brand equipment can fail too, but established manufacturers may provide diagnostics, repairs, warranty service, and useful answers after a problem.
Wherever you fly, obtain permission, keep well away from people and property, and remember that even a small model can cause injury or damage. If an airplane, battery, control surface, or radio system does not seem right during setup or a pre-flight inspection, do not fly until the problem is understood and corrected.
Questions Answered in This Episode
Should I buy an RC flight simulator before my first airplane?
Ron and Tom strongly recommend it. A simulator builds basic reactions and orientation skills while making crashes free and instantly repairable. It cannot reproduce every real-world condition, but it can greatly reduce the learning curve.
Should a beginner choose a three-channel or four-channel airplane?
The hosts recommend a four-channel trainer with throttle, elevator, rudder, and ailerons. It teaches the control arrangement the pilot is likely to use as they progress.
Is foam or balsa better for a first RC airplane?
For a first trainer, foam is usually the practical choice. It is inexpensive, widely available, and generally faster and easier to repair. Balsa airplanes remain rewarding for pilots who enjoy building and traditional construction.
Should a beginner start with electric, nitro, or gasoline power?
Electric is the easiest recommendation for most beginners because it is convenient, comparatively inexpensive, and has a small operating learning curve. Nitro and gasoline can be explored after the pilot gains experience.
Terms and Equipment Mentioned
- RTF, BNF, PNP, ARF, and traditional kits
- RC flight simulators
- AS3X and SAFE
- Geofencing and self-leveling systems
- Buddy-box training
- Foam and built-up balsa construction
- Three-channel and four-channel controls
- Dihedral
- Computer transmitters and model memory
- Receivers, remote or satellite receivers, servos, and batteries
- Electric, nitro, and gasoline power systems
Full Episode Transcript
This transcript was generated from the episode captions and lightly formatted for readability. Speaker identification is based on the hosts’ on-air introductions; occasional transcription or speaker-label errors may remain.
Read the complete Episode 3 transcript
Announcer: rc plane lab a podcast for anyone interested in rc airplane we’ll share tips and tricks on how to build models and talk about successful flights epic crashes and everything in between visit us at rcplane lab.com to sign up for our email list and to ask us questions you can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846 please help us out by rating and reviewing us in your favorite podcast app thanks for spending time with us today now here are your hosts ron and tom
Tom: hello everyone and welcome to the rc plane lab podcast i’m tom and i’m ron this is episode number two that kicks off our regular release schedule uh we hope to give you guys an episode every week uh but please excuse us if our schedules force us to miss a week every now and then yeah
Ron: that happens from time to time it does not a plan but we’ll see how it goes yeah okay on today’s episode we’re going to be talking about rc planes for beginners so let’s talk about what do you need to fly an rc airplane you know there’s a few things you’re going to need obviously you’re
Tom: going to need a transmitter in an airplane probably going to need a place to fly them right depending on the type of airplane you’re going to need a battery a battery charger uh maybe some fuel if you if you choose to go the the gas powered or nitro powered route and probably you know would be really helpful to have somebody to help you uh with the hobby yeah i think that would be a good place for
Ron: people to start actually right reach out to your local your local flying club most of the time a club will actually get you out let you fly an airplane before you make any kind of financial
Tom: commitment right for example our our club we have a dedicated trainer that the club owns and that we use to then introduce people to the hobby so most clubs have something i think similar to that yeah
Ron: because this can be fairly expensive to get into can be doesn’t have to be doesn’t have to be no right but it’s it’s it’s good to kind of dip your toe in the water before you uh you dive in i guess yeah to see if it’s something that you really want to want to try it’s fun once you get started and i think most people that do will kind of be taken by it and want to buy their own airplane and then another airplane right and then another airplane and then another airplane yeah and then another
Tom: right right um so so for everybody listening the the perfect number of airplanes that you should own is actually a formula really yeah and the formula is n plus one whereas n is the number of airplanes that you currently own i like that so that is the perfect number of airplanes yeah because
Ron: oddly enough you can always find room for another one yeah it’s weird how that works but but yeah
Tom: someone someone to help them in the hobby i think is uh is definitely a uh an instrument for success
Ron: yeah and you can do it you know you can get started on your own if you don’t have a club around you can um there’s a lot of good youtube videos on how to get started um there’s a lot of good podcasts out there well at least one good one that we know of i hope you’re talking about this of course i am okay good shameless plug but no like seriously though if you can talk to somebody local i would recommend doing that first if you can’t do some research you know kind of look up how to fly
