I recently made the jump from a parkflyer (after about 30 flights) to an Avistar and I'm amazed by how easy the transition was. I was able to solo on my first outting. Unfortunately my instructor was unable to take me out this weekend (second outting), so I decided to have a go at it myself. I was at the field at 8:30am left at 11am. Took 5 flights in total (averaging 15-20 minutes per flight), had 4 picture perfect landings and 1 OK landing. Plane flew GREAT. Getting more daring with my aerobatics, even flew inverted the whole length of our flying field! I'm very happy that I got the more aerobatic Avistar rather than one of the more traditional flat-bottom-winged trainers. Don't know if it would work for everyone, but the combination of teaching myself how to fly a slow parkflyer coupled with some FMS simulator "stick" time has made flying my IC trainer much easier. Not that I didn't crash my parkflyer a ton of times early on, but flying it taught me everything needed about control and orientation.

Hey good to hear that you still have a plane in one piece:D
I also had to learn on my own!..(they did not have park fliers back then) I started with a cox 2 ch cessna, crash'd it a lot then got into gliders till I got the hang of things...I think that if you are at this stage the best thing you can do is just keep shooting the pattern and get the landings from left to right, and right to left to a science...good luck.

f2racer, congrats on your success. As I said before, the key is STICK TIME and the time you spent with the park flyer and your flight sim paid off for sure!

It's not that flying is easy, (as you know, it's not), but the more you practice, the "easier" it gets!

Glad your report also verifies that by doing your "homework" you can advance at a faster rate (and skip some steps). Just because the Avistar is more aerobatic doesn't mean it's a HANDFULL right? Set it up to be smooth, and that's how it will fly!

Tim

After flying my glider and cub and practicing with fms i was able to solo with my thunder tiger trainer 60 first flight also. My first landing (acually the first landing the plane ever made :) ) was less than perfect but i did get it down without any damage. My main problem with the trainer is getting it slowed down because it will almost fly level at idle. But with more stick time and some bigger wheels im starting to get the hang of it and have had quite a few "picture perfect" landings :D

I think when you get your motor "broke-in" and learn what props to use you will find that the plane wont be so baloon like,and landing will be easier..:cool:

Originally posted by MrGoodwreck
I think when you get your motor "broke-in" and learn what props to use you will find that the plane wont be so baloon like,and landing will be easier..:cool:

Actually, landings are pretty darn dead on (I have 7 solid landings now, including 1 dead stick). It's just gauging the rate of descent since the plane flies pretty straight and true even at very low speeds. My engine went from dying at anything under 1/4 throttle without the muffler to not turning off after I reinstalled the muffler and adjusted the air bleed screw, even when pressing the throttle cut, so I think that it's more or less "broke-in" now. I'm actually very impressed with the way the Avistar flies. It doesn't show any vices and is pretty darn thilling aerobatically. So far, the plane has met or exceeded all of my expectations of IC flight (since my prior experience was with electrics). If I'd known that I was going to progress so fast, I would have probably assembled it with a little less or even no dihedral. I've found that even though it's got semi-symetrical wings, the dihedral does make it "auto-level" (although slower than other trainers that I've seen fly) and flying inverted takes some input to perform smoothly.

Having flown this plane, I know that my next plane needs to be an aerobatic one. When I was flying around with my electric, I had thought that the end-all-be-all of flying would be to get a scale (40 or bigger) warbird. Now my sights are set on something aerobatic.

Another MONSTER has been created!!! :D

Tim

What you call a monster.....I call good company!:D