Horizon Hobby - Cirrus SR22T 1.5m - Take offs and Landings with SAFE (Plus many more with AS3X) 

Jeff, I really appreciate the kind words! I love flying and do a lot of it. I'm really glad you enjoyed the video!

You're welcome! I'm so glad I could help you out David!!!

You're welcome! Glad you stopped in!

I've noticed that it likes to land fairly fast, even with full flaps. She is a beauty!!!

Oh yes, our little artists did that. Sometimes they'll put together a nice runway or taxi paths for me. They'll be glad to know their features were noticed!

Great Ryan! Glad to have you here with us! Thanks for coming back, now that you're back into RC Planes.

Merry Christmas!!! What a beauty, right!?!??!

Will do Jason!

Thanks! This plane is so much fun to takeoff and land over and over again!

Thanks! I'm used to the cross traffic, but soon we'll be at our new property and we'll be flying from the 1220 foot BRAND NEW ASPHALT RUNWAY (....the county "thinks" it's a road...). We hope you'll come back for more ;)

Thanks!!! She is very good :)

thanks George

It's a great plane. I'm sure you'll like it!

Agreed - this plane really helps make you look good!

I'm very lucky to have great neighbors, and soon we will be moving to the country where we can fly with even more room! We hope you'll keep an eye out for the move, lots to share...and hopefully some great flight footage too!

Thanks! Glad you keep coming back! I love takeoff and landings, especially with this beauty!!!

We did!

Thanks!

Thanks a lot! So glad you're here with us!

Thanks David! I'm glad you're here, and I love to help new RC pilots! I hope you'll check my playlists, as I've reviewed a lot of planes now. I suspect you can get some help from watching my failures along the way ;) As you said, there are definitely haters out there, and it's crazy! Since we all share the same hobby (AKA habit), you'd think this would allow us to have a common bond, but idiocy transcends all borders - LOL!!! P.S. Here on the channel, we've had a pretty good ratio of haters to subscribers. We figure about 1 hater to 1000 good subscribers that I've had to block due to extreme annoying, rude, stupidity, overly profane, you know...the type of people who live in mom's basement, that wouldn't have the balls to say half this stuff to my face, but they'll put it out for the world to read - LOL... We're super lucky to have a GREAT audience, and glad you're here with us! P.P.S. RC stuff has been in short supply in my life right now, as we're building a new house on an acreage, so it's gonna be a few more months until I can really "Fire back up" to putting out videos 5-10 times a week, which pains me knowing there's so much cool gear coming out! We hope you'll stay interested long enough to weather this "storm" with us.

Carbon Z Cub is AMAZING!!! Very great plane. Huge and fun. Check your prop after first two or three flights...and thank me later if she's loose ;)

I learned to fly here, and had a great experience here flying. Now it's a lot easier to just go out front ;)

@@BrianPhillipsRC good luck my friend you're one heck of a pilot. I know one thing if I were to survive one landing that would have been a great spectacle but you survived many many many landings and not hit the curb LOL I would have been freaking out for sure White knuckle flying. LOL

I hit curbs, many a time...but I'm a better pilot (aka RC airplane repairman) for having done it ;) LOL

Like you, I always have a backup plan in mind. There's two main green spaces that would allow for an "emergency landing", plus I have a cross road that bends near the intersection seen in the video here, so technically, I have two crosswind landing strips....I'd just have to walk down to the stop sign, and deal with a slightly busier street. Pretty lucky to be here, and have such good neighbors, which it really what makes this all possible.

Thanks Roy

The Cirrus has easy to "bend back" mains. The plane is GREAT, and very good looking!!! You will LOVE it!

Good choice! Awesome plane, and I know you'll LOVE it!

It's a beauty - you'll love it!!!!! Noisy landing gear and spinner/cowl are the worst parts of the plane...but I know you'll love her!!!

I'm sorry ;) There are so many awesome planes coming out, and it's killing me to be so busy with out new home build. I can't buy any right now :(

I aim to please! Thanks for coming back for more!!!

