This years April is a bit out of the ordinary, seems like summer is a couple months early. As it happens, I'm having a two week holiday... Today , even though I have not been feeling well for some days now, I decided to go fly (first time this year I think). So I took my Robbe Arcus foamie to the field. There I found the sun, not too much wind, field full of flowers, and assembled my plane while charging the cheap 2S 2350 Rhino battery from my car's battery. This only took a couple minutes (no tools needed...) and I took the battery of the charger early, put on the second one . Launched the plane , settled down into my folding chair and went hunting for thermals. It did not take long to find some, and then it it me... I was flying the cheapest plane of my stable, and feeling perfectly happy. If I could only keep one plane out of my present flock, this would have to be the one. Right , a foamie. Not because it's a foamie, but because it's a pleasure to fly, assembles/disassembles without tools in a few moments, is light (777 grams) but strong, and get this, it's my best windy weather plane, even heavy winds don't seem to bother it all that much. Did I mention it is cheap? I paid about 50$ for the kit, used 4 5$ servos, a cheap Assan receiver (I actually bought this as a test bed for 2.4), a Typhoon outrunner and a 25A MGM compro ESC I had lying around, a 2.1Ah Kokam battery i bought for a pylon racer but never used.Used a second hand MPX Cockpit TX that I modified for 2.4 using an Assan Futaba module.And a 12*6 Graupner cam folder on a HM clamp spinner, also not used for quite some time. I've had it for a couple years now, and it has become my most flown plane. Threw it against my head twice when trying to keep it low in heavy winds, but not much damage, and easily repaired (on the field the second time).There, just had to get that of my chest...

Nice.

The best dogs are the mutts that come from the pound. Everybody knows that!

I know exactly what you mean.

For a couple years I flew a Vortex foamy R/E pusher- in all kinds of weather- hot, cold, light rain. The only thing that kept me from flying was high winds and heavy rain. I almost always kept it in the car because I knew I could fly it in almost any field. Often, I would stop by a park on the way to work and fly for 15-20 minutes, then, do it again on the way home. When I progressed to more advanced planes, I modified the heck out of it for aerial photograpy with a cheap credit card sized digital camera. It was great fun, even if the picture quality was pretty poor. Eventually, I stopped flying it and promissed to fix it up to pass along to my nephew, but, he never developed the "bug" so it's sits in a pile in a state of disrepair. I've had similar experiences with other planes, but none were as cheap and easy to fly as that Vortex. Now, as I fly larger, more expensive planes, I take fewer chances with them. I don't leave them in the car to suffer from heat or sun exposure and I'm more careful about where I fly them. There is still great joy to be found, but, it's not as simple and abundant as it used to be.


Mike.

hey! wait a minute i DO have only one plane!
.
...and it's a foamie. i will say that i have certainly developed a relaxed attitude about it, since it's been repaired multiple times for pratcially nothing, and would cost little to completely replace. bet i couldn't say that about a high performance model. oh, i really do want a better quality plane, but i recognize the value "low cost" as it relates to relaxed and enjoyable flying.

WimH
one of my favorite elec sailplanes, is still my Ascent 450 BL. It's a bit heavy, and doesn't thermal very well (for me), compared to my Pulsars.
But if I want grab a plane to put quickly, in the car, this is the first one I grab. Quick to set up, pretty in the air, and it handles gusty winds better than my floaty Pulsars or Hypers.
This was my first, real sailplanes, and the Transmitter I still use,a Spektrum DX-7 has throttle set up on the left stick. So I have proportional throttle; if I want to fly around on 1/2 throttle, or do a slow , powered circuit, I can modulate power to do that too.
A fun bird, and if I crack it up (well not for a while) spare wings, or a fuse are just a phone call away..at Horizon Hobby

It's now (since yesterday...) also become the first plane I managed to keep aloft for more than an hour. Never got pas 57 minutes before ( strangely enough, with its predecessor , the "old" Robbe Arcus...)