Just thought I would pass along some of my personal experiences in regards to "flying RC". Sorry for being long winded.

I am still very much a beginner at flying. I have flown RC for a little over a year now, this is my second season with an RC club. I try to fly as much as possible, but time is precious and weather doesn't always permit flying. I probably have more "build" time accumulated than I do "flying" time. I will soon be taking to the air with my first "gasoline engine" powered plane, a scratch built 80" stick with a Ryobi 31cc engine and "quad flaps".

The first airplane that I flew (and the one I fly most now) is a Midwest Aerostar 40 trainer. It has a 5' or so wing, weighs around 6 or 7 lbs and has an OS .46FX for power. I recovered this airplane in Super Monokote white all over with the exception of the bottom of the wing. I covered the bottom of the wing with TowerKote (crappy stuff, but free) dark blue. I hilighted the airplane with red and blue markings. This made the plane a lot nicer looking and very visible in flight. It is very easy to tell what attitude the airplane is in in flight with this color scheme.

The first problem I experienced while learning to fly was during the "landing" process. I would line the plane up ok and then when I tried to correct it by "turning" it with my ailerons, I would get the plane reversed in my head, ie. I would see the plane coming towards me with it's left wing (actually it's right wing)dipping down, so I would give it some "right" input to level it out. All of a sudden, the plane is cartwheeling down the runway because it struck the ground with the right wing because I thought it was it's left wing. I am sure you have experienced this or get the idea I am telling you. The way I finally (4 crash landings later) got over this "reversal" of the airplane in my head, was to borrow a Real Flight simulator. I flew at home on the computer over and over for about a month, constantly bringing the computer airplane towards me and in for landings ( I got pretty good at inverted flight, also).

The second problem that I had for a long, long time, was fearing that I would crash the plane into the clubhouse, the pits or worse, another person or his/her car. I intentionally would fly way out away from me, figuring if I crashed via "dumb thumbs" the plane would go down far away out of harms way. Of course, this made it next to impossible to tell what the airplane was doing. You couldn't tell if it was up or down, coming at you or going away. I am sure a lot of beginner pilots like myself have or had this same fear.

Now, I am glad to say, after cramming as much flying time as possible into evenings and weekends, I have overcome both of these problems. I can truly say that I enjoy flying and can't wait to get to the airfield to fly one of my planes.

The thing that I do most with my airplanes, especially my trainer, is to fly "low and slow". I fly normally at about 1/4 throttle or even in a tail hanging stall about 15' off the ground and close to me. I constantly fly figure eights at this ground level. It is a blast and it teaches you a lot about your airplane. I can not express how much flying "low and slow" will help you. If you do crash (and you probably won't) flying in this manner, airplane damage is not as extensive because you are not falling from a great height, nor are you going fast, plus you don't get a kink in your neck from flying "3 mistakes high". Another thing I have been doing at these low speeds is flying and landing in a "slip" or sideways manner. This is a lot of fun and it teaches you to use your throttle and your rudder (and counter with aileron), instead of just cranking the throttle to full and never touching your rudder. This is the way that I see some instructors teaching their students. Full throttle, 100 foot up in the air. That's not for me, not anymore anyhow.

Just thought I would pass this along.

Jon

I belong to the same club as Jon and I am here to tell you that he is a better flyer than he leads you to believe. And I will go out of my way to tell you he is the best bean catcher the club has ever seen.

Give yourself some credit Jon.

I appreciate the compliment, especially coming from an experienced pilot like yourself.

I truly believe that flying slow, as close to a stall as you can get, really teaches you a lot about your airplane and what to do with it in "trouble" situations. The rudder can be VERY effective in stall situations, where as the ailerons sometimes have no effect with too little airspeed. I have watched an experienced "giant scale" flyer, Jim, at the field with his US41 powered Giant Aeromaster bipe. He flies "low and slow" all the time. He couldn't go fast if he wanted, his prop is an amazing 22 x 10 on that US41, all torque. He does absolutely amazing stunts with this plane. I especially like to watch him fly a 10 minute routine 5' off the ground inverted. Then he will just take it up a little and give it a bit of altitude and just let the prop take the plane where it wants. Amazing gyrations while the bipe is stalling and falling. It is fun to just sit and watch him. He is the guy that told me to practice flying "low and slow" with whatever plane I am flying.

As for the beans, I bought a bag of "garlic soybeans" in the store the other day to see what they tasted like. Thought I might start harvesting the beans off my landing gear, LOL. Unfortunately, I didn't like the taste too much.

Jon:D

Jon,
I agree with you on flying slow. It takes much more precise control to fly slow. I see instructors letting their students fly a full throttle all the time and I wonder why.
With my students I always trim the plane for 1/2 throttle and have them fly around all the time like that. If they want to climb I just have them advance the power a little. Since the plane is trimmed for 1/2 throttle it will climb with any power setting above that.
Landing practice is much easier when they start trying to approach the runway because they know what the plane feels like at slower speeds.

I like to get high, slow to stall, and then change heading using rudder. It not only "wakes up" the left hand, it is very helpful trimming, then I like to play low and slow. Remember to take time to get your plane in trim and balanced, have seen many new pilots learn with ill trimmed planes only to crash a good one because it flew so different. Beware magnetic turf!

I'm getting into Heli's...With a few flights on my electric humming bird and the sim my left hand has really come to life while flying my planes!!! That's is good info, I enjoy flying slow!

Low and slow is not only good practice, it is a lot of fun too.

a good way to keep it level is when it is comin towards you push the stick towards the wing that is down and all will be better

We still have a couple of "full-throttle instructors in our club... and thier students tend to progress slower than the ones that teach use of the throttle.

There are 2 different ways to deal with the "control reversal" when the plane is comming toward you.

1) "prop up the low wing" If you move the stick toward the low wing the wing will come up.
2) try to keep the TX antenna pointed the direction the airplane is going. This will mean twisting your sholders as you fly, and looking over your shoulder. The natural result will be you moving the stick the correct way.

With practice you will get to where you don't have to use either method, it becomes natural to recognize when the plane is headed toward you and that you have to move the stick "backward". Also... with practice you will gain the habit of moving the controls more smoothly, and if the plane does the wrong thing you will reverse your stick movement without even thinking about it.

One of the local flyers has gotten so automatic about reversing the stick movement when the plane does the wrong thing that he can fly a model with all control directions reversed and when watching the airplane, you'd never know it.