Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
how much to spent on first RC Plane
Options
Comments
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
Always in for a good debate !
:D
Well, as Ian said, you have to add all the other stuff around, that add to the price at the end no ?
Any problem with the plane or one of its gear (faulty servo etc etc), you send that back to the UK or call them for advice ?
Anyway, you certainly have a club near you that is going to show you all that, so, not a big problem.
And all that without talking about the radio
By the way, 5 mins on the Internet, I have found cheaper, with a better radio ! (Ok, not in Ireland !) 0 -
loopingfred wrote: »By the way, 5 mins on the Internet, I have found cheaper, with a better radio ! (Ok, not in Ireland !)
Care to pass on the info?0 -
-
Advertisement
-
-
Yep, I have one
(well, a share...) That don't stop me to have a free opinion, not necessarely "business" related, mostly because at the end, I don't really care (free will and it's not my money I spend) and will not stop me flying/building
But that don't mean I push people buying all the stuff in Ireland (me first !) as this is by far the most expensive country in Europe with the UK...
(and I still don't understand why people in this country are looking to buy in the UK, when, if you look elsewhere in the Euro Zone, you find way cheaper !)
If I talk about the warranty, it's more for the new comer, to have a backup without the hassle, but believe me, and the guys who know me can certainly confirm that, once you know what you are doing, I'm the first one to tell them to buy elsewhere !
Now, about the Uk deal, I still don't see the point to spend money (200euros or even more) in something that will need more investment in the future (like the radio) and that's the same if you buy the stuff here or anywhere else, hense the classified in the BFMA website, where you can certainly found what you are looking for at good price...0 -
-
-
Talking about the Euro Zone, you can also have a look at aeromodelisme.be, and in France, aeronews.free.fr (annonce).
Use google translator (works fine) or ask me if there is something you don't understand (free of charge + Irish VAT of course !)
Most speaks English, and you can find some amazing deals sometimes !0 -
Newbies to aeromodelling are always overconfident, but it's not that easy.
They assume 1 the engine will start (Truth over half go back to the (local) shop to get it started for them) most of the rest get help from a club.
Newbies assume it is easy to learn to fly .. well if you got a decent plane it about as difficult as learning to ride a bike. But remember - we all fell off the bike when we tried it first didn't we? So how to keep it in one piece for the first hour while we figure it out?
A WAREHOUSE SHOP 2000 MILES AWAY WON'T HELP MUCH - THATS FOR SURE. So again it turns up either A at a club or B the local shop with the usual old pathetic story beginning " My girlfriend bought me this present and I can't get it to ......." like they haven't heard it a million times already.
Consider the guys who instruct beginners for free at the club. They have been doing this for more than a wet week! Out walks the latest skinflint with a shiny marginal plane that might just limp around the sky if an expert is doing his absolute best on the radio. On a breezy day it may even go backwards! THEY KNOW FULL WELL THEIR EFFORTS AND TIME ARE GOING TO BE WASTED HELPING THIS NEW LOSER . Instructors know within 60 seconds of meeting a newbie if he has a self destructive attitude to reliable equipment. Instructors have met failures dozens of times already, helped them and watched them give it up 3-6 weeks later, turning it all into a waste of their time and efforts. So in these cases politely give him a flight to show how helpful they are. Then with a clear conscience they walk back to fly their own model which is the reason they came out in the first place.
But THE SAME INSTRUCTORS have a very very different level of committment to someone they perceive as "realistic". Pre-losers never get to see how helpful these generous instructor-modellers can be passing on years of help with no pain or breakage, just a few well time helpful comments. Tight beginners give the game away when they expect(for one example) that all planes should cost the same as the cheapest planes, seing as they're all planes! Does a Skoda cost the same as a BMW? Which will you enjoy driving more?
In extreme cases the instructors may refuse to allow a model to fly due to perceived danger from it. And yes that actually happens from time to time.
Flying is high definition reality at enormous speed, like trapeze with no safety net. Look around a flying club. All practical realistic folks. But the demands of flying screens out a certain personality before long, and many who came have already gone for good. You see only "survivors" who had what it takes .... gravity and breakage has already removed the wishful dreamers from the membership! Listen to the good natured cracks about who failed "The Darwin Test".
Now I work at a hobby shop myself. (but the guys on this forum would of course challenge me if I said something wrong or incorrect)
Or maybe the fact that I fly, have more experience, made more models than the average modeller, spent more of my time in modelling, and have taught well over 300 people to fly personally counts for something, so possibly I have gotten some idea of "what a flier needs to make it in flying".
