Ah - I'm up in Plainville. Next week? Vacationing at Hammonasett Beach.....

Um - assuming you're flying a plane that has both ailerons and rudder, you can fly effectively, at first, with ailerons and elevator only...well, throttle too. Just get it up there and fly around. Burn holes in the sky. Once you've relaxed the grip on your radio you can wiggle the other sticks around and see what happens.

Lemme see. I learned, at the same time, on both a Goldberg Electra (electric Gentle Lady variant) and a Goldberg Eagle 2...then an old Sig Kadet MKII.....then finally settled on the Balsa USA Stik 40 Plus. I don't know if you're aware of this (stop me if I'm telling you something you already know) but on a rudder/elevator plane, most guys will put the rudder on the 'aileron' channel. That is, if you're flying Mode II, the right stick does the flying and the left stick is relegated to throttle-only. This allows you to swap planes off and not have to worry (too much) about which stick to wiggle.

Personally, I learned like most other new guys. I had a trainer. The instructor would take off and hand me the radio (no buddy boxes then). I would fly circles. Then I would fly level circles. (A good instructor will have you doing circles both ways - don't geet in the single-direction habit - it's hard to break). I'd hand him the radio and he'd land.

Notice I didn't say anything about rudder or elevator! Just fly circles - then ovals - then ovals at the same altitude (*grin*)...then an oval that puts you in the landing pattern, but 100 feet up...then 50 feet up.....lower, lower.....LIMBO!!!

I used rudder only on the ground until I had soloed and was flying as much as I possibly could. Then I started feeding rudder. Watch the plane, etc... Don't worry about it and don't overthink it. Just fly a lot! The baby electrics don't give you the choice of rudder or aileron - you've got rudder and dihedral. You're just point and shoot, y'know?

Just learn to get it off the ground and back down in the same number of pieces aligned the same way. Then worry.

Rob