Me too!

TWO of them!?!?! Sounds like something a crazy person (like me) would do!!!

Brian Phillips this and my timber I have two of. If I crash I don’t think life would remain the same for the week it takes to have one shipped to me hahaha. Keep flying man. You were greasing those landings.

I took it out to another site and was landing over and over again between a building and trees...it was awesome! my favorite part of this plane is takeoffs and landings. When you have a nice directional wind, it makes things even more cool!

I try to do this already, but not a bad idea...Flying 101 ?

LOL - I agree! - LOL

Is Geotech the fabric stuff?

Great to hear! I'd suggest these lipos... 3200mAh 3S 30C bit.ly/2Cfzjoc OR 2200mAh 3S 30C bit.ly/2OxutFa

Thank you

I have flown it at the new place. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-FtX3dccf5kY.html

@@BrianPhillipsRC totally missed it. Thanks!! One of these at my local shop and I’m really torn. Should I grab it or wait for a possible rerelease/update. Thoughts?

LOL - "year of our lord" ;) - LOL!!!

I don't know what those two weird white "fins" are? I was hoping maybe someone knew. I have to assume it's some sort of an antenna. GREAT QUESTION!!!

nope, just the telemetry that's included with the AR636 - rx voltage...I think that's all that's in there by default...

What I mean is that I started with the CG spot on per the manual by pushing the lipo almost totally against the "luggage tray", but found that I preferred the way the plane flies with a slightly nose heavy configuration, meaning, I'm intentionally making the plane have a nose heavy, or tipping slightly forward when balanced on the CG points... ...but keep in mind, we're talking BARELY nose heavy... ...The manual can talk all day about where the CG "is", but the way you want the plane to pivot on the pitch axis is totally up to you as the pilot. Don't misunderstand, the manual isn't wrong in this case, that I can see, but Horizon Hobby, and many other hobby companies have mis-reported CG's before. Horizon Hobby is one of the best for this sort of thing. Keep in mind, the CG is reported as a "range" as well, since even the manufacturer realizes there are some small differences from plane to plane, and pilot to pilot on what flies "best". What I'm trying to say is that CG is not subjective, in that it's a calculated and demonstrable fact, but the way you want the plane to fly IS subjective, and you can fly a plane nose heavy, or tail heavy, but you've surely heard... "Nose heavy planes fly poorly; tail heavy planes fly once!"

It sure is! I really like the Cirrus. Thanks for watching!

Ben, I forgot to ask, what size lipo and what type of times did you get out of her?

Brian Phillips I used a 3200mah 3S, and I only flew about 4 minutes before it got really windy

So you don't really know how long she'll fly on 3200mAh??? Too bad. Would you let me know when you get a chance, please, how long the 3200mAh lasts? I flew for about 9 minutes on the second flight here. I had used what I confirmed to be a bad 3S 2200mAh 60C pack for the first flight on this video, which was only 3 minutes.

How much space do you need to fly it. Do you recomend it as a 2nd plane?

I agree, and hate when HH discontinues stuff ;(

Sorry for the slow reply! Your comment was caught in the RU-vid-Time-Warp :) I can't believe we are that far off on from one another in terms of our CG behavior. I wouldn't arbitrarily take this position, but I have to assume that you may have measured from the wrong spot on the wing, maybe??? My plane flies very well...easy to take off and land, and no nasty tendencies in flight. Very easy to land in fact! If she were nose heavy, I'd have to be on the elevator really hard to take off. Another sign of NOT being nose heavy is that my current lipo placement (with the rear of my Lipo about 1/2" - 3/4" from the "luggage tray") is that when I give throttle, the plane likes to climb; As I'm sure you're aware, this would never happen with a nose heavy aircraft. Maybe there's some minor differences in yours and my planes? There is a possibility that because I've moved some of the electronics from here to there, and that's caused a very minor difference between yours and mine. I did add the tail light, which adds maybe 10 grams or less, but it's weight added right on the tail, but even still, there shouldn't be too much impact on CG from that mod... This is a Horizon Hobby mystery!!!

