Magister Electric
A popular ready-to-fly foam trainer — lightweight, durable, and easy to repair when training takes its inevitable toll.
About
The Magister is a classic example of the foam-trainer category that has dominated entry-level RC flying for the past two decades. Like every well-loved foam trainer, it earns its place in the hobby by being three things at once: light enough to fly slowly, tough enough to survive student mistakes, and simple enough to repair on a kitchen table with nothing more than a tube of hobby glue and a quiet evening.
The German manufacturer Multiplex Modellsport developed the airframe around their proprietary ELAPOR foam — a moulded particle foam that gives it both crash-resistance and an unusual amount of structural rigidity. The result is a high-wing, four-channel trainer that flies the way a beginner aircraft should: predictable, slow, generous on the controls, and forgiving when things don't quite go to plan. Removable wings and tailplane mean it travels easily in the boot of a small car — a small touch that makes the difference between a model you fly every weekend and one you fly twice a year.
The bigger picture is the category itself. Foam trainers — whether Multiplex Magister, Hangar 9 Alpha, E-flite Apprentice, or any of dozens of similar designs — are the modern face of RC flight training. They've replaced the painstaking balsa-and-monokote builds of an earlier era with airframes you can have flying the afternoon you unbox them. When you crash one, the wing snaps back together with a few minutes' work. When you've outgrown it, you simply step up to a sport-scale model — and the foamy stays in the hangar as a friend's first airplane.
In the simulator
A great alternative to the .60-class trainer for pilots who prefer the lighter, more agile feel of a modern foam airplane. Generous dihedral, gentle stall, and self-righting stability make it almost impossible to get into trouble in calm air. Use it to practice coordinated turns, the landing pattern, and recovery from unusual attitudes. Pairs well with calm-weather flying-field landscapes. When the Magister feels easy, the Cessna 182 and the Decathlon are waiting.
