acdii: This is really true. You really learn to do trim and linkage adjustments when flying pattern. It takes a lot more than just flying the thing and adjusting electrical trim with the trim sticks as most do during their maiden flights.

With both my Venus II pattern plane and my Skylark 70 sport plane, after I did the initial trims, my instructor, Ron, sat down with me and we worked through all the other mechanical adjustments to really make them both fly as true as possible. This really made a difference in the way the plane flys, for both disciplined pattern and relaxing sport flying. Gray Beard will probably agree with this. Once you get into the habit of making these adjustments - tweaks, the little stuff that takes some attention to detail, once done, it's done. And we tend to do it as a matter of routine now.

Gene - yeah, I fly mostly sport now. Even though I sort of got into the pattern, I could never get into the type of discipline that it really needed. Flying the same thing over and over again just was not my cup of tea. It did improve my skill level, and improved it a lot, and this makes my sport flying that much more fun. The landings are precise, straight, and smooth - picture perfect.... that is until I forget wind direction and land it with the wind.. then it ain't so pretty until someone whispers in my ear that I am downwind rather than upwind - yeah, it happens - and I turned it around and, well, you get the idea..

CGr