Thanks for your response. When I ordered my Bin N Fly Cirrus in mid October they were out of stock and I was told that mine would ship out when the new stock came in, in Early November. Mine arrived on my door step on November 3rd. I can't believe that there would be much, if any, differences in the manufacturing of the plane that would account for such a difference in the CG location. I've been flying for 13 years and have designed and built aircraft from scratch and have a large inventory of aircraft in my hanger and am confident that I know how to properly measure the CG location from the LE of the wing root. I was limited for time when I did my first three flights the other day and will have more time tomorrow afternoon and will try various battery placements (including the one you use) and see if that will get rid of the wing waggling. For what it's worth, there is a guy on the RC Groups Thread about this plane who posted 2 days ago that his Cirrus is very nose heavy even with the 3s 2200mAh battery pushed back as far as it will go and wanted to know if others had that same issue.

I wonder if they changed something, like maybe there's tail weight that they forgot to install on yours? P.S. Sorry if what I said sounded like I was challenging you skills and aptitude for RC! I didn't mean for that to come of my comment (see the excerpt from a previous comment below)... " I wouldn't arbitrarily take this position, but I have to assume that you may have measured from the wrong spot on the wing, maybe??? " ...It's tough to know how well versed all my viewers are. You've got a decade of experience on me, as I started flying about 3 years ago. I'm real curious to hear how things turn out. Would you let me know when you get a chance? I really appreciate you being a part of this channel, and hope you keep coming back for more!

Hi Brian, No worries, I knew that you meant nothing negative and I completely agree that you would have no idea what level of experience any one of your viewers might have. I would have commented the same way you did and hope that my positive intent was understood. I'm surprised that you have only been flying for 3 years as your flying skills are very good! I must say that I am also impressed with the way you make your videos and in the way your workshop & home is so neat and well organized. Very impressive for someone as young as you are! You are also a luck man to have a wife interested enough in your hobby to man the video camera for you. She does a great job! I did get to the flying field today and had enough time to fly through 8 batteries doing at least 80 take offs and landings. I tried various battery positions putting it back as far as I could catching the front strap to the very front tip of the battery and also forward as far as I could and still have the back strap catch the rear tip of the battery, very similar to the way you have yours. I didn’t find a whole lot of difference in flight characteristics between battery positions and ended up settling for having my 2200 battery as far forward as I could and still have the back strap catch the rear end of the battery. That position seemed to work out the best with very little altitude gain when going from straight and level flight at half throttle to full throttle while in Manual Mode and I had good rotation on takeoff and good flair control on landing. However, according to the manual I am still very nose heavy with the battery in the more forward position as my balance point is only about 48-50mm from the LE rather than the suggested 63.5mm. Go figure??? I still experienced some "wing waggling" as well today. Not as much as before, but it was still there at times and the wind was only about 3 to 6 mph. I also found that the plane is very sensitive to any gusts as a perfect glide slope when landing can suddenly bounce up or down a foot or two without warning. I also wanted to share info with you about a neat device that you may not know about. The device is called the Quanum Low Voltage pager from HobbyKing. With this device you can replace all of your in-aircraft battery alarms. This ONE small device is interchangeable from aircraft to aircraft and plugs into the balance connector of your battery, (up to an 8s battery). The device will transmit a signal containing the voltage of the battery's cells and is received by a small device, (similar to a pager), that you can wear on your person, put in your pocket or clip onto your radio transmitter. There is a voltage selection on the receiving device that allows you to select the cell voltage that you want to be notified at. These voltage selections run between 3.7 down to 3.3. When any one of your battery's cells reach your selected voltage the device will vibrate strongly & loudly to let you know. This receiver device is powered by 3 AAA batteries that last a long time. I'm in my mid 60's and hard of hearing. This device is a God send since much of the time I could not hear my old battery alarms when they were beeping on my aircraft, especially if guys were flying those loud gas & nitro planes nearby. I have this device mounted to my receiver tray and I can loudly hear it and "feel" it going off no matter how much noise is around me. It is a MUST HAVE for me and well worth the one time price of about $25.00. I owe a special thanks to "Zerts" from the RC Groups "Timber" forum for posting about this device as it was something that I had no idea even existed. When I went to buy it at HobbyKing they were only in stock in the China warehouse ($19.00 + shipping) and I did not want to have to wait for a month to get it shipped to the US. hobbyking.com/en_us/quanum-p...9-5mhz-fm.html I checked on eBay and found a seller in Texas who had some for sale and bought it from him for $24.95 & free shipping. www.ebay.com/itm/252416156065 I can't recommend this great little device enough. I look forward to your next video. Happy flying my friend! Tom

