I would start here:



http://www.rcgroups.com/aircraft-electric-jets-375/



 

in fer lernin'.

Much to know about the many aspects to be successful, so if you like challenge, it's fun.

I wouldn't call it addictive, the adrenaline rush makes some people high and what keeps them going.

Doesn't have to be expensive, unless you buy the cheap stuff that doesn't fly worth a crap and continually crash.

15 minutes or so is typical. Have has some electrics that go up to 30 or so.

I started flying gas about 30 years ago, electrics about the last 10. I prefer electric today. Just grab the plane, radio and a couple batteries and walk down to the park. This has been the trend lately in the industry. I've actually gotten lazy, I just take off in the street in the front of the house - in the 'burbs (not recommended unless you have tons of experience).

If you want to take a stab, get a slow stick, little brushless motor, radio w/micro servos, a couple lipos and a charger. Probably around $3-400, will keep you busy for awhile. Boring as it might sound to some, I still enjoy pylon racing it around the light pole and trees in the front yard or fire up the lights and fly at night.

I've got about 20 different kinds of planes, so feel free to ask any questions.

Helis are a blast too, much harder tho.

I was looking into rc airplanes a while ago and settled on a gas powered plane made from the same material that political signs are made of. Cheap and easy to make/fix yourself. I however never did pull the trigger I would look into those to learn.  They are called S.P.A.D. (simple Plastic Airplane Design) LINK

I've been flying glow and electric for 20 years now, even got into electric pylon racing at a national level and did quite well. You are coming into electric R/C at a Golden Age. I just bought a motor that would have been $200 by itself 10 years ago but now that China is making them they cost $5. Airplanes that you would want to learn on are styrofoam rather than balsa wood kits-not only do they fly great but they are cheap and look pretty good from 10 feet away.

Go ahead, spend $2-300 on a plane-but spend most of your money on your radio and motor/speed control because they will be with you for a long time. The planes will crash into oblivion, you just pull your gear out and use it in the next one.

The Multiplex airplanes are a solid recommendation.

The smaller an airplane is, the worse or faster it flies.  The smaller airplanes may be lighter but their scale speed is much faster than a larger airplane. You can scale the model down but you can't scale the air molecule down with it.

Two of my earlier planes were the Multiplex Twinstar and the Multiplex PicoCub.  

I loved flying the Twinstar, since it was still the days of brushed motors and Nicad battery packs, and I could easily get 20 to 30 minutes of flight time on a single charge.  

The PicoCub was also a very good design.  I bought it for my daughter to practice with (with a buddy cord), but I could manage some fairly good flight times with careful throttle management.  I think the worst we ever managed to damage the PicoCub, was breaking a prop and breaking the rubber bands that held the landing gear on.

This I disagree with.  I think the Champ flies great (no, or little wind), and I've actually landed / caught it with my bare hand.  Smaller planes do get tossed around in wind more (which is why these micros need little-to-no wind), however that lack of mass also keeps them from breaking when you dink it into grass.



 

Go ahead and scale that Champ up to double it's regular size and see how much better it flies.....

I like small airplanes too (it's mostly all I fly but mine are all composite and Very Fast) but I don't kid myself on their limitations.

ETA: Not being able to fly in wind has more to do with the airfoil, dihedral angle and incidences on the wing than size. Wingloading on your little guy is a lot higher than a normal sized R/C plane. It's actually the other way around when talking about sport planes and aerobats-the smaller the better in windy conditions.

Well, then we're in Mini Super Cub territory.  Go bigger than that, and we're in Super Cub territory.  LOL



Regardless, I think due to it's durability, crashworthiness, fun-factor, and ability to fly at a crawl (as well as zip right along), the Champ is a great first plane for someone who is going to teach themselves.  If you've got an instructor / buddy box, etc, then I'd go with the Super Cub.





 

I got into R/C planes a few years ago, though haven't been doing it lately. I had done cars/boats since I was a kid so everything but the flying part was old hat to me.

I joined a local club and went out to their field every weekend for a couple months and had an instructor "buddy box" with me (cable connecting my control unit to his) and he would initially take off and land for me, then let me take off, then finally taught me how to land the plane which is the hardest part. Never crashed once and I learned quickly, and well.

There's always more than one path to the same point, but I'd recommend joining a local club if you can so you can get advice and have an instructor. It will probably be less frustrating than doing it yourself.