Tom: right uh buy a simulator oh gosh yes i mean i’m glad you said that because i was i was hoping we were going to get to that soon because uh as some of you know us know um simulators when you crash are really cheap to repair yeah you just hit reset and you go again like magic yeah so i actually bought
Ron: a simulator after i bought an airplane okay and had a couple flights on under my belt before i bought the simulator and it it made uh it made learning much much quicker much easier and much cheaper much
Tom: cheaper yes so i i i would recommend doing that first when i when i was working you know back in the hobby shop part-time uh there was many times where i would actually recommend uh buying a simulator to customers before they bought their first airplane yeah well number one i mean it’s great entertainment i mean regardless of what the simulator costs i mean even if it’s 100 bucks or whatever it’s great entertainment you know on a rainy day when you can’t fly or can’t really do anything outside you fire up a simulator and learn a new skill yeah uh so yeah simulators are definite definite plus
Ron: yeah i actually the first time i went in to buy an airplane the gentleman that owned the hobby shop had a a nitro plane hanging up and that’s what i wanted first and he told me buy this uh rtf kit and get yourself comfortable with that and then come back and see me in a couple months and we’ll get you something different which is what i did but before i bought the the nitro plane i ended up buying a simulator to practice up first yeah um i noticed i said rtf some people might not know what that means so why don’t we let’s cover a few terms okay let’s start with rtf would you like to uh define
Tom: it for me sure uh so rtf means ready to fly uh and generally speaking it’s it’s just like the name uh suggests you uh you buy a box uh with an airplane in it and it has everything in the box to make it ready to fly uh that means uh it has the transmitter has the airplane has all that other stuff that we said you might need to go flying already in the box uh you you know put a few things together really really quick assembly charge up some batteries and you go fly yeah normally
Ron: it’s a couple hours put it together right uh put the tail on put the wings on usually some decals charge a battery sometimes you have to bind sometimes you don’t i think it depends you probably do it’s probably a good idea to rebind anyway but the instruction manuals are usually really
Tom: really good about yeah that’s like a step step step by step what to do so um but that’s an rtf so what about an arf or an arf so that is an almost ready to fly it’s a bit of a misnomer uh so it’s it’s it’s kind of almost ready to fly it’s uh most of the construction has been done for you uh so there’s some minor assembly usually required that requires glue usually you know gluing wing halves together uh gluing the tail together hinging the control surfaces gluing them on things like that uh and usually some bolt-on type stuff you bolt the landing gear on or the motor or what have you um but generally speaking an arf will not include any electronics uh and more often than not it won’t include any kind of power source either electric or nitro or gas okay what about uh you might see bnf
Ron: on a box at the hobby shop what does that mean yeah bind and fly that’s what that stands for and
Tom: that means everything in the box is usually kind of included uh including the electronics uh that you will then bind to your existing transmitter so that sort of implies that you already own a compatible transmitter with that particular platform and so servos are installed already on
Ron: those or okay so it’s pretty much ready to go it’s pretty much a ready to fly minus your
Tom: transmitter minus your transmitter and sometimes they come with the batteries and chargers if they’re smaller airplanes and if they’re larger airplanes they usually probably don’t come with that or maybe they’re available with that you just have to check what’s on the you know on the end of the box to see what’s included but okay almost almost a ready to fly minus the transmitter okay what about a pnp a pnp stands for plug and play and it is basically like a ready to fly minus your receiver so this implies that you already have a radio system of your own transmitter and receiver that you then take your receiver that you already own and you plug it into the airplane and then it becomes
Ron: a ready to fly so with the pnp it doesn’t matter what kind of radio system you have as long as you have a receiver you can plug it in and you’re good to go generally speaking that’s correct okay so for the next one we don’t see very often anymore what about my favorite yeah what about a kit
Tom: yeah so a kit is basically just a box of wood right uh generally speaking it was a box of wood uh sometimes those you know parts were die cut sometimes they were pre-machine cut and sanded but they were wooden parts that you glued together to make an airplane that you then covered with a covering of some kind and um yeah no electronics or anything like that it was just literally a box of wood uh a set of plans and an instruction manual well and sometimes it would include uh like maybe
Ron: push rods or landing gear if that’s made of metal sometimes right right yeah uh or wire sometimes
Tom: there was uh there was a sometimes a hardware packet in the kit that would include like landing gear wire or push rods like you said or uh engine mounts things or a cowl or a cowl might have
Ron: might have some yeah pre-formed parts in there also yeah yeah that uh that’s the way i that’s
Tom: the way i got in and i don’t regret doing it that way at all yeah it’s good to build i enjoy building
