Those park flyers don't work well if there's even the slightest breeze. They weigh next to nothing (that's how you can run them off of a lightweight electric engine), and if you try to fly them in a breeze, they'll fly backwards and be almost impossible to control.

Don't be too dismissive of the performance of an electric model! I saw some incredible demos a few months ago, including prop-hanging hovering for nearly ten minutes, level flight at speeds of well over 150MPH, and the most remarkable aerobatics I've ever seen, all from an electric plane. Very quiet, good battery life at least the equal of most glow-fuel models in run time, and not as expensive as one might imagine.

Anyway, the one I was using today is a Graupner Tipsy, which is powered by a small speed-280 motor running a 5 inch folding prop. It weighs about 250g, and has LOTS of lift. It seems to cope with a 5-6MPH breeze quite nicely, going up like a rocket on half throttle. Like I said, though, landing it under those conditions is tricky. I did manage to hover it at one point, when the breeze picked up and matched the forward airspeed. It's only rudder, elevator, and throttle control, but it loops and stall-turns very nicely. I didn't manage to barrel-roll it, but I did scare my friend by bringing it in in a steep dive from about 250 feet up and only pulling up about ten feet of the ground. For such a small thing (made out of styrofoam, even), it's got a pretty impressive turn of speed and makes a cool sound when it goes past at about 60MPH

I've also got an FMA Razor, which is an almost indestructible EPP foam flying wing. The longest flight I've so far managed with that was about 4 minutes, and it later turned out I had the aileron control reversed by accident. I thought it was being unnecessarily twitchy in the air! It is much more responsive than the Tipsy, and takes more skill than I yet have to fly it well. Considering the number of times it's attempted to drill for oil, sometimes from considerable altitude, I could firmly recommend it on the basis of crash-survivability if it wasn't for the fact that FMA stopped making it last year Mind you, they sold off the remaining stock dead cheap (where have I heard THAT before?), and I bought two more as spares.

The one a lot of people recommend for first-time crashers, um, I mean pilots, is the Firebird XL. It's a complete package, and flies very well. I went to a fantastic model air show last year, which had a large trade section attached, and after every demo of precision flying it was noticeable that lots of people bought one of the things. The traders must have sold at least a couple of hundred that day. I wonder how many people mastered them and moved on to bigger and better planes?

The next one I want to get is this, mostly because of the looks! It flies well, too, and is big enough for the avionics package I'm designing.

pca