Selecting Your First RC Plane

One of the questions that I'm regularly asked is which airplane should I beginner choose. Here surrounding me I have a couple of those selections that are ideal for the beginner. I like to start off with the first aircraft I have here. This is the new HobbyZone Duet. It is an exclusive package with everything that you need in an airplane, it comes with your batteries, your chargers and the transmitter to get you started. What's good about this little guy is it's a simple setup. There's little work to need to be done for the beginner in getting this ready to fly. What we have here is the airplane. And as you can see it as a twin engine setup, here is the the remote control that operates the functions of the aircraft. What's neat about this particular aircraft is that it has a lot of artificial intelligence helping beginners to learn how to fly. It has an autopilot type system in it where if you're turning or banking the aircraft, the radio will realize that and give the appropriate responses to help the pilot do that. Such as if in a left-hand turn you will get a little bit of up elevator. As you can see, this airplane is pretty simple. What we have here is just the elevator for up and down. And we have the dual motors. And you'll notice there are no ailerons or a rudder. And the way that this aircraft turns is basically by varying the power outputs of the motor. So if I wanna make a simple left hand turn I would move my transmitter stick to the left. And what it'll do is it will slow down the left motor and the right motor will maintain or increase speed allowing the aircraft to the turn in that direction. When I make that movement the airplane will automatically give a little bit of up elevator to help me keep on track. And in a nice stable turn. It has landing gear that is removable which is a great feature. If you just want to belly land the airplane which is a good option for beginners, you know, a lot easier. You don't have to worry about tearing the gear out or anything like that. It has a little battery compartment. It uses a very simple one cell, 150 milliAmp battery pack, which is ideal. And it comes with that charger, once again. I will move on to the second airplane that we have here, is the HobbyZone Champ. Now, this guy is a little more advanced. It is a once again all exclusive package, airplane, charger, radio batteries everything you need right at the box. It is now a three channel aircraft. We have elevator, we have the rudder and we have the power. This does not have any artificial flight stabilization characteristics to it. So this is more of a pilot in command in control type aircraft. Basically, you're gonna apply power and things of that nature to get the aircraft off the ground. And then you would control your up and down with the elevator in your left and right with the rudder. Once again, this aircraft uses the one cell 150 milliAmp battery pack. So it's also a good second choice from the Duet. Once you get comfortable to Duet, you can move up to this and still be in that good beginner range. The last of the of the micro beginners I have here is the Cox Sky Cruiser. This is a very simplistic design as well. It is in the three channel range. It comes with the controller battery pack and, you know, batteries for the remote and the aircraft all in one unit. It is again, three channels with the elevator, rudder and power setup. One of the cool features of this airplane is that a pod and boom tight mount of the engine which puts the engine up off the airplane and in the rear facing direction. A lot of customers like this because it saves them props during maybe a rough landing or something along those lines. It also has a nice compartment where you can slide your battery in which offers good protection as well. Once again, these are all a great selection for the the beginner in the micro range. I'm gonna set these aside and we're gonna move to something a little bigger here. What I have next is the HobbyZone Super Cub flipped around right here. This, as you can see, is a bigger aircraft. Once again, it is a three channel type setup, more of a pilot in control type of setup as well. There's no auto artificial intelligence helping the pilot in this setup. Great second airplane and great first airplane. I even have one personally that I still fly. Cool features about this is that it has floats. So once you become a little more advanced with your on land flying, you can transition into float flying rather easily, couple of minutes and you'll have that ready to go. This does run a bigger power setup. This is on a 3s battery set up. 1320S is the power pack for this. They offer this in two different versions. They offer it in a buy and fly where you need to include your radio, and they have it in a ready to fly that comes all set up once again. So another great, great flyer, more ideal for the higher wind situations as well because of the size of the aircraft. Last year, I have the bigger of the aircraft. This is the Horizon Hobby E-flite Apprentice S 15e. This is a four channel aircraft. We now, incorporate an aileron function into the airplane along with the elevator, rudder and throttle controls as well. Once again, no artificial intelligence to help the pilot. This is a pilot in command type aircraft. Once again, it is a three-cell battery packed aircraft, it'll run on an even bigger three cell, 3200 milliAmp pack. Comes with a charger, batteries, and you also get the DX 5, which is one of Spectrum's entry-level radios that will allow you to fly this aircraft and other ones down the road if you choose to do so. This has a great feature on it too, which is the Safe technology. What the Safe does is it offers the pilot, a bailout button per se. If they get into trouble you flip a switch and the aircraft will automatically level itself and maintain a straight and level flight. It doesn't necessarily insist in flying, but it's more of a safety feature or that bailout feature if you're get into trouble. So this is a good option for the hobbyist or the entry-level hobbyist that wants to get into something a little bigger, more proper, like this would be a good thing. So as you can see here, we've covered the, kind of the basics of everything. We've got your micro flyers, and we've went in with the bigger ones as well, so that they would give you a good option and a good starting point for selecting your first airplane.