Ron: but i i don’t know if i’d want to start out that way right well i mean and the stuff that’s out there
Tom: today is is super super convenient and you can get flying so quickly now it just it still amazes me even to this day you know from where i came from you know the the options that people have now to get in the
Ron: hobby are almost endless well not only that but there’s a lot of uh uh technologies out that help you fly um also if you’re in the hobby shop looking at airplanes you might see something on the box
Tom: that says as3x yeah uh as3x is a is an uh i active stability on three axis thank you yeah i always get the get the acronym uh messed up but basically what it is it’s a receiver with three gyros in it that sort of correct automatically without any pilot input um flight conditions so it makes for a smoother flying airplane and easier to fly airplane and it is a tool that uh that helps people learn to fly that i think along with some of these other technologies that we’ll eventually get to
Ron: um could also be a crutch yeah as long as you’re using it right it’s it’s not made to be flown with forever you know it’s made to be a training aid right normally right and normally there’s three modes on it i think right most of the time so you’ll have one where it’s got full control over the airplane you’re telling it what to do but it’s not going to let you roll it’s not going to let you go you know climb too high it’s not gonna let you dive too fast right um second mode is going to give you a little bit more freedom but it’s still going to kind of be there in case something happens it’s gonna uh it will help with wind and and all that it’ll keep you level when you’re supposed to be flying level and then you can turn it off completely and that’s when you’re actually flying the airplane right uh which is what your your goal should be right your goal your goal should be to be the pilot in command right yeah you don’t pilot in command you can use you can use those for help right when you’re learning but once you’re past that you you shouldn’t necessarily need to be using that at all exactly and it’s the same with the the safe technology that’s on some of these other ones
Tom: right which is yeah that’s another that’s another um auto sort of correcting technology and i think they’ve even taken it i haven’t explored it fully but i think they’ve they’ve taken the safe technology now to where i think when it’s on its full control i think it will like only let you even bank just like 15 degrees or i’m like it it’s amazing how much control these things can actually take away
Ron: from a pilot yeah there’s actually some out now two trainers and such that will have a geofence which is just an invisible boundary and if it goes too far away it will come fly back to you yeah you can even you can even like for people learning to fly if you don’t have the buddy box system with that plane you can actually push a button and it will just sit there and fly in circles on its own so you can hand it over to somebody else you know if you’re diving or something like that it will actually go into level flight and just fly in circles until you can hand the transmitter over to somebody else to
Tom: to fix it for you that’s oh and for anybody listening a buddy box is a a system that we use um experienced pilots use to train new pilots where we we actually tie sort of two transmitters together electronically via accord or or new ones are wireless even yeah bluetooth um and we can take control of the airframe or the airplane whenever the student gets in trouble that’s a
Ron: buddy box yeah so you push a button you know when you’re the one when you’re the the trainer um you push a button and then that gives the other person control you have to hold the button down the whole time or else uh you get control back so they have control when you have the button pushed down and you let go if they get in trouble you can just let go and take over and that way you don’t uh have any
Tom: bad endings yep yep yeah so i mean um did you want to you know maybe maybe touch on the different types
Ron: of construction yeah so biggest differences you’re going to see is foam and like a built-up model which is usually uh balsa right a wooden type model my favorite mine too for for getting in though i think
Tom: you ought to look for a good ready to fly kit made of foam yeah and and you know i’m i’m the old guy in the room uh old school guy loves kits loves wooden airplanes and even well i do too even with all of that and and coming in the hobby how i got in the hobby you know many many years ago building my first airplane and such even today i it’s hard for me not to recommend you know kind of what you’re talking
Ron: about well it’s just so much easier yeah uh it’s so much cheaper cheaper that’s really that’s the thing and when you get the wooden built-up kits you don’t get the the stability control the as3x the safe technology you know those are those are made for beginners right and most of the time beginners just
Tom: start with foam airplanes and there’s there’s lots of options out there with with the foam
Ron: oh yeah and they change yearly they do it’s hard to keep up with what’s new and what’s good you know
Tom: technology moves so fast i agree i got online the other day uh just to do a quick kind of search because i knew we were going to talk about this and uh man the options that are out there just it’s staggering yeah it’s hard it’s honestly there are so many options out there without somebody you know giving you their recommendations it’s actually kind of i would think for for a newcomer to the hobby would be almost intimidating yeah would you would you say would you have a uh like a recommended size airplane that you would recommend to to somebody just getting in see i i prefer going a little bit
