Guillows Cessna 150 Conversion - Equipment Advice

Sorry, would it be better on a seperate thread maybe?

I wouldnt mind spending around £30 for a kit, and would prefer a balsa kit.
As I think alot of the fun is in the building, and will also mean i can spead the cost of buying the electrics.

Although I would concider a full non balsa kit it its quite easy to fix?


And yes I would prefer motor powered. from what I have seen £50-£80 is alright for a simple eletric setup??

I already have a 4 channel TX 24ghz Spekrium controller.


I hope that gives abit more information.
If any of the prices dont seem feasable then by all means let me know. I am definatly open to any ideas/suggestions.

The radio will be okay but you will need a bigger budget..... a MUCH bigger budget.

Hi Rozza, I see the guys have been giving you a bit of a hard time! Let's be positive here, you can learn a hell of a lot from this model! A gentleman called Kelvin Shacklock wrote a superb book called Aircraft workshop, learn to make models that fly. It's a superb book, and if you ever see it, buy it!
What I propose is that you continue with this model, but forget about fitting any gubbins in it, yet!
Build it, cover it, balance it and then find a slope with long grass and experiment flying it. Ok so it just glides down the hill!
Buy yourself a good sim, Phoenix ticks all the boxes for me, and practice, especially coming towards you!
Once you've got the hang of rigging and trimming, then you can think about fitting it out with the fancy stuff, even once it's fitted out, continue to fly (glide) down the hill. You can then try a bit of rudder and a gentle 'S'
Once you are really confident, then you can try with a bit of power on.

Thanks Klipkopwildlife,

That sounds a great idea. I will defo continue the build as hopefully it will teach me a few of the tricks and skills.

I have already ordered that sim. Should get it over the weekend

I'll post some picks when I have finished the build

If you were a bit closer i could sell you my mk1 funfly.
almost ready to fly, just needs lipo and rx.

on 50% rates it is like a trainer, but on full rates it turns into an acrobat.

Hi Rozza.

As I said in a previous post, members are treated like adults on here, and here is an instance that proves the point. You pays your money, and you takes your choice. We now have posts saying go for a larger model, and one from Kippy saying stay with what you have. Your choice mate !!

As Owen said earlier, in my mind your suggested budget is way too small, I would but a minimum of £250 for model and power train, if going electric, and this would not include, lipo charger,watt meter, spare lipos, spare props etc,etc,etc, nor would it cover BMFA insurance and club fees. Peeps have come into this hobby on the cheap, but not many have lasted the course. It can be come very addictive . At the end of the day, YOU are the person who wants to fly, and YOU have to deciede the budget, we can only advise

Garry

As Garry said, the budget is too small. You can't buy a decent airfix kit with £30.
If you go for a foamy plastic ARTF, you are looking at £70 plus, not including the gubbins to make it work. A wood ARTF - you can double that. (and that's the cheap end!)
For a box of sticks type kit, you want around £80, plus covering material, plus all the power, and controls etc.
You can buy a plan, and build from that, but you need access to a good model shop, for ALL the bits and pieces, and you need some way of cutting ply and balsa sheet into funny shapes. A jigsaw is best, and not the mains powered blue ones from B+Q!
Then you will need a range of adhesives, to join the bits together.

I don't want to put you off, but I suggest you sit back and have another think about it.

Thanks for the advise.

I will look into having a bigger budget. I had already budgeted for the club subscription with insurance.

In the mean time I will continue building this kit (will keep me busy).

Once decided on a trainer kit ill buy it so that I can start the build whilst saving for the rest of the equip.

Cheers

Hi Rozza
Welcome to the forum, Looks like you enjoy doing a bit of building which is a great part of the hobby.
I started up in the summer of 2011, although I started with an ARTF and IC engines, I must have spent around the £250 mark at least on the model, radio gear, engine, starting gear and various other odds and sods.
Don't be put off though, I love building and don't have much disposable income to spend on my hobby, My latest build is from a plan and to ease things a bit I spread the costs by spending around £20 on wood each month (as Eric states only useful if you live near a decent model shop though) just bought 5 servos from Giantshark for £20!! so spreading it out doesn't seem to bad.

One option could be to build a trainer from a kit, for example DB Sport and Scale Mascot and while slowly building save up for the servos, motor, LiPos etc.

Dean

Or how about an electric foamie This discovery trainer is popular at our club, not bad £100 with all servos, motor, ESC and prop.
mean while build something from plans while you are learning to fly!

That is a hell of a find Dean. Cant fault it as a first model. Most popular lipo, no neg coments from me whatsoever. Congrats.

Garry

Welcome Rozza I haven't been round here much lately, but I'm sure they're still a great bunch of helpful guys [badass] and I'll try and get on here more often.

I'm with Dene and Gary on recommending the Discover as a first plane. I've never owned this particular model, but the other ST stuff I've had is pretty good for the price, and this is a nice size to start with. I personally haven't been bitten by the "balsa bashing" bug yet, preferring to fly (and fix when necessary), making me lazy I guess, but I do admire the guys with the skill and patience that do build. My recommendation would be to carry one with your building, while getting acquainted with Phoenix, and get the Discovery (and all the other essential leccy bits) when your budget allows. I'm still looking into joining one of the clubs in my locality (after 3.5 years of flying), but I've always had insurance, which I've thankfully never needed (touches desk), because I mainly fly from a busy racecourse with lots of open space, and lots of people, kids, dogs etc. Being self taught probably worked out more expensive for me in the long run, plus lots of flying without any company, so joining a club could save a lot of heartache, especially if you learn on crunchier balsa models (foam is usually easy to fix).

Anyway, good luck whatever you decide.

I am a member of BMMFC, if i can be of help, just holler, the club has an electric trainer, we can put it on buddy box control for you, even linking it to your tranny, not a lot of folk will be down at this time of year, and because of not a lot of interest, we dont have club nights any more, take note of any advice given here, main thing is, dont just go off and spend, we are experienced, you are not, dont make the mistake of buying cheap, buy cheap, buy twice,

and a note to the poster above, you fly off a busy public area, is it zoned for model flying, or do you have permission? to cover the terms of your insurance, the site MUST comply with certain air navigation orders, and cap 658 be carefull not trying to be a killjoy, just trying to protect you with many years experiance

Hi Rozza
Its a nice idea to put RC gear and a motor into a small rubber power plane but it is not easy and requires exactly the right balance of power and weight to stand any chance of success. The smaller the plane the narrower that 'zone of success' becomes and the harder they are to fly too.

So my advice is do not buy the RC gear you listed but do complete the Cessna as intended with rubber power - its exactly what we all did all those years ago.
You will learn quite a bit about lightweight construction techniques in building it (looks good so far) and if you can get to fly for even 20 seconds on rubber power you will learn a lot about balancing and trimming a plane.

It just so happens I am building a 25" span 2ch electric powered super lightweight at the moment based on what was a balsa glider kit.