The new micro planes actually fly pretty good since they have gotten the gear so light.  However, bigger always fly better, if not as crash worthy.  Nothing is quite as satisfying as a 4m sailplane.  

Small planes flit and large planes fly. Obviously I don't expect a beginner to go out and fly a 42% scale plane.



Just something to think about.



Personally I advise someone looking to learn to get into a club that may/may not already have a trainer available for loan and learn on the buddy box system.



That's how I learned a decade ago. Now I fly pretty much anything and everything minus turbine powered aircraft. I like the larger planes because they fly better, present better etc...I do have some small electrics but you have to be really mindful of the wind and I don't get a lot of no wind/low wind days.

I picked up flying RC this last spring. And I have a great time with it!



I only fly gas units, nitro to be exact. And this is the unit I first flew.



http://www.hangar-9.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=HAN2450



And here was my first ever solo landing this spring.









And here was my tenth landing. Not as much fun when you come up short to the runway.



Up to my.... well, it was swampy and billions of mosquitoes were killing me!



Yeah, it's ok to laugh.









Noticed one thing about the plane? It crashed pretty hard into the high grass, and it didn't hurt a thing. I was flying it within 5 minutes.



Get a nice trainer and learn to fly. It's a blast! Oh, and within 6 weeks of buying that first trainer, I bought 5 more planes, and two 2.4ghz radios. It can be pricey if you let it!



I've always wanted to fly, and now my next step is getting my real pilots license. That starts in 3 weeks.

It's not so much size, as it's the wingloading (weight divided by wing area).  I've flown electric delta's with around a 30 inch wingspan that were heavy enough that they could easily be flown in strong winds (the design was originally intended to be a cheap, durable slope soarer, so it was never intended for calm days).  On at least one occasion, I walked out to fly during lunch, and one of the guys I normally flew with told me it was pointless to try, since the wind was running around 20mph and gusting higher.  Made the easiest handlaunch I had ever done with those heavy deltas, then flew around for 6 or 7 minutes (this was back in the Nicad days) playing with the wind.  Spent almost all of my time flying into the wind, but it was fun.

Planes with a light wingloading (light weight with lots of wing) are floaters that are best left inside on windy days.

I've actually had ridiculously good luck with a $30 Air Hogs Aero Ace plane. I bought a second for $17 in case the first ever got trashed. But I can't seem to find them now, and Amazon wants $100 for one .

If you can find one for about $30, it's worth it. Pretty sensitive to wind though.

Any idea of what the FCC's limits are on frequency and power for unlicensed hobby use?  I've looked at a few websites that sell the components, but they seem to sell internationally and just briefly mention that some countries restrict the power levels.  Looks like the 2 main bands are 2.4GHz (could have issues with my Spektrum 2.4GHz radio) and 5.8GHz, but I also saw a 900MHz system listed as a "long range" system.  Power levels seem to range from 100mw to over 1500mW.

I don't fly RC planes, but I have a friend who does.  Here's what he's told me:  "If you can't afford to crash it, don't buy it."

I believe it's 1 watt, at least I remember reading that somewhere.

I never understood that mentality. I've been flying for 10 plus years and at times from March thru about October I will fly 3-4 days a week. I fly everything from a foamie to a 140" wingspan 42% Extra and everything in between including some heavily loaded warplanes. The closest I've ever come to a crash was on one Extra I had one elevator servo on one half locked hard up so that I was flying with elevator full up on one side. I squashed the landing gear and that was the extent of it. I'll normally wear out a plane eventually to the point where it dies from hangar rash or other dents/dings from getting it in and out of the shop or the trailer at the field.



It's like everything else. If you preflight your stuff and take your time and put your stuff together right that will take care of 50% of the problem. Staying ahead of the plane in your mind comes with practice. On the flip side I have seen people fly every week who will crash and destroy a plane a week but they never preflight their plane, can't pay attention and will do stupid stuff like look down at the transmitter to see the countdown clock on a landing approach etc... Try to land downwind and run out of cleared landing area, take off with the ailerons reversed because they didn't check prio to flight etc...I would say out of all crashes I've ever seen I would say 99% of them could have EASILY been prevented with 2 seconds of forethought.



Just saying it doesn't have to be that way.