Sorry I just got this message...my RU-vid notifications have been very weird lately. Some come through on the first comment, but none of the replies, which are always collapsed now, so very easy to miss. Glad to hear we were on the same page. Glad to have you watching too! Have you figured out the mystery surrounding the CG yet? I've been flying and working on the Aero Commander UMX (which is AWESOME!!!), as the weather has been calm to very calm winds, so gotta take advantage of the conditions for the UMX fleet :) P.S. Your RU-vid message prompted my reply here...sorry for the delay

I really appreciate your comment! I love this stuff, and learn new stuff everyday (really). The thumbs down thing gets old, but so long as they arn't combative in the comments, I don't mind it...still annoying if it's like the 3rd view... I really appreciate you being a part of this channel. I hope you come back for more! P.S. My wife is very good with the camera; we're very lucky to have her help!!! I'll pass along the compliment, thanks!

Off = No StabilizationAS3X = Stabilization (gyro)Heading Hold = Stabilization (gyro) + SAFE AKA Auto Leveling...or if you want to "hammer head", for example, while 3D flying.

No.

Have you watched the build series yet? I discuss these things in the build series. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-82PT4Yi3D5o.html watch about the 12 minute mark for the information.

We lived in this neighborhood for 12 years, and having been the second house on the block, and watching many people come and go, we had a great opportunity to build good relationships with our neighbors....if we didn't I would have never even tried it....but as it was, I flew there ALL the time. I was very fortunate, because if I hadn't been allowed to fly here, I probably wouldn't have learned to fly. I had so much more time to fly!

yes....I can't tell you what I [almost] bought this weekend, yet... :)

Mike, we were super blessed to have great neighbors, combined with even better relationships with MOST of them :) This was how we "got away with it". There's surely others out there that can do the same, but it's a unique gift these great people gave us for the last 4.5-5 years we enjoyed our home in that neighborhood...we have since built and have moved into our new acreage, of which you may be aware - If not, check out some more recent footage to see what I'm talking about... Being that we have 4 kids, going to a flight field would have made flying a near impossibility, for me, and filming to create content for the RU-vid channel would have been even more impossible. I'm eternally grateful for our old neighbors - they gave me a gift I didn't understand at the time, just by being cool with us!

@@BrianPhillipsRC Wow - you have 4 kids?? Anyway, I did see that you were moving - kudos on the acreage - soon you'll wonder how you ever lived in such proximity to other people.

Yes, four kids. It's kinda crazy around here...to the extent that filming is still a huge challenge, but such is "real" life...