Ron: bigger i know they have some small 12 even 24 inch wingspan but to me 36 to 42 is a good wingspan yeah uh it handles the wind better right you’re gonna have a little bit of weight to it so it’s going to fly a little bit better um i think more important than size though is going to be wing configuration most of your your trainers will have dihedral built in right uh for those that
Tom: don’t know what dihedral is if you want to tell us yeah sure uh so a dihedral is the it basically if you if you look at the the leading edge of the wing you know head-on you’re looking right at the wing dihedral is a reference to the angle that the wing makes towards the center so if you can imagine you take half the wing lay it flat on a table and the opposite wing tip is probably going to have some sort of gap under it under a flat surface if that makes sense yeah so if you’re looking at it it’s going to be a very shallow v exactly exactly and generally speaking the more um the more dihedral or the more v-ish the shape generally speaking the more stable the airplane itself is yeah and that
Ron: so the reason for that is when a when a wing is flat it creates more lift than when it’s not flat so it’s going to level itself out as that is that one wing you know when you’re banking in a turn is that one wing is is uh more level with the horizon it’s going to create more lift than the wing that’s kind of up in the air and so they will kind of equalize themselves out in order to fly um straight
Tom: and level yeah so i’d say that’s a fairly accurate easy description yeah yeah i mean there’s a lot of there’s a lot of other factors you know well on aerodynamic factors things like that but yeah that generally speaking yeah um if you can imagine a flat uh wing gliding through the air just a completely flat one it’s going to produce the most lift when it’s kind of horizontal to the surface in the vertical axis right that makes sense yeah yeah without getting into it too much so
Ron: exactly without the dihedral you know when you’re flying at 30 degrees or whatever you’re going to stay at that angle it’s not going to be self-correcting right exactly which is what makes it so much easier for a beginner when you have that dihedral built in because you don’t have to worry as much
Tom: about what angle you’re at and um i could be wrong but most of the most of the airplanes i looked at online the other day when i was looking uh most of those you know they all had a fair amount of dihedral yeah trainers that are designed to get people in the hobby are gonna have a lot of that
Ron: yeah trainers do yeah and that’s i mean that’s just easy for somebody to get started with without
Tom: having to worry too much about their attitude in the air right what would you say to uh newcomers about airplanes that really look cool and look like airplanes i would say those are
Ron: awesome but don’t begin with them yeah yeah i mean trainers are made as trainers for a reason you know they’re made to fly well they’re made to be forgiving they’re made to be easy and quick to get in the air um they don’t necessarily look like well i shouldn’t say that it’s possible they don’t look like real airplanes they won’t look like a cessna they won’t look like you know a jet fighter or even an old uh like world war ii bomb or anything like that right and the reason is those are harder to fly yeah generally speaking they are yeah so stick with the trainer that’s what it’s made for exactly you know save that for your third or fourth or fifth plane you know that’s when you can kind of get into what what kind of airplane uh when you that’s when you can buy what you like
Tom: the looks of right yeah so so you’re talking about dihedral and and you know usually scale or real looking airplanes that you would see out on a you know on air on a ramp somewhere are going to be lacking that that dihedral uh function that you were talking about um i think dihedral also plays into to one of these other topics we wanted to cover um about how many channels would you would you say
Ron: um you should begin with yeah i’d skip right past the three channel and go to four channel yeah why is that well so my first plane was a three channel i i happen to agree by the way but yeah explain that yeah so my first plane was the three channel it had a lot of dihedral built in the wing it was self-riding because of the wing but it did not have ailerons right so that’s all you know it flew well sure you can get three channels that fly okay but the difference between that is when you’re going to a four channel your your rudder control changes hands so i’m gonna pause that
Tom: for just a second i’m sure for our listeners i’m gonna channels we’re referring to the number of functions that the airplane can uh accept from the transmitter yeah it’s how many separate lines of
Ron: communication there are between the receiver and the transmitter so a three channel has what three
Tom: channels then three channel has your throttle right has your elevator and has your rudder and then so a fourth channel adds what ailerons which those are the ones that are on the wing correct that’s what controls your role controls the role about the longitudinal yeah right um yeah i just wanted to make a quick note of that because there is a difference yeah three channel versus four channel so you know usually uh when when new folks come into the hobby and if they really do enjoy it and they have a successful entry let’s say into the hobby they’re going to graduate to a four channel or more airplane right yeah so yeah i think i think you and i think pretty much along the same lines here just just go ahead and avoid the three channel type airplanes right off the bat yeah because you don’t