Well thanks to these recent threads on arf I have a hobby tron Champ at the top of my christmas list.  I made sure to tell my wife what store she could get it at local.
If santa brings me one I plan on putting one of those ebay keychain spy cams on it and making spy videos.

A lot of it depends on what you are doing and what you want to do. Around 9 years ago, some guys at work got me interested in the hobby, again (built a 3 channel balsa trainer in the mid-70's, but didn't have a big enough allowance to save for a radio).  A group of us would fly during lunch and at breaks, when the weather allowed.  A car wreck in 2005 left me with a damaged disk in my neck, and I have been off and on with the hobby, since then.  

I like to experiment, so there have been a few crashes due to an experimental design not working out.  The electronics doing strange things in flight (a new servo that checked out fine before flight, but went crazy when it hit a certain spot with a load on it, and a speed controller that somehow caused full down elevator when the voltage dropped to a certain point) caused a few more crashes.  Glitches from radio interference with the older radios caused several near crashes and a few crashes.  Flying in high winds, with gusts and turbulence, caused a few more.  And there have been crashes caused simply by me doing something risky or just plain stupid.  But a lot of my crashes were caused by mid-air collisions, due to R/C combat being one of the main activites of the group I flew with.

A well built foam plane will survive some crashes with hardly any damage.  Other crashes will usually need only a quick fix.  If I was still building only balsa planes, I would never even attempt a lot of what I have done with the electric foamies, and I would have had a lot fewer crashes.

I've started looking at the 5.8GHz systems in the 200mW to 500mW range.  The more I read about it, the less interested I am in the higher powered systems - if you don't modify your R/C transmitter, the higher powered systems can give you a perfect view of your plane crashing due to flying out of range.  And what they've managed to do with the OSD's giving you a heads up display on the video image, just makes me want to try it out even more.

A few years back, there was some discussion (I think it was on RCgroups) about the "Spy Gear" toy video setup that could be bought separately from the little R/C car that it was made for.  I bought one, made a patch antenna for the receiver, and tinkered with it for a while on the ground.  The plan was to mount the receiver and antenna on top of a bicycle helmet, so that I would naturally keep the antenna pointed at the plane while watching it.  The "Spy Gear" goggle was just a plastic glasses frame that held a small LCD screen in front of one of your eyes, so I would (hopefully) be able to get the FPV view and the traditional view at the same time.

I shelved that project, without trying it out in flight, for two reasons: 1) No matter how much I tinkered with it, it was an unreliable, crappy, black and white video.  2) I upgraded to the Spektrum 2.4GHz radio, and the "Spy Gear" system was also 2.4GHz, so it presented the potential for causing control glitches.

The pictures of what the new systems can do, with the OSD's, makes it very tempting to try out.

OK, I'm going to give you the same advice I give to everyone looking to get into RC planes. First, accept that you are going to crash. A bunch. Learn to love them-in your head, write your plane off completely every time you take off. Until it's safely back on the ground, it's a pending crash. Second, even if you KNOW you're about to crash, KEEP FLYING THE FUCKING PLANE. Fly it all the way in-you never know when you might suddenly fix your control inversion problem and save it. And if you don't, no big deal-after all, you counted on a crash when you launched the damn thing.

If you want a plane that will laugh off all of the crashes-something that you can literally fly into the ground over and over and over and over, pick it back up, toss it back in the air and fly it again without even needing to change the prop, get one of these- IFO MKIII It's ripstop nylon and carbon fiber rods. Basically, it's a powered kite. You can buy them as a kit-takes about 2 hours to finish building it by yourself, a bit under an hour if you've got extra hands. Or, they also sell them pre-built-you add a reciever and speed controller and away you go. I crashed mine literally hundreds of times. Full contact aerial combat (you win by smashing every other participant's plane out of the sky with yours-think aerial demolition derby), flying as close to the ground inverted and at full throttle, rolling circles around myself at waist level, in my living room (turn off the fan-trust me), you name it. Pick it up, toss it back in the air and away you go.

A GWS Slow Stick is also a good place to start. It's big and slow, and a spruce rod glued into the aluminum tube fuselage toughens it considerably. A bit of reinforcement on the wing, 3 cell lipo batteries, brushless motor and bluecore vertical stabilizer and oversized rudder and it gets a bit more manueverable. Chop 10 inches of fuselage down with the same goodies and make the wings a bit shorter and you also have a fairly effective combat plane. Beef up the wing and landing gear, slap a camera slaved to a spare channel and you have an aerial photography plane.