Dead stick vs powered? Here's some pointers for landing... 1) Flaps fully deployed - EVERY TIME (except extreme cross wind, then take off flaps only) 2) Land into the wind, or the most into the wind as you can be flying. Just because you took off into the wind, doesn't mean you'll be landing the same direction!!! 3) Keep the nose, slightly down. You need to keep the plane FLYING until you can "stall it into the ground". 4) When you are right about to touch down, pull full back on the elevator to flare the plane. This will help slow the plane, and help put the mains down first. If you get a three wheel landings, that's fine, but if you can drag out the flare, it looks soooo cool :) 5) If you use SAFE now, use SAFE for a while, and try it without SAFE a day that you have either very predictable wind to land into, or DEAD calm. 6) As for dead stick or into the power... This is a tough question. If you fly planes without flaps, you can many times get away with just cutting throttle on the final. This is less acceptable when you are flying with flaps. Flaps reduce the stall speed, but increase drag a lot, so you will be "pulled to a stop", and if you slow down too much, you will FALL. Also, keeping a designated amount of power, until just before touchdown will help tremendously with any ditched landing efforts. If you have to "get the plane flying again", chances are, you're gonna already have a wing on the pavement, and the plane will be crash-landed. This plane is VERY forgiving, but when she stalls, it's VERY aggressive! 7) Use a spotter if you need help to see if the strip is clear, or to help with all the details as you get ready for touch down. 8) "Keep a sterile cockpit" - this is a full scale thing, meaning when you're ready to land, have as many distractions out of the way as possible. If you have spectators, talk to them before you get in the air, and ask them to be very quiet when you're ready to land OR if you identify a problem and have to immediately address it, like a battery issue, or failure. Call out that your landing (or any emergency situation), and let people know what's needed. In my experience, people want to help you be successful, and they will shut up (most of the time). 9) Learn from EVERY landing. Be your own biggest critic! LEARN from your failures. 10) Fly within yours and your aircraft's capabilities. If you try to exceed either, you will be "getting lucky" to have success. Push yourself to master one or two things before moving onto another. Of course, you gotta land every time, and right away, but you don't have to land a tough plane for your first flight. 11) DO IT A LOT! Practice, practice, practice!

It's a good plane, but if you don't really know how to fly RC yet, I'd recommend another choice that's less pretty. You will be more stressed that you can imagine when you take up a plane and suddenly realize "WHAT! I'm flying this thing!?!?!??!?!?!?!?" (you probably think I'm nuts, but I'm not...wait and see! :) I'd maybe consider something cheaper and slightly smaller, like this. www.horizonhobby.com/product/airplanes/park-flyers/airplane-new-releases/carbon-cub-s-13m-rtf-p-hbz3200 It's new, in that it has the full suite of SAFE features, since it is SAFE+....the Cirrus has SAFE (Which runs on AS3X systematically) and this will help a lot, but it's not a super slow plane, and it's just so beautiful!

I'm really sorry that you're having a hard time hearing [presumably me talking]. If I turn up the audio, then that will cause other issues for desktop users... Maybe you could check a couple things here... I assume you've already adjusted the volume on the app, and on the ipad, right? I'm not an Apple expert, since I use android, but is there a "media" volume as well that might be low, that could be adjusted? One other thought too...which I realize might not be worth the hassle...could you stream the video to your TV, so that you could adjust the volume higher? I checked and there used to be a volume adjustment in the enhancements, but that option is gone...thanks RU-vid!

We were thinking about doing taxi lights along the sidewalk and road... It would be cool :)

I can't say for certain, but if it was low cut, and pretty smooth, I suspect that you could fly from grass. The wheel pants might make a bit of trouble for you, catching grass clippings... I KNOW you could land it okay, but takeoff would be the question. You can hand launch this plane, or even take off from a table...full flaps, aircraft carrier style ;) LOL!

Watch the Unbox, Build, and Radio Setup for this step.

I'm not 100% sure if this was a question? If you were asking me to help you pick between the two, the Aero Commander UMX and the Cirrus SR22T are so different, size and price point alone would be a good place to help you pick. Also the Cirrus SR22T has SAFE Select, while the Aero Commander just has AS3X. I love both a lot!

Yes.

Dear Brian, I did not mention Aero commander umx. I have asked you about HorizonHobby`s mPd Commander www.horizonhobby.com/airplanes/bind-n-fly/commander-mpd-14m-bnf-basic-efl4850

Oh, my mistake!!! Sorry about that, since I don't have it, and know very little about it, I thought this might have been a typo! I love the Cirrus SR22T...it's a very good plane. I only wanted to add a white tail light for better night flight orientation.

