ORIGINAL: overbored77
We hooked up with the instructor at the local flying field, and he buddy boxed both of us. when it was my turn he took the plane up and said you got it, I had
been on the SIM for months so I knew what to expect, i finished the first flight and realized that was already hooked.
we did a couple flights that day and I even landed once. Next week we went back, and both of us soloed.
Chris, I remember both those days. You took to RC flyhing like a fish takes to water. We had a good time the day you solo'ed, no doubt about it.
I started out way back in 1977 in Eureka, CA. I was assigned to a Coast Guard Cutter at the time and had a miserable patrol schedule. I really wanted to fly RC so I bought what would be trainer at the time, very different from what we have now. Anyway, I made several flights with it, handing the transmitter back and forth to the instructor. One day, I made an adjustment to the elevators but forgot to put the little rubber keeper on the clevis. The elevator came disconnected during flight. The instructor tried to bring it in but it stalled on landing and hit the pavement.
Again, the patrol schedule was brutal, so I never was able to take the time to either fix it nor to fly again.
I stepped forward over 20 years to more recent times. I was driving along one of the back roads of NJ and saw an RC plane flying over a field so I stopped and watched for a while. This rekindled my flying spirit so I talked to one of the guys at the field and ended up buying a Tower Trainer 40 with an OS 46. I also bought an Airrtonics RD4000 radio and all the gizmo's that I needed to fly with.
We flew off and on for a couple of months, but my work travel to England was almost to a commute level. I even bought a plane in England to fly and practiced over there with one of their club instructors.
When things calmed down a bit for travel, I bought a Nexstar Select RTF and ended up solo'ing with that. It was one tough plane because of all the terrible landings I put it through, but I never crashed it. I did some landing gear damage and broke quite a few props, but that was the extent of it.
Since then, well, I've moved up in the world of RC, trying Pattern for a while, but it was to disciplined for me because I just didn't have the time to spend on Pattern to get really good at it so I just stuck with sport flying, but I can say that my Pattern flying and those maneuvers helped sharpen my skills.
CGr.