Ron: learn bad habits like i said switching the the rudder from thumb to thumb is something that you don’t want to have to relearn when you’re going from a three channel to a four channel it just makes it more difficult taxing on the ground it makes it more difficult when you’re trying to take off just stick with the four channel begin with and you’ll be fine right so yeah so we we kind of covered
Tom: the the you know the construction you know different types of airplanes things like that um you know one thing maybe we could we could talk about is the the difficulty should the need arise to repair an airplane and there’s different types of repair techniques for different types of airplanes um i’ll say that uh you know repairing a wood airplane is going to be more time consuming and uh if it can
Ron: be repaired yeah it’s going to be much more difficult um foam is nice because usually you can tape it usually you can throw some popsicle sticks on it maybe some uh some bamboo skewers just kind of get it put back together and you’re flying again when foam breaks it’s not difficult to rig it up and make it fly right whereas that’s not something you’re going to do with a covered up wood airplane right well and
Tom: then you’ve got you know on a balsa airplane or a wood construction airplane you’ve got the like you mentioned that the covering that is also then going to need patched even after your perform the repair so that adds a whole another level of complexity so the foam airplanes are great for beginners because should the need arise they are much easier to repair yeah like i said if you take some tape with
Ron: you take some skewers and stuff you most of the time will be able to just kind of put it back together and get back up flying um really the extra weight that glue adds and tape adds is not going to make any difference to how it flies when you’re first getting into it so right you know you’re fine just taking stuff like that for a hard landing right if you crash anything too much you know you’re not going to be able to fix it whether it’s wood or foam right which which kind of which kind of ties
Tom: into my the thing i’d like to talk about next you know how much should somebody spend on their first airplane i mean if you crash it to the point where you can’t repair it hopefully you’re not out a whole lot of money so how much should somebody expect to pay or could they expect to pay depending on how
Ron: they choose to get in the hobby yeah so there’s a lot of different uh manufacturers out there that that make radio equipment when you buy uh like an rtf kit like okay so the first rtf kit that i bought or airplane that i bought i have nothing left of it the airplane like i said it flew well sure but it outlived its purpose right now i wasn’t gonna fly a three channel and there was no reason because i after buying it i knew i wouldn’t recommend anybody else start off with one so i didn’t want to give anybody else the bad habits by learning how to use it also the transmitters that come with them don’t always come with full-fledged transmitters and i was going to
Tom: say that generally speaking even if you had started with a with a let’s just call it a foamy four channel airplane as a beginner even even if you had started that way chances are if you stay in the hobby eventually you’re not going to own that airplane anymore either because you’ve passed it on to maybe somebody else to get into the hobby or you’ve crashed it to the point where you don’t want to repair it anymore right where you’ve outgrown the um the transmitter yeah the transmitter so i i would say even even had they started with a four channel foamy eventually you’re
Ron: going to outgrow it right and you’re going to want something else so you’re going to want like a modern computer type radio to where you can have multiple models on it uh we both fly dx8s which are actually outdated they’re a little older but they still work they yeah they hold what 30 models i think something like that yeah so as long as you don’t have 30 airplanes right i think
Tom: you can hold more if you’ve got the cool little oh that yeah you’re right you can put an sd card in
Ron: there but i’m not either way i’m not quite there yet i think i’m at what 22 slots filled or something
Tom: like that i so yeah i mine’s full but i have a lot of profiles in there that are of you know club members you know when i’m right helping them fly their airplanes or whatever so yeah mine’s full and but i mean i have the sd card that i can you know but yeah like you said you’ll you’ll outgrow the the the airframe and um and the transmitter that comes with it usually so but i mean getting back to the cost
Ron: that’s such a you can spend as much as you want to spend i mean you can you can you can go into it and and get cheaper equipment and they usually work just fine um most of the time you’re not going to have that for the long run so you know start off really as cheap as you can go if you want to just if you’re not going to go fly with somebody to field you know get your own airplane try it just try it out see if you like it i would still go with something in the 36 to 42 inch wing spanish just because that like i said flies better than the small one right they fly very well you can get they get a little twitchy when you get down to that like 12 18 24 inch wingspan they don’t fly nearly as