I try and verbalize the changes in controls, so that you might have an idea of what's happening on the sticks. Why type of info are you hoping for, and I can try to get more specifics for you?

Brian Phillips I just don’t know if I should be dead sticking or landing with power. It sounds like you are 15% power through the landing and you cut power during the flare?

Yeah, that's correct - I did both in this video... I did a demo of a practice "Dead stick" landing, to simulate my handling of a motor failure, but I could have just added power at any time if I wanted. With SAFE landings, for a beginner, you could cut power because this plane is very forgiving, but typically, I'd use power for landing. I don't mean to confuse you but I think that's exactly what I'm doing - SORRY!!!

I did this video a few month back, which might be helpful too... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-V2NA_dYzu18.html ...but it's with a different plane.

Brian Phillips I will watch, thank you.

The Cirrus is a very good plane. The F18, will be here and gone quickly...my L39 is already dead...had a freak incident, and she was on top of a building :( Horizon Hobby comped me, which surprised the heck out of me, but now I have a Timber UMX on back order. Not trying to dissuade you from the F18, but I can tell you that it is most definitely a GREAT plane. If you already have the Archer, you may not "need it"...you did say you have the archer, right?

SAFE is housed on the Plane, in the Rx...not in the Tx...so you can most definitely fly a SAFE equipped plane with a DXS, but you need to program the Rx on newer PNP planes, thus you will need to have a transmitter that can do this, when and if you get to that level. If it's a BNF and you have only a DXS, then you just need to have a channel to command SAFE SELECT.

If you have a good long landing strip, it would be okay. It's a great plane, and very fun to fly. Great value too!

Get one - link in the description ;)

Good question! POWER. When you get into final, feather the throttle to control your rate of decent. Use the ailerons to keep her level, and rudder to keep her lined up, and elevator to set your flare, and for bleeding off the last bit of lift to stall her onto the ground.

@@BrianPhillipsRC Thanks Brian! Mine seems to want to stay high even when I cut the throttle. The glide slope ends up being really long. Then I'm making the mistake of trying to force it down more with the elevator (nose down), then it speeds up... I think I'll to to keeping going around again to come in lower to begin with before I begin my final decent.

Increase your flaps (use the flap mode, then use SERVO SETUP also, if necessary...you can set the down range to 150% on the down sweep), and increase the elevator correction. Get it pointing DOWN, then you can fly it into your approach. This plane does take some time to come down, but I was doing landing after landing, after landing with it shortly after getting it. It's probably my favorite part of flying this plane ;)

Brian Phillips That’s gotta be it. More flaps and increase elevator correction. I’ll try it. With flaps on full I think it’s still ballooning just enough to keep the nose up... Thanks for helping me out! I’ll update after some flights.

These adjustments made a HUGE difference for the better. THANKS. Especially more elevator mixing. Now it heads down with full flaps while coming off the throttle. I got in three pretty nice landings this afternoon.

LOL - for sure!

Brian Phillips I fly a real Cirrus and I would probably crash that R/C in 30 seconds! You make it look easy!

LOL - It's not that bad...but like you, with flying the full scale version, it takes some practice :)

Brian Phillips hehe yeah just “some” ☺️

How many hours before you even soloed in your Cirrus, just out of curiosity (for your "type" rating)?

Very cool. I might need some in the future :)

Do you recall the actual dimensions? I thought you mentioned 30'X30" or something like this.

Do it Doug! This plane is really good!

LOL, I have clearance ;)

He handles neighborhood flying like a champ..... I've done it before and it was totally terrifying.

Thanks Matthew! I would have to agree :) As mentioned, I have a good relationship here, so very fortunate to be allowed to do what I do. I only wish it were a more common experience... Merry Christmas! Thanks for being here on the channel!!!

Altitude

You gotta time stamp these things so I know what you're talking about.

How much are you paying for yours???

can you time stamp where I said this, and I'll get you an answer... @ 0:01 (for example)

Brian Phillips 0:13

Oh...okay.. This is a discontinued Hangar 9 Cirrus SR22T... www.horizonhobby.com/cirrus-sr22t-30cc-arf-han5020 ...which is what I was referring to in my cryptic commentary. Sorry about the confusion!

