I'm a Noob as well. I watched all the Flite Test vids I could, researched, learned, prepped, and finally ordered the basics I needed to get a scratch built swappable in the air. At least I think I had.
I had the time waiting for my parts to ship so I scratch
built each of the Nutball, Flyer, and Delta airframes. I had heard the Nutball was the best place to start so I even Minwaxed it and gave it a snazzy paint job while I waited for my first parts.
Got it all setup and took it out to maiden with the wife filming and my two kids watching.
Power on, CHECK, elevator and rudder wiggle, CHECK, throttle, CHECK. Powered up and gave it a toss. It made an arc to the left and nosed in hard about 20 feet away from me. Crap. Dusted it off, checked everything, tried again. Arc to the left, nose in, 30 feet away. This time so hard it buckled part of the front and tore a layer of paper off the rudder. Unflyable.
That was the end of my very first attempted maiden. In the video you can hear my wife shout to me "Why did it crash?!?" I watched the video once and immediately deleted it.
I did some repairs and and tried it again, this time without an audience. In two more tosses it managed half a circle to the left before crashing so bad the foam was trashed. "What the $@#$% am I doing wrong?" I took it home, ripped all the gear out of it and trashed the foam. Even the power pod foam was crunched.
I took a week or so away from doing anything with the Hobby. Then I looked at the FT Flyer I had sitting there. Something that had a discrete wing and tail. Maybe the Nutball just wasn't the right airframe for me. Built a new pod and glued in everything from my trashed Nutball. I went out and had my first 'Successful' maiden.
I say successful because I think I define that as coming home with a plane that could still be flown. Because I did crash the heck out of that Flyer, you can see every bit of it in the video. BUT, more importantly, I was in the air long enough to learn a HELL of a lot.
- I learned that I really needed to learn what servo travel was.
- I learned that if I balance my prop with tape on the trailing edge of the prop it makes a really weird noise as it starts to pull away.
- I learned that I can't glance away from my plane for a split second if it is lower than one mistake high.
- The most important thing I learned was that I could do this. This was possible. I wasn't doing it well, but I knew I could do it and if that was true I could get better with practice.
After I adjusted the travel I took it out the next week and it was AMAZING! 200% better than the maiden. I even added a servo to the pod to drop one of my kid's
paratrooper toys. A week or two later I was visiting my parents and wanted to show my Dad (
The Balsa Goose) what I'd built. I circled it once and it felt like it was a bit off so I landed it and adjusted it and when I tossed it back up it took a nose dive directly into the concrete from about 20 feet up. Broke the airframe right in front of the tail.
So I stripped my plane (again) and ended up rebuilding a new Flyer. I'm very lucky to live about two hours from the Flite Test guys so I was able to get to their open house a few weeks ago. I rebuilt the flyer the night before and didn't get a chance to maiden it. So there I am, in front of the Flite Test crew and fans to maiden what is really only my second maiden. Chad Kapper came over and we chatted as I got it plugged in and ready and asked "Want me to launch it?"
!!!
To say I was more than a little nervous would be an understatement. But Chad gave it a toss and it flew. It needed a bit of trimming but it flew, and flew. I ended up getting more air time at the open house than I had to date with my two little batteries.
This turned out to be much longer than I anticipated but I wanted to share what was my somewhat traumatic first experience and first little success. Crashing SUCKS!
But seeing that thing that you put up into the sky sweep and soar at your bidding is worth the initial bumps and bruises. Stick with it man, we're all here together.
There is a link in my signature to my whole parts list and such for my flyer.