first flight experiences

[sailafterschool]

Hi, I have a SC since a few weeks, everyone said I should have an instructor at the beginning, but that's not me. I've been in the air maybe 20 times now have been able to repair all damage up to now. I did tape up more or less the whole plane before my first flight though, so I'm not missing any foam yet. I had to put on about 100 gr to the cowling to get the cog back to more or less normal, I can still get it in the air with it's 910 gramms and the 8.4V or 960 gr. with the 9.6V. Landing is the hard part, my goal is to fix it so long as it takes until it will do what I want it to do. It seems I'm a ways away from that still, next job is to try to get rid of unnecessary duct tape, get the weight down as far as possible.
It's great fun in a new world, the SC seems to be a worthy companion.

[mararra]

Weight is the enemy! I found that a total wrap of the wing with packing tape was a good sacrifice however. Did the leading edges of the tail feathers too. Not too much of a weight penalty, and a 1000% increase in survivability; never replaced another flying surface
fly well,
M

[sailafterschool]

Thanks for the reply mararra
Yes it seems that a lightweight packaging tape would suffice completley and be less heavier than the duct tape I used, my reinforcements on the tail parts will have to be replaced with something lighter than the1/64" aluminum sheet I epoxied on.
After all these crashes on landing I think I now know the parts which are endangered, don't have to reinforce the rest.
We're lucky to have a polo field in the vicinity, that has helped me get some practice without bad crashes. Although the SC should be a slow flyer, it's very fast when I'm trying to dodge the trees and land in between corn fields.
This site has been very much help to me in getting started, a lot of nice people with good experiences they are sharing. Thanks
sailafterschool

[rbryn]

After 3 complete rebuilds of the SC I've replaced every part at least once (some three times).

I've found that the fuse is pretty tough until you go nose first (it can be repaired easily though with a bit of gorilla glue). All I do now is wrap my wing in packaging tape and it increases the durability without the weight significantly.

Now the only spare parts I keep around are the props and cowling, both of which are real cheap to replace.