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Last time, I started out to present a few more different RC trainer kits to build, but I kind of ran on about the Carl Goldberg kits.  Today, I will tell you about a few more excellent kits that are available.

There is one more Goldberg trainer available in kit form that I want to tell you about.  It is the Eagle 2, formerly it was called the Eagle 63.  In the early eighties, I purchased two of these kits and helped my two sons assemble them.  They are also an excellent trainer that is easy to build and comes with full-sized plans and a comprehensive instruction manual.  The Eagle is a .40 sized model with a flat bottomed wing that spans 63 inches.  Easy to build and easy to learn to fly with.

The Great Planes PT-40 Mark II is another easy to build and fly trainer that is available in kit form.  It too, comes with full-sized plans and a well-written instruction manual which includes several photographs.  As the name implies it is a .40 sized radio controlled model airplane with a 60″ wingspan that is designed to built either as a true trainer or as a sport flier.  Both types can have ailerons installed and can be flown with rudder, elevator, and throttle or as a four channel model.  This is another excellent trainer that ca also be built as a sport flier for that aerobatic second airplane.

Sig Manufacturing’s Kadet LT-40 kit built trainer is another of the fine trainers that I am somewhat familiar with.  It is a .40 sized radio controlled model airplane that has a 60 inch wing span.  The Kadet LT-40 is an excellent trainer to get someone started flying.  It flies slowly and it has built-in inherent stability that allows it to restore itself to straight and level flight if the beginner finds himself in trouble.  All that is necessary to regain control is to let the control sticks return to the center position.  This gives the flier a  little extra time to rethink what he needs to do.  This is just one more of the airplanes that works very well for the beginning radio controlled model airplane flier.

There is one more type of trainer that I will talk about and that is the Telemaster 40 available online from Hobby Lobby.   The Telemaster is a well designed trainer kit that if well assembled can almost fly itself.  It is a big trainer that can be built either as a tail dragger or a tricycle with steerable nose wheel.  The kit also includes flaps if you want to use them.  It is a slow flier and once it is headed in for a landing it will be capable of landing itself (depending on crosswind conditions).  Easy to build and fly it makes an ideal trainer for someone that is trying to learn to fly by himself.  I don’t recommend doing this but this radio controlled model airplane is very stable and quite large making it easy to see what is going on in the air, people have learned to fly this model by themselves.  I still think it is much easier, faster and safer for the plane and flier to work with a qualified instructor.

I will mention another huge model that can make a real good trainer and that is the Senior Telemaster.  It is the original Telemaster and it is said to be so controllable that with the right wind conditions, it can be landed flying backwards.  One of my sons built this kit and it is a big kit with a lot of balsa parts, but he managed to build pretty much all by himself as his first radio controlled model airplane.   It was a very successful trainer for him, but we learned a couple of things that make it a little more difficult to deal with.  Did I say this is a huge model?  It has a .60 cuin engine and a wingspan of 95″ and the fuselage is 63″ long.  The size makes it necessary to have a pickup truck with a covered box or a van to transport it to and from the flying field.  Otherwise, it is truly an awsome model.  My son built a trailer to haul his telemaster in.  A great flying model very lightweight and rugged.  If you choose to build the Senior Telemaster, plan on a longer construction time and a little more expensive to complete, but it will provide a flying experience that is amazing.

The models that I have talked about should give you enough information to select a radio controlled model airplane that will work best for you.  It is not too early to locate a club near you and find someone to help you get started on the right path.  If you choose to go it alone, remember you can always ask the OldManFlier at this blog site by using the comments option.  I am always open to comments and questions.  Keep reading and I’ll see you next time.

My recent surgery was much more extreme than I was expecting it to be and has made it very difficult for me to try to write posts to the blog.  For the next few weeks I will be unable to maintain a new post every day as I had originally began.  The surgery on my neck was so extreme that I have been unable to sit in a chair by the computer and type.  This has continued far longer than I had anticipated because of severe nerve irritation in the ring finger and little finger on both hands.  This makes it almost impossible for me to type and therefore for the next few weeks don’t expect a new post every day.  I will do the best that I can, however I must have someone else do the typing for me.  Thanks for your patience and understanding.

My very first successful radio controlled model airplane was the famous “Carl Goldberg Falcon 56″.  I’m not sure when this kit  first became available, but I believe it to be somewhere in the 1960′s.  It had several characteristics that made it a very ideal beginners first airplane.  In it’s original design, it was built to be flown as a three channel airplane.  This means that there were three control functions required to control the aircraft.  Throttle, rudder, and elevator control functions were all that was needed to fly this radio controlled model airplane.  Some fliers modified the design by lessening the dihedral and adding strip ailerons to give it four channel performance.  This worked fairly well in some cases because the pilot had the foresight to modify some of the other flight characteristics needed to enhance performance when being used as a four channel aircraft.

    First there was the Junior Falcon, a smaller plane probably around the 36 or 37 inch wingspan. Next came the falcon 56 indeed the most popular trainer of all time which is still being made.   Next in line came  the skylark which was the same size as the Falcon 56,however it was a low wing aircraft designed to fly faster and be more aerobatic.

The last and largest of the Falcons was the Senior Falcon a 60 sized aircraft with about a 73 inch wingspan.  Also an excellent aircraft that was used in a cross country flight from California to South Carolina sometime in the mid 1970s.  That famous radio controlled model airplane now resides in the Smithsonian Institute.  All said and done, the Goldberg  Falcon series of trainers are all excellent, easy to build, and will give you years of flying enjoyment.

If I were going to build my own trainer today, I would build the Falcon Mark III which has several improvements over the original Falcon 56.  It is an excellent flying aircraft, very ruggedly built and slightly smaller than most of the trainers that you see today.  I start thinking about building one and now I’m thinking of doing just that and featuring it in a series of blog entries.  The OldManFlier is back and I hope I am up to more regular posting.  See you next time.