Tom: well they’re a lot lighter they’re affected by wind yeah yeah i was going to say uh the the bigger airplanes um and by bigger i mean the ones you’re talking about you know 36 to 42 inch or so uh they’re a little bit heavier so they’re not as they don’t get thrown around like a smaller airplane does yeah and
Ron: just like you said yeah it flies a lot better and the other thing too though if you do decide to go that route and not fly at a field uh like an ama sanctioned field be very careful where you fly uh don’t fly over people don’t fly around people you know just make sure you’re not uh being a bad steward to the hobby right you know don’t give everybody else a bad name because a lot of people overlook that yeah you know don’t get permission before you fly somewhere don’t assume that you can go to your local church and just fly out of their parking lot or you know the local walmart or even
Tom: parks and you’ll find most most places uh you know i can’t generalize but uh most places that i have ever asked you know to fly a little electric airplane in the parking lot or whatever have never had a problem with that yeah but it’s always better to ask it it’s definitely better to ask
Ron: and you should absolutely yeah especially if it’s not your property you know exactly you just kind of have to make sure that they’re okay you’re trespassing yeah that’s true i mean and you know just remember these these are toys but they can hurt you sure they can you have to be careful the propeller spins very fast you know it can cut you it can it can be it can cause harm not only to you
Tom: but to property so i mean even these even these uh smaller foamy trainers that are let’s say 32 inch wingspans you know they weigh what a couple of pounds three pounds let’s say you know something like that traveling at 40 mile an hour you know hits something it could definitely do do some damage
Ron: yeah it can don’t want that break a window dent a car yeah yeah there’s just a lot of stuff that you have to be careful with right um but yeah as long as you’re careful you know know where you’re flying
Tom: get a good trainer airplane get something that uh they can grow with you a little bit yeah but just don’t expect to have it forever i don’t think right and that’s i think that’s a i think that’s a uh a fair trade-off you know for for learning you know because you know i suppose there’s somebody out there that will will try the hobby you know and they’ll do it you know the right way and they’ll they’ll have the right equipment and they’ll have help from a friend or an experienced pilot and they’ll decide
Ron: they don’t like it i can’t imagine anybody coming to that conclusion yeah but it could happen sure and
Tom: better to have gone in and spent the minimum amount possible to determine that yeah get in cheap but that’s a that’s a cheap um a cheap price or a fair trade-off if you ask me you know should you decide to continue in the hobby because you did it the right way yeah and then you know if you go spend
Ron: a bunch of money on your first airplane and you crash it you’re going to be upset and you’re really going to be um most of the time you’re not going to want to go back right you’re going to take some time to kind of think about what did i do right how much did i just waste yeah you know how much
Tom: money just did i throw to throw away because i it’s easy to to go you know to think those things you know upon your first crash yeah but i’ll say that uh every time i’ve crashed on a simulator i’ve
Ron: never had that thought no strange and you can fly a lot of different airplanes on a simulator yeah
Tom: yeah learn a lot of different tricks too yeah i do want to say one more thing you mentioned just a little bit ago um that you could go cheap on the equipment i just want to i just want to make a quick comment about going cheap on equipment i’ve learned this lesson unfortunately more than i care to admit um you get what you pay for i’m going to say that so yes there are um places out there that you can order stuff uh for instance i’m going to say i’m not just going to say electronics let’s say eventually if you decide to stay in the hobby you’re going to want more airplanes because remember like i said the perfect number of airplanes and plus one plus one so the more airplanes you have the more electronics you’re going to need you’re you’re going to need servos and a receiver and batteries for each airplane you don’t want to have three airplanes and only one set of electronics for each one or for one and then be switching it you know that’s just no fun and time consuming right sometimes you know the way we install the electronics that’s just not feasible so you’ll want electronics for each airplane and like you said you know there’s cheap equipment out there um but don’t please don’t skimp on the control uh portions of your electronics for instance the receiver uh transmitter servos these days i mean let’s be honest depending
Ron: they’re all made kind of in the little nine gram ones that you get for three bucks a piece
Tom: i fly with those on smaller airplanes i’ve never had a problem i do too but i have had problems with with the uh chinese knockoff i’ll just say it uh receivers i’ve had a couple of them you know cause some some nicer airplanes uh to meet their demise and i just i want other people to learn from sort of not that it was a mistake but my lesson that i learned uh don’t skimp please don’t skimp on