Nice!!! Did you have to double it up at all? how did you prep the surface before putting it down?

Sorry I keep dragging you in like this...but I know the cirrus will make you happy, even if you end up in the dog house!!! Thanks Keith, and Good luck with the maiden, and dealing with your wife too ;) LOL!

I wish I got them all for free, but regrettably, I only occasionally get an aircraft for free to review....and they aren't the "expensive" ones ;) RU-vid does pay a few bucks a month, but only after years of hard work, and literally thousands of hours of effort....good thing I really like doing it - LOL!!!

Well it’s very enjoyable to watch and learn... keep it up..

Thanks Keith...I'm so glad to have good people like yourself on this channel. It's amazing that, literally, as I reply to your super awesome comments, I'm juggling nasty comments from crazy jerks from all over the world. It's like night and day :) Thanks for being one of the "good ones" (really...it's nice)

We had good relationships with the neighbors and not in the UK...BUT...we also don't live at this home anymore. We built a house on 10+ acres, and now have even more freedom to fly. Oh yeah, we were also in that house before virtually anyone else on the street....and I was on the Bord of Directors for the HOA, but we were very fortunate to have some good relationships , which was the main detail. We had neighbors that wanted us to fly for them, from time to time, and they would come over with their kids and grandkids to watch. The neighborhood kids would gather and watch. We flew a LOT

I've ended up in plenty of yards.

They draw virtually no power, as LED's are very low load, but you CAN unplug them if you'd prefer they were off.

@@BrianPhillipsRC That's what I would do and only use them when it's getting dark. My mini apprentice s just arrived today. I'm eager to put it together for its maiden flight!

Cool! You'll love it!!! Good luck. When you get ready to add some lights, you can use a dead servo to turn the lights on and off, but please trust me on this, there's virtually no power being consumed. If you cut the leads from the motor (on your dead servo) then use that power supply to run your LED or LED's, now just set a switch on your transmitter to control that servo, and flip the switch to the side you want lights "ON" and then turn the trim pot on the dead servo until the LED or LED's comes on....then flip the switch "off" and if the light or lights don't turn out, reverse your channel direction and see if you can get it dialed in. It's a cool way to make the plane look even more real!

Nope. We're very lucky. Most of them we knew before I even started flying, and a lot of them like the flying, but I realize this is a bit strange.

You are correct that you won't change my mind, but what's MORE true is that we have both drawn distinctly different conclusions as to what is safe and what is not. As for your assertion, I totally disagree that my flying is irresponsible, and only very high profile cases would even catch the eye of the FAA. For the record, the FAA will do whatever the FAA wants, regardless of freedoms protected by our constitution, and by previous legislation. They have proven to be out of control, and should be dismantled and only necessary parts reassembled. We'd save a few BILLION dollars a year, without giving up an ounce of safety. All they have to do NOW, is to have the "administrator" say something, and it is (sounds like another time in history...."God said, let there be light".... This is totally egregious, and a travesty to freedom. I for one don't need the governments permission in my pursuit of happiness, rather, I EXPECT them to protect my God given right to do so. They are here to serve us, not the other way around. We ought not ASK permission from our government, but rather they ought to seek our approval.... As for negative attention to the hobby, I get your point, but the only negative feedback I get is from AMA, big government lovers, like yourself (or at least your comment makes it seem that way). It gets old, since we all love the hobby, and work to promote it in as many ways possible. P.S. If I wanted to fly at a club, there are some around, but I have no interest in being part of a bureaucracy. I can follow the FAA rules without these clubs of old, argumentative, grumps....and some good guys too. P.S.S. "Community Based Organization" - It's like a common law marriage...Esteban and Brian RC...

Yep...never had any incident in literally thousands of flights (maybe tens of thousands). Not for everyone, obviously. Now we have 10 acres.