I won't comment on the parkzone stuff-I had one when they first came out and it was crap. They do seem to have improved a bit, however, so make your own call. Some folks are going to suggest glow planes. All of my stuff was electric, which gave me the ability to fly from my front yard instead of needing an RC airstrip. I have a friend who has everything from micro helis to giant BVS jets (literally powered by a small jet turbine-they clock about 200 miles an hour or so-your neighbors WILL shit kittens if you fire up a jet in the neighborhood).

Most importantly, fly as much as you can. Perfect conditions are best until you start getting the hang of it (including the control reversal), then a little wind won't bother you. Work your way up. The Slow Stick suggests that you only fly in winds under 10mph. I've flown my camera plane in winds up to 30+, but it was about 30 ounces (suggested AAW was 10) and capable of unlimited vertical flight even with the camera on board. There's no way to fly in winds like that with a stock one, so don't try it.

Crap. Maybe I'll go hit the hobby shop tomorrow. Sold all of my planes when my back died. I have a few helis still, but they just don't seem to do it for me..

That is pretty neat.  I will have to check into that if I really get into the hobby.





 

The old Sky Scooters didn't have enough power to pull a paper streamer (the guys I flew with tried it, it didn't work), so that left only one option for combat with them.  I was the last one in the group to start learning to fly, so at first they were all much better at flying than I was.  If I climbed up and tried to dogfight with them, I was toast, so I got sneaky and just flew in big circles at about six feet off the ground.  There was one guy in the group that just couldn't stand to let such an easy looking target go by, so it wouldn't be too long before he'd dive on me.  Ever try to dive on another plane that's six feet off the ground, then try to not hit the ground yourself?    It got to the point that he was almost too easy: "YOU CAN QUIT DOING THAT! I'M NOT FALLING FOR THAT ANYMORE!  COME ON UP TO WHERE WE ARE!" and within a minute or so, he'd crash into the ground, trying to pull out of yet another dive where he missed me.

A Pibros (delta slope soarer, designed for construction from depron sheets) made from BlueCor, with a retimed 6volt Speed 400 as a pusher and an 8 cell Nicad, was a much better combat plane.  The farther back you move the CG, the less reflex you need from the elevons for straight and level flight, which means less drag and more speed.  I'd move the CG back a little, fly till I got used to it, then move it back a little more.  Got to the point that there was no way to keep it in the air, due to no stability at all, then moved the CG a hair back forward.  Set the elevons to at least 45 degrees up and down, and it could do some wild maneuvers.

I need to dig out the BlueCor and make another one...

I had one of the nippy outrunners on my IFO at first-pretty decent performance, but not quite what I wanted. So, a Curtek lighting system and one of the e-flite outrunners later, my weapon was ready. Nearly unlimited vertical on 2 cells, unlimted vert at less than half throttle for a 3cell pack. Wobbly prop-saver (I busted maybe 3 props a year on that plane, and that was flying it pretty much daily and then smashing shit on the weekends) and some soda straw armor for the delicate things. Every once in a while, I'd smack someone's plane and they'd recover right at the ground. So I'd roll inverted and go full throttle and full up elevator right over their poor plane. CRUNCH.

The differnce is, their plane would be a broken pile of beautiful wreckage, and I could immediately toss mine in the air for another round.

I finally got to fly my ParkZone Micro P-51D and it is a fast, quick turning little plane.  I just have to get used to the ailerons and the way they control turns vs the rudder on the Super Cub.  Hopefully I've got it down now and can fly it in my yard.  It's foam so it shouldn't hurt the house or vehicles if it gets away from me.

I really, really want a large scale A-10 next.  BananaHobby has one coming out around Christmas.  I know they have a bad reputation but all I need is the airframe and then I can build it with quality electronics.  I guess I'll wait for some reviews on that plane after the first of the year.  I need time to build an airstrip in the pasture where I fly anyway.  

Been flying for 20 years off and on. Best way to learn. Go to a rc field they are most help full. Get a plane trainer and a buddy cord. That way he can save the plane when you miss up..

It's ok fun and not too expensive unless you get into the bigger more complicated stuff.

Whatever you do, DON'T approach it like my father and I did.