Ron: the on the receivers especially my only thing with that and i i know the receiver brand you’re talking about and i’m not gonna i’m not gonna name it right um because i have flown with them also right and they have been great for me right i’ve never had a problem with one of those name brand ones i have had a problem with i have lost at least one maybe two planes that had the name brand receiver and i had the same problems with those that you had with the knockoff brand no kidding so i mean it does happen i guess yeah um that’s that’s the unfortunate part of flying like if i crash because i did something i’m okay with that because i can learn from it yeah if i crash because i lose signal if i crash because a servo locks up if i crash because any other reason that’s not in my control then that’s when i i really
Tom: get discouraged and have a have issues yeah well that’s understandable um but uh okay well i mean i guess if there’s an upside to to that whole debate um at least a if there is an upside at least because there’s never an upside to crashing an airplane no um but if there is an upside to owning name brand equipment that fails at least you know you have some sort of factory support usually fairly close by because they’re all located in champagne you know the headquarters for most of them are in champagne and and the customer service that’s where they run out of even if the product comes from somewhere else yeah um at least you have that’s illinois right yeah at least you have that right so you know these other ones that uh the ones that i’m talking about um that we won’t name uh there there is no there is really no support like even even in in in my example i called the place where i bought it and their answer was uh basically sorry yeah i mean in that when it was a translation from
Ron: another language that i got okay well then say i’ve never called a place and had uh because of an issue like that what what what should i have done then when i lost an airplane because of um a name brand
Tom: sure yeah a failure well i mean first of all i mean if you can not now we’re hopefully a beginner will never have to we’ll never have to deal with this yeah we’re probably getting off topic but i’m i’m curious so enlighten me please but yeah um in your troubleshooting post crash or post incident we’ll say uh if in your troubleshooting you have have definitely narrowed it down like you’ve you’ve taken your servos and plugged them into another system and all the servos are perfect and the battery pack you you hook it onto your uh voltage your volt meter or your your load meter what what have you and it checks good if you can ultimately narrow it down to the transmitter or receiver then me personally i’m calling the company and saying hey listen i had this issue um everything you know i’ve flown this system before no problems usually it’s been my experience they’re i’ll just go ahead and say uh horizon customer service in this case were very very helpful to me uh and they they offered to hey send us the stuff we’ll uh you know we’ll run it through our diagnostics whether they did or not who knows but they at least they offered and and i went ahead and i did that this has been you know a few years ago but i sent them my dx8 and i sent them the receiver that had failed or at least that i thought had failed and the two satellites that were in it or were with it and they had it for i mean it was really quick turnaround i think it was like a week and a half i had it back in two weeks and uh i had a brand new receiver and three new brand new remotes and they said that they ran a diagnostic on the transmitter and the transmitter was fine and then they also told me what was wrong with the original receiver wasn’t kind of recovered under warranty because unfortunately it was a voltage spike that this is what they attributed it to but at least at least i got something back and i got an answer yeah and someone willing to help when you
Ron: say remotes for those that don’t know because that might be this is a beginner episode so right so uh
Tom: some of the some of the if you stay in the hobby some of your more complex airplanes will have a more complex control system so uh spectrum in this case uh it was a uh i think it was an ar8000 i think it’s forgive me i don’t know for exactly what the model number was but anyway it was a receiver and it used two what we call satellite receivers so spectrum you know they use really really short so satellite receivers the same as remotes when you say it that way i’m sorry yeah yeah satellite and remote are kind of uh interchangeable terms when it comes to radio equipment and airplanes uh but anyway this one had two satellite receivers and they use these so that we can plug them into different or route them into different areas of the airframe to get a maximum exposure to the signal from the transmitter so they’ll use a main receiver and then there’ll be two remote or satellite receivers that you know plug into the receiver and you stretch them out into the airframe so they can get a better look at the
Ron: signal from the transmitter and normally you face those different different directions uh so pretty much it’s just a different antenna like more antenna coverage is what they’re going for in the airplane yep easy to think of it that way yeah yeah so okay but anyway that i just wanted to touch on the on
Tom: the cheap equipment it is out there and um even though we have differing opinions i i would say that even even if you’ve had trouble with domestic you know real i don’t want to say real but the name brand stuff um at least you do have that customer service that you can call yeah if you have an issue whereas
