Back to building planes with my daughter

evranch

Well-known member
I've been too busy to build or fly much or especially post in the forum. But in the cold weeks after Christmas there was time to sit down and build a new plane with my daughter! She picked the Spear because it looks cool and I was fine because I was interested in trying a wing build. I personally wanted to build one of the new Master Series planes but felt they might have been too much for a 5 year old to participate.

Amazing the improvement in skills from 4 to 5, she was pretty much a full partner in the build, peeling foam, folding the airfoil and holding folds until the glue dried. We did internal LED lighted wings and she's excited for the night maiden after we flew it today in the day. Too windy tonight though.

She also enjoys flying X-plane with me and I've started teaching her how to fly in sim. She can start up the C172, take off and climb out in a pretty straight line. She has harder times with RC sims but I'm sure soon enough she is going to be flying her own planes.

The Spear would probably make a decent trainer - it is the most mild mannered plane I've ever flown, as long as you have someone large enough present to throw it into the air. It seems kind of draggy but drag makes for gentle flight characteristics. It can basically be flared forever without any sort of dangerous stall behaviour, which makes it dead easy to land. I think I might build some wire skids so that the nose doesn't have to plow so much snow and ice on landing, though.

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mach1 rc

Master member
I've been too busy to build or fly much or especially post in the forum. But in the cold weeks after Christmas there was time to sit down and build a new plane with my daughter! She picked the Spear because it looks cool and I was fine because I was interested in trying a wing build. I personally wanted to build one of the new Master Series planes but felt they might have been too much for a 5 year old to participate.

Amazing the improvement in skills from 4 to 5, she was pretty much a full partner in the build, peeling foam, folding the airfoil and holding folds until the glue dried. We did internal LED lighted wings and she's excited for the night maiden after we flew it today in the day. Too windy tonight though.

She also enjoys flying X-plane with me and I've started teaching her how to fly in sim. She can start up the C172, take off and climb out in a pretty straight line. She has harder times with RC sims but I'm sure soon enough she is going to be flying her own planes.

The Spear would probably make a decent trainer - it is the most mild mannered plane I've ever flown, as long as you have someone large enough present to throw it into the air. It seems kind of draggy but drag makes for gentle flight characteristics. It can basically be flared forever without any sort of dangerous stall behaviour, which makes it dead easy to land. I think I might build some wire skids so that the nose doesn't have to plow so much snow and ice on landing, though.

View attachment 153010
Looks great 👍 does your daughter ever fly them?
 

evranch

Well-known member
She is still working on her skills at piloting vehicles, this month she is now able to play Mario Kart without the auto-steer assist to keep the kart on the track. But she still crashes a lot and doesn't want to risk a real vehicle. I'm hoping she might have the skills this summer on calm evenings because the wind can really beat up even an experienced pilot in this country.

Thus the lighted wings! I'm new to lighted planes too so I'm pretty excited to try some evening flights. I went with port and starboard coloured wings to head off any inverted mishaps, though the low roll rate on this guy is so low that it's hard to end up accidentally inverted.
 

Merv

Site Moderator
Staff member
She is still working on her skills at piloting vehicles, this month she is now able to play Mario Kart without the auto-steer assist to keep the kart on the track. But she still crashes a lot and doesn't want to risk a real vehicle. I'm hoping she might have the skills this summer on calm evenings because the wind can really beat up even an experienced pilot in this country.

Thus the lighted wings! I'm new to lighted planes too so I'm pretty excited to try some evening flights. I went with port and starboard coloured wings to head off any inverted mishaps, though the low roll rate on this guy is so low that it's hard to end up accidentally inverted.
Enjoy them while you can, they grow up way too fast.

Flying with lights is a different experience. My first attempt, I did not have enough lights in the plane. There was a good 30-40 minutes, it was too dark to see the plane and too light for the lights to be effective. I had to wait until it was completely dark to fly. Then it went well.
 

mach1 rc

Master member
She is still working on her skills at piloting vehicles, this month she is now able to play Mario Kart without the auto-steer assist to keep the kart on the track. But she still crashes a lot and doesn't want to risk a real vehicle. I'm hoping she might have the skills this summer on calm evenings because the wind can really beat up even an experienced pilot in this country.

Thus the lighted wings! I'm new to lighted planes too so I'm pretty excited to try some evening flights. I went with port and starboard coloured wings to head off any inverted mishaps, though the low roll rate on this guy is so low that it's hard to end up accidentally inverted.
You should get AS3X for her to fly planes.
 

evranch

Well-known member
I'm a Linux guy so we fly CRRCSim. It's not the prettiest but it is pretty realistic because it was designed for glider pilots. Might have to see if there is anything on Steam as I haven't looked for RC Sims in awhile. FPVFreerider does run very well so there might be some new fixed wing sims available.

She would always rather fly Xplane and pretend to be in the cockpit though, lol.
 

PoorManRC

Master member
Always great to get the Kids involved!!! She's got the desire... That's 75% of it!
Gonna be getting my 9 year old Granddaughter into it in the late Fall...
If I can keep her interest - I'll finally have someone to film MY Flying!! 😜