We figured hey, if we can fly the real thing, how hard can a little toy be? So we go out with two brand new planes
with regular nitro engines (not the simpler electric stuff). Remember, this is after quite alot of effort and time assembling
these airplanes, as they were the Almost Ready to Fly type.

Admittedly, we hung around the airfield for a bit and waited for someone
who knew what they were doing to show up and maybe give us a little training.

So after waiting an interminable 5 to 8 minutes, we said ah, fuck it and prepared for launch.

He took the first one. Got off the ground ok, and even got a few turns in. At one point, the thing that will get
most rookies got him, that being the spacial disorientation that is typical to having to reverse your thinking depenedant
on whether or not the plane is flying towards you or away from you.

We recovered the ball of fiberglass and balsa wood in the middle of a cornfield and got the hell away from the crash sight before the NTSB showed up.

With two capable pilots at work, this crash was obviously an anomoly and we decided let's fire up the second plane.

I took the second plane. Take off was uneventful. I climbed easily and proceeded to make a couple circuits around the field. A couple small
mistakes getting into some real steep turns due to the above referenced problem, but I recovered no problem and proceeded with a few more
circuits with a few figure 8's.

And now .......... it's time.

I begin to realize that every event in my aviation life has led to this point. No, it was not soloing a real airplane. It was not even earning
a real pilots license after months of work.

No, it all comes down to trying to successfully land this little fucking toy.

I enter a generally eastbound downwind leg right in front of me, making left traffic for just about a 27 runway. Throttle back a bit, lets lose some altitude.

Turn onto base and looking good. Airspeed is good. Altitude is good ......... but there is the small issue of that treeline on the east end of the field.

Don't sweat it. Stay focused.

Turning final, and this is the tough part. Remember now, the airplane is flying towards me so left is right and right is left ........ I think.

Up is still up and down is down, so I have that going for me. Which is nice.

I'm actually sort of looking through those trees and, believe it or not, it appears that I will make it. I'm straight and level and seemingly perfectly
aligned with perfect airspeed. Altitude seems good ............ but those trees. Damn they look taller than I thought.

I'll never forget the sound of the engine running along smoothly as I approached that tree:

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ...............BRAP!


Silence. In an instant, it was over.

I am honestly not sure, because it's been a long time.

But I think the airplane is still stuck at the top of that tree.



Good luck and have fun!

I wholeheartedly second this recommendation.  Planes like the HZ Champ make it much easier / less expensive / possible for a beginner to learn to fly on their own.  HOWEVER, finding a friendly, capable flyer at a local club, and using a buddy box is still (IMO) one of the best ways to have a successful introduction to this hobby.  In addition, using an instructor will generally allow you to fly a larger, better flying plane without as much fear of damage.



Just make sure you choose an instructor that's still young enough to have good eyesight!  I still remember my instructor..."I hope you have the plane, because I can't see it anymore!"  LMAO.  Miss 'ya, Ben.



 

Thanks again for all the replies.



This thread needs more pics!

SuperCub:











+ cheap key fob camera:











= cool aerial footage!





(ok, so this particular example is relatively poor picture quality, but you get the idea!)






Or, mount that camera to your Champ, and get video of flying around the yard!













 

RC planes are several hobbies.  So far most everybody here has spoken just about the flying hobby.  

There are several other aspects:

Modeling is a huge hobby.  Some people love to collect scale models.  They may even attempt to fly them occasionally - but they sure look good hanging from the wall or ceiling.  Lets face it, wouldn't you rather fly a cool looking scale model than one of those boxes or bent up plastic signs?

Then there is the building hobby.  It starts by wanting to build something that can fly (like one of those spads, or a foamie), but can easily morf into wanting to take a pile of balsa and make one of those sexy scale planes I spoke about in the last sentence.  It can also show a design element - wanting to take a picture, or your imagination, and create not only a plane that will fly - but fly well, or even fly near perfectly.
––––-
Size used to rule.  That said, coming back with lipo's and burshless has changed some of the rules for me.  I have flown everything from 2m sail plains to 18" micro pylon.  Size and weight can add some stability - but honestly design is more important.  My cmb flew pretty damn well - perhaps not quite as well as a .40 pylon racer, but pretty close and much easier to land.  It did get knocked around in wind a bit (handled it fine, but hard to enjoy watching it get buffeted).   But then my 20" (ish iirc) blue albacore could do a nice clean 60mph run, with almost no buffeting in a 30 mhp cross wind - hell I even landed it crosswind sometimes.  While I generally preferred to land it like a plane - I could also stall it into my hand fairly easily - it could cut the sky like a knife - but also could be told to have a slow 45 degree decent.  It was amazing the range of flying it could do.  I will admit - it was over powered and the largest electric I flew - but still it was a cheep fairly small foamy that I could make in less than 1 hr.