The question "What is the cheapest plane?" is a very different question from the wiser "What plane flies the best?" or the even brighter still "What plane is most suited to my present level of ability, so I learn more tricks but don't crash?" Experienced modellers know the right questions, but not all beginners want to listen.
Give yourself a decent chance. You are supposed to be helping yourself!. If you won't get decent nice stuff, how will you enjoy using it?
Remember it's supposed to be enjoyable. 0 -
-
-
-
I feel strongly about it probably because I love the hobby and consequently I hate to see a newbie put themselves in a position where they have alomost no chance of success.
But newcomers really don't have a clue how absolutely useless the internet advise on planes coming from the US continent is to a model flier living in Ireland.
Take a look at this:
Wind map of ireland today - a land Area (Total): 70,280 SQ KM
Wind map of the US today - an land area (Total): 9,826,630 SQ KM
The landmass is 140 times bigger and nowhere in the US (today) is it remotely like the wind we have here. Search the whole of the US, a huge area, and in the windiest area they have slightly over half the wind we have in Ireland!
This also applies to the European countries, and to a smaller degree also to the UK.
I reckon, from a flying perspective, the UK is to the Irish east coast, as the Irish East coast is to the Irish north or west coast.
I always said that in Ireland we have planes that do better here, and they are not the ones that are popular in other places. It is just that most people, especially newcomers to model flight, have no idea how true this is, and how much difference it makes to equipment choices.
This lends importance to who you ask for advise, or where you do your research online. As they say - opinions vary! But your model will have to cope with whatever is up there over your (Irish) flying field and so do you. 0 -
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
superflyguy321 wrote: »Hey Coolwings. There are plenty of businesses making 300% mark up, believe me. ...
Let me get this right ... you actually believe that a €100 trainer airplane sitting on the shelf in the model shop has been bought and paid for with €25 ? (25 + 25 x 3 = 100)
So how much did the freight company charge to get around the planet from the place it was made, this 5 foot long box of fragile goods? Truck, driver, loading, fuel, container ships, time, unloading, tax, insurance and so on?
I guess you reckon the freight company brought it here for about 10 cents?
How about the shipping freight was actually equal to the value of the goods, the plane cost 2 to 3 times what you think, another 21% VAT is deducted from the selling price, and your theory is a little far fetched ....
And that's just the freight and VAT. I assume the staff want to be paid, and the buildings are lit, heated and insured, and the ESB and phones are paid for and working!
Really? Let me let you in on a secret. No "business" cares if anyone makes or loses any amount of money, or make ANY bucks. That is how many individual businesses go bust, their owners money gone forever, but "the business" goes on.superflyguy321 wrote: »That would make the business too hard to earn big bucks from....
(Ask any builder who has a lot of unsold product now worth 15 - 20% less than he hoped, and see if he worries about "too hard to make big bucks". )
Show me any model shop where the owner has a Mercedes.
The way it really is:
A big chunk of Irish people have negative equity on their home, go back in history and see what happens right after that situation occurs.
Retailers in Ireland are actually wondering will they make ANY bucks in 2008, and are watching helplessly while the government lets the economy go down the toilet, all the while saying "there's no problem"! ... Unemployment has already begun to rise, meaning that there are less spenders out there, and that alone is sufficient trigger for the next fall in retail sales, followed by layoffs in big business, which then causes the next batch of small businesses to close. It's already in motion - and they never stopped it before after it got started.0 -
-
Did I weigh in a bit heavy? Maybe. (The high tax high cost retail economics do count for all sales units, including model shops.)
The guys that suggest everything costs a shop 1 dollar and sells for 100 dollars do irritate (as in a personal mudslinging type insult) because I know otherwise and work in the trade, and knowing many model shop owners personally, that affects the tone of my reply.
I agree that Ro11in seems to have "the middle road". But he may be missing an underlying trend.
In the last 5 years closures:
Owens of Bray, Starting Grid Dun Laoghaire, Planet Fun Blanchardstown, Model World Crumlin, Listowel Model Shop & car track, Arklow Model Shop, Limerick motor cycle-model place, Tipperary model shop, model shop just over the border in NIrl, one in Donegal, the shooting-model place in Leixlip.
That's 11. I suspect I missed another.
Openings are few. I think in 3 years the selection of Irish model shops will thin out a bit more.
As far as I can see the UK has the same trend for about 10 years now. Fewer permanent small model shops in the High Street. Fewer part timers in their place. Ebay and fewer bigger size shops taking up the slack.
I wonder what the model club memberships are showing?0 -
Advertisement
-
Advertisement