Ron: the other stuff one and done kind of a thing and you’re right i forgot i did send in i had some uh high dollar servos and i sent a bunch of them back to them and they rebuilt them for me no charge and you’re i think it might have been a month uh i did it in the winter time so it really didn’t matter that much but i had i think i sent in eight servos or something like that they they went through them all and cleaned them and and fixed anything that would have been wrong with them that way i knew when you’ve installed them you know when it was time for the next season of flying that they were not going to give me any issues yeah so that you’re right that’s something that’s nice too and i think if they’re out of warranty they they charge you for that but under warranty i didn’t get charged anything yeah they even covered shipment back something we really didn’t cover yet um electric
Tom: versus nitro versus gas do we want to kind of just go over that real quick i would stick with electric yeah and i have to agree with uh with the the quality of of stuff that’s out there and the cost it just makes sense it’s easy it’s inexpensive there’s a very small learning curve right you know you turn it on maybe you have to make an adjustment in the transmitter but the instructions tell you how yeah and then you’re ready to go um nitro uh used to be my go-to you know for for getting new folks into the hobby um but it’s expensive you know because you have to buy the fuel and then 30 bucks a gallon or so there’s a definite learning curve you have to know how or know somebody that knows how to tune them you know because they usually you know they require kind of constant attention you know they tune changes with weather or things like that and then the gasoline powered airplanes those are usually bigger airplanes that a beginner just i don’t want to say out of their price range but
Ron: yeah even if it’s in their price range i wouldn’t start with anything like that yeah yeah you’re better off like i said i think you’re better off sticking with an inexpensive electric just to get into it make your mistakes on that one and then you know as you learn more you can get into nitro you can get into gas they all have their pros and cons to them um so just stick with inexpensive first you know get into it more learn some more um and if you ever if you’re ever out and you’re getting ready to fly if you have any issues whatsoever if you see anything that’s wrong if there’s anything that makes you go like you know what i don’t know about that just don’t go home and fly your simulator yeah that you purchased first figure out what’s going wrong you know if if anything is off just do not fly yeah so so many times we’ve
Tom: we’ve seen friends uh pile in an airplane just because that something wasn’t right yeah that if you
Ron: would have done a good pre-flight check you would have noticed in you know a couple seconds that
Tom: something was off right let’s figure it out yeah we’ll talk about pre-flights and you know in another episode at some time but yeah uh so many so many crashes can be avoided by just using sound judgment
Ron: yeah and and don’t be too excited to do something if something is off right that sort of ties into this
Tom: next thing i want to talk about um just because you can do something we’re talking about the simulator you know using your judgment just because you can do something cool on the simulator it doesn’t necessarily translate to the you know the real airplane yeah i’ve i’ve lost airplanes
Ron: because of that uh really airplane one airplane shouldn’t say airplanes i’ve lost one airplane because of that um i would love to hear that story well the the long story the long story short of that one practice on the simulator doing flat spins worked perfectly on the simulator you know i had it down i could easily go up get into one get out of one pull out of it and come land next day i went out to the field with uh my little nitro katana and got it into a flat spin it wasn’t as flat as i would like it on the on the simulator but got it into a flat spin and it did not recover at all the way it did on the on the uh on the simulator which is to say that it did not recover at all it lawn darted right you know like head first straight down into it it split it into uh it was it was not pretty uh i will say however right i went home that night i put it back together you did and went out the next day and flew it uh and it crashed and that was one that getting back to what we were talking about before that one bothered me more than the first one because it was not something that i you know i had done right i mean i guess technically it was my fault because i didn’t recharge the battery but i would expect to be able to get more than you know 10 minutes flight out of a out of receiver or out of a receiver battery so once again if i had done a plea or a pre-flight check on that i would have probably noticed that the battery the cells were not up to up to snuff so yeah pre-flight yeah if there’s anything wrong we’ll we’ll cover a proper yeah we will pre-flight in another episode yeah but because it’s important oh very important so yeah if you see anything wrong like i said just don’t don’t fly right yeah so reach out to us you know if you have show ideas questions anything like that yeah my email address is ron at rcplanelab.com and and
Tom: mine is if you don’t want to talk to ron you can talk to me uh my name is tom at rcplanelab.com
Ron: yeah or like i said give us a uh give us a call or you can text us at area code 818-351-9846 they can text us yeah oh that’s awesome yeah that works too sweet yeah so easy today i know reach out however you want yeah so but yeah for this week i think we’re done okay and uh yeah i thank
Tom: everybody for uh for tuning in and listening to us uh ramble and talk about uh rc planes for beginners yeah until uh next episode i’m ron i’m tom we hope you enjoyed this episode of the rc
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