Well i ended up with the Hobbyzone Champ RTF and Super Cub RTF on my amazon wish list for christmas.  Hopefully I'll get one and I'll let yall know how long it lasts

I learned on a SlowStik, great plane to start on a nd very durable.  Once I got better I modified it with ailerons (went up to 4ch), and a brushless motor setup and now its super fun to fly.

Update:

I got the Champ RTF for Christmas.  It was way too windy yesterday
after a cold front blew in.  Today seemed better so I tried it out with
relatively minimal wind.  Pretty trick to keep control and I decided
that the gusts were going to cause me to keep crashing and possibly lose
the plane.  





I was disappointed it wont roll for takeoff in grass with the standard
wheels.  Is there anything I can do for this?  I'd prefer to have a
softer place to crash than the middle of a parking lot.

Are any of you guys posting in this thread in the Austin Area?  

Just go to the hobby shop and get a set of the bigger rubber tires. They work well for grass fields.

Im in houston.



 

It's going to be hard getting a grass take off with any of the micros.  The wheels are just too small, and heck, even the fuselage drags in the grass.  IMO, it's definitely worth hand-launching over grass, in order to have the "cushion" in case of a crash.  You may also want to see if you can find a small sidewalk, picnic table, or maybe even the hood of your car.  The Champ doesn't need much of a runway...







 

Just sheared the wing off by running into a light post that came out of nowhere.



Now for some reading to see if I can fix it or if I just need to buy a replacement.

Toothpicks, maybe a little CA and some packing tape should work.  Good news, is that a new wing is what...$12?  





 

The Champ is an excellent plane to start with.  The Ember 2 is easier in calm conditions but in slightly bumpier conditions the Champ is better.

I flew my new Radian for the first time today, it flew a lot better when slightly nose heavy, the morning air was too bumpy to be flying it but it was the only air available.

Can you hand launch it?

Bigger diameter wheels or more power. Easiest approach is to fly in a baseball diamond-take off in the dirt, fly over the grass. Wish you were closer, I'd have you soloing in a half a day.

Mojo-
I am in Corpus, but I get up to New Braunfels all the time.  Shoot me a PM if you want to get together.  There are a lot of good guys in your area.  

I also have a champ.   Never flew RC enough to get good at it.  Had the champ for 3 weeks and was getting pretty bold with it. Then took it out in my hay field close to the house.  Problem is there that we have a Wireless internet tower and ham packet tower with a lot of 2.4 ghz radios.  Ended up with too much 2.4 ghz rf and flew it out of range of the transmitter that came with the champ.  All I could do was watch it fly a half mile away and crash in a woods when the battery ran low.  I was dumb and didn't realize what my control problems were till it was too late.   never did find that one.   Bought another one that I still have.  I would recommend a full power transmitter if you get serious about the flying.  The one that comes with the champ has very limited range.  Now for the pics of my champ and other 2 rc planes.





Champ







P51 Mustang  a fun 3 axis plane.  a step up from the champ.







PT 19 stick built model that my neighbor built before he died of cancer.  His wife gave this one to me after he died.  I helped him build his homebuilt experimental airplane before he died.   I have only flown this one a few times.   don't want to destroy it.  It went on permanent display after I damaged the wing and had to repair it.  







The Champ and P 51 with the original champ transmitter and a full power transmitter.   If you use one of the bigger transmitters you won't want to go back to the one that came with the champ.

Also with the more advanced transmitters they can be tethered together and you can fly with an instructor.  I really need more instruction before I fly advanced planes.  It just doesn't look like it does from inside the real planes.  I do use the instructor so I can let my grandsons who are 3 and 5 fly.  I'm doing most of the flying but they still love it.

If you are in the southwest part of MI I would love to fly with you sometime.   I'm about an hour south of Kalamazoo.