[OLD PRAIRIE RED NECK]

My new flying buddy bought one of these planes and has flown it many times on his own. I was pretty impressed with that as I really don't have the time to spend training someone just now! This is excellent! So all is good? Well...

I get a call from him - he scratch built a plane out of foam based on the Apprentice just a bit bigger and it lasted 5 seconds could I help? He had glued it back together (30 or more pieces!) and after cutting the control throws by 70% it flew really nice!

Then he buys an LT 40 at the auction, puts it into flying order and promptly destroys it on take off!

Well he built a Dyna flight Butterfly (excellent choice) and I put him up on that and quickly found out what the problem is! After multiple successful flights on the Apprentice he can't fly! I have seen him fly it and would have never guessed! The technology has been doing 95% of the flying.

So I have a very discouraged fellow on my hands that needs to start from the basics.

[cicopo]

I have the original Apprentice and re learned how to fly on it & an E powered glider after a 35 year break. I had read several posts about too much technology resulting in just that problem. Can the SAFE mode be turned off once he's up at a safe altitude to start re learning all he thought he was capable of doing?

[OLD PRAIRIE RED NECK]

I don't believe it can be totally disabled but it does have 3 different difficulty levels. I suspect he is flying it on the first level only and it has given him a false cense of what is really happening up there in the sky. He is over controlling and has no concept of what causes a stall and how to recover from it. He has never experienced one before. The same with turns, the nose drops and he is in a spiral dive and thinks something is wrong with the plane!

The technology is amazing but it looks like there is a bit of a culture shock in the transition to regular flying!

[Eye Can Fly]

Said it before, and I guess it warrants repeating. You never learn from "Success" but you sure do from "Failure".

Poor guy probably wasn't told not to fall in love with the first few planes..... if he truly enjoys the hobby, its just a bump in the road to success.

[dashpuppy]

Originally Posted by Eye Can Fly

Said it before, and I guess it warrants repeating. You never learn from "Success" but you sure do from "Failure".

Poor guy probably wasn't told not to fall in love with the first few planes..... if he truly enjoys the hobby, its just a bump in the road to success.

Yeah that reminds me of this week, you would think i could fly a trainer well i could, but putting weak elastics on the wing didn't help at all LOL !! More flights next week.

[Eye Can Fly]

That's rule#3: Attention to detail!!!!

[dashpuppy]

Originally Posted by Eye Can Fly

That's rule#3: Attention to detail!!!!

Rule #4, crash land it in the tree with no damages AT ALL! then walk in the prickly bushes in shorts & sandles to get it

[Wizzard]

In position 3, expert mode, you have full control of the plane. The only time Safe kicks in is if YOU hit the panic button. The Safe technology is not assisting in expert mode whatsoever. If a person uses the technology correctly, this includes learning on all 3 flight modes, then there is no reason they should not be able to fly just about any plane they may purchase. Perhaps your friend needs to take the Apprentice out and try flying in intermediate mode for a while and then stepping up his game and trying expert mode.

[OLD PRAIRIE RED NECK]

I suspect you are right Wizzard. I haven't tried flying the Apprentice myself but my first impression of it was the same as you said. If you can fly that one then you should be able to fly any intermediate plane as there is nothing special about the design of the Apprentice that would make it a good entry level trainer.

That was why I was surprised to learn he was flying it on his own!

Maybe I should just encourage him to put more time on it.

[Flypaper]

Another one that surprised me all to he## was one called the Delta Ray. You know how some come out with a P51 and want you to teach them how to fly it, well that's what I thought till I tried it. He wanted me to trim it out for him before he tried it. It has the SAFE technology too. Click of ail trim was all it needed. It also has the 3 setups for difficulty. In trainer mode it wouldn't go past about a 45 deg. angle on ails.. About 90 deg. on the mid range and you could do consecutive rolls in experienced mode. It has no rudder control, but two motors with differential throttle. Surprised how well it worked with the throttles. Never thought there would be a delta wing trainer plane but works very well when designed for it. With all that wing area and light weight is a good starting point as it will slow right down so a novice can keep up with it.
Give the Delta Ray a Google, and a long thread on RC Groups.