Today was a day of many beginners and their RTF planes at the field !

Posting some pictures for now... will post quick reviews and close up pictures of the planes later.

The red plane in the first picture above, is a Wing Dragon Sportster V2 :

http://www.nitroplanes.com/at-22023-wingdragonsportster.html

Unfortunately, the owner who is a fellow Keralite, did not find us for a few weeks, and has been trying to fly this by himself in local parks, and that too without any sim experience   The end result was that he crashed it bad multiple times, and I was surprised to see the wings had thin metal sheets (flexible ones, not sure if it is aluminium or something else!) affixed along the leading edge and the sides (it is visible in the picture, especially the sides of the wing).  There was added weight, but the wing is very very strong now.  And the motor seems to have enough power to lift the modified wing (although not much power is left behind!). 

The model, when the wings are fixed correctly etc, flys pretty well.  In our somewhat soft mud field, it handles crashes also very decently.  The glide was OK, not as good as I have seen on others like the AXN Floater, but then it could have something to do with the condition of the plane.

So that was the Wing Dragon Sportster V2 !

The other 3 planes all belong to the same gentleman.  The one he started with is the HobbyZone Firebird Commander 2 RTF :

http://secure.hobbyzone.com/catalog/HZ/index/index_park_flyers_rtf/HBZ2600.html

Although this is a good model to start with, its "anti crash technology" (ACT) was a problem many times, according to the owner.  It is as if the plane got a mind of its own, where it could ignore pilot instructions and fly in a direction of its choosing.  This happened to the flyer, where he had to chase the plane down.

It can take quite a bit of beating, but there are issues with it being only 2 channel, with a v-tail doing the job of both ailerons and elevators.  With a bit of wind, it was difficult to control, per the owner.

The small one is the HobbyZone Champ :

http://secure.hobbyzone.com/catalog/HZ/index/index_park_flyers_rtf/HBZ4900.html

It is very very very light, like the Kyosho Minium ones (see the specs, especially the battery size).

The disadvantage with this one is that it cannot handle pretty much any wind at all.   On the positive side, it is so light that crash damages are minimal, and it lands like ever so slowly when power is cut !

Finally, the one that looks like the Easy Star is the "Sky Surfer". 

http://www.bananahobby.com/1937.html

This is the one that has been flown most by the owner, and he has reinforced the nose quite a bit. It seemed to work better than the AXN Floater in general.  Not much negative to say about it, works well to the beginners advantage !

The Hobbyzone Firebird Commander plane in Reply #2 was given a make over, using scratch-build techniques.  The result is amazing

In addition to upgrading the motor to a Grayson Hobby Super Sonic motor, it was converted from a 2 channel v-tail setup to a 3 channel plane with elevator and rudder. The wing was built from foamboard, and the tail pieces from thermocol. It will become a full 4 channel plane with ailerons also next week !

Great job by a beginner, who started flying a few weeks ago !  The hair-clip was an awesome touch

nice mods!!!

These bunch of relatively new fliers who used to modify their RTFs are now building their own foamies.  And they are detailing them very well.

Here is a clone of the Telink Su-29 and a Tomhe F-22.

Couple more.