Hey,

In my other thread I asked what plane I should get as a first plane (even though I am pretty good at flying my friends GWS Pico J-3). I got some recommendations for the Dandy Sport by Mountain Models.

I am looking for opinions about whether I am going to smash a Balsa plane the first time it gets 3 feet off the ground. If you have any advice about if i should go balsa for my first plane, or pros and cons of the Mountain Models plane I would love to hear it.

Thanks a lot,
Thatcher

The Dandy Sport is an excellent flying plane, you'll LOVE it. Will you crash it. You bet you will, it's just part of flying everybody crashes. If you don't, you're not pushing yourself hard enough One thing I've found about balsa is it takes a little longer to repair then foam but it's much more rewarding for me at least when you put it back together. Balsa can be put back together to the point that you can't see any repairs, try that with foam.

Balsa flies better. Build to fly not to crash. The crash will come all by itself.

John

I doubt you'll hear too many cons about the Dandy Sport.
I've been flying the Switchback GT and the MiniFlash a lot lately and the poor Dandy has been left at home until today. Forgot what a great plane it is. It'll slow down to Slow Stick landing speeds yet with a mild brushless and Li-Polys it'll vertical out of sight. DON'T let ailerons scare you. This plane will fly perfectly well using the rudder instead (although I find it much easier to fly with ailerons). As John said, build to fly and not to crash and you'll enjoy yourself so much more. This is probably the easiest to build and easiest to fly plane you can buy. Once you're really comfortable with it then you can get the GT wing and really get aerobatic with it. You can have two planes in one. Along with all the other positives it's cost effective as well.


Joe

even though doug makes great planes.

balsa planes do not like crashes and pick up weight very quickly. lipolys help out a lot but foam repairs much better and resists crashes much better.

i can't tell you the number of times i have crashed my HL rare bear and it is still flying and the repairs were never that painful. the switchback that i own has been repaired several times but the repairs were much more time consuming and required quite a bit of creativity (that i luckily could borrow from ezone threads and fellow modelers; thanks to all).

i built a guillow's se5a biplane that also needed a lot of repairs even after only slightly hard landings. it quickly got to the point of being unflyable after a few of these repairs.

just my $.02

I shouldn't say this but...


In a month there will be foam wings available for the Dandy Sport. You'll be able to buy the kit with balsa or foam wings.

Doug

Wait,

I think someone stole Doug's name and login.....................

I guess not. I need to check my Blood Pressure. Nope, I'm still alive.

Actually, I think that is a great idea. I guess even those of us who don't believe in evolution have to admit sometimes it happens.

Will you make foam wings for SB Sport and G/T, and Tantrum and the others? Why type of foam.? Any Epp or such on leading edge? Does this mean we will have to start looking at the foam threads also?

Let us know. I would like to try one.

Peace,
LcJ

I haven't crashed my Dandy Sport -- that, itself, is a testament to how nicely the plane behaves. But I have crashed my other balsa plane, a Wing-E from Todd's Models, so many times I've lost count. Solite damage is all I've suffered so far, aside from way too many broken props and a shattered gearbox.

And let me underscore that I've driven the Wing-E straight in from 30 feet. I've clipped trees and lightposts. I even got it stuck in a tree once, freeing it by throwing heavy sticks. Again, the only damage was to the covering.

Now the Wing-E benefits from light weight (6 OZ or so AU) and helpful geometry (triangle). I wouldn't expect the Dandy to take nearly such abuse. But I bet the Dandy would survive hard landings and object strikes much better than, say, the Crazy Max I learned to fly on. (Yeah, I learned to fly with a Crazy Max.)

By the way, I crash the Wing-E only because I fly it in ridiculously small spaces. It's a very nice flying model, as well.

Thanks alot everyone (although I still would greatly appriciate all the feedback I can get). I think the thing to do is wait out for the foam wing, although I am gonna try to get this in as a X-mas present so how long 'til the wing comes out? And is the wing the thing that I will smash up the most, aka will the foam wing take out a good percentage of the repairs that I would otherwise do?

This has been really helpful; keep it coming.

Thatcher

Another thing.......

In my friend's GWS Cub, when it nose-dives into the ground (so far I have managed to leave that duty up to my friend) the little wood piece that the motor mounts on smashes back into the plane, pops out a small piece of foam, and bends the cowl a little (which pops right back into place). The hardest part of fixing it is waiting for the glue to cure. We just glue it and slide the mount back in place and its fine the next day.

Anyway are the crashes I am going to have with this plane going to be the same type or is a crash where something breaks going to be a nightmare? I realize that depends on the crash, but the only thing on my record (yet) is a few hard landings.

Thatcher

Doug, I have no doubt that your new foam wings will be of the same quality as all your current offerings. Don't just tease us and leave us though. More info please!

The worst that has ever happened to one of my MM wings is a tear in the covering. The fuselage however, I've spent many a night rebuilding the fuselage.. Always with success however.

The Dandy with an EPS300-C powerplant and either 2s lipos or 8/800 nimh is a real floater. You can stall 5 feet off the deck, slam the throttle full and pull out with room to spare.

And at full throttle with a big prop, it's got tons of thrust to go where you point it. I've fought 20mph winds without incident (not a good idea, but it worked out okay).

F O A M ? ? ?

Who ARE you and what have you done with Doug?

Everyone thanks for everything. Even though from what I can see the Dandy Sport is an awsome plane, I should go with a foamie to learn on. I just think the Dandy will be too fast and agile for me at this point.

I have pretty much decided on the E-Starter. Then, when I can fly it with my eyes closed I am gonna buy that Dandy. Even with the foam wing I think it would be foolish to get it as a first plane. But like I said, it is deffinately number 2.

Thanks alot for all your help and when I get it in the air I'll tell you how it goes. Speaking of which, what do you do in the winter? I've seen pics on peoples' threads with skis but is that a smart thing to do?

Anyway thanks a lot.

Thatcher

P.S. carbeaux, the Dark Side of the Moon icon rocks!