Your Piloting Progression
 

Just curious to hear different pilot paths and the planes it took to get you where you are at today with your piloting skills.

You don't need to list every plane you've ever owned, just a simple list and number of years it took to become a confident 3D pilot.

I ask this because I'm entering my 3rd year of RC flying and think I'm in the "tweener" stage of being able to handle an all out 3D aircraft compared to a tamer pattern ship for example.

Thaks for the feedback.

RE: Your Piloting Progression
 

Who said I was confident? [:-] [sm=drowning.gif]

I suck at 3D. I try my heart out, but I can only do basic maneuvers. Hover, torque, harrier, elevator, waterfall, knife-edge spin. I can't do a rolling harrier yet, still trying. It's a lot of things to do at once, and my thumbs get noodly on me--then I screw up.

Happy, havin' fun, but NOT confident. :D

RE: Your Piloting Progression
 

The progression can happen very fast if you get a good sim and spend 15min to 1/2 hour on it a few days a week. To get better faster, spend even more time with the radio in your hands trying to accomplish something. Get the "Ultimate 3D" DVD and start to practice on the sim with a purpose. As you start to get a move down increase the weight of the aircraft and the sim speed to make it more challenging. If you have a place where you could fly a foamy regularly get one and do it. Again, fly trying to get better at something.

I am not saying that you should use the simulator or foamy as a substitute, but I am saying that if you practice trying to accomplish something on the sim and the foamy between your regular trips to the field you could see an improvement each time you visit the field. You will very quickly progress from feeling like a "tweener" to feeling confident with an all out 3D aircraft.

Also, do yourself a favor, don't spend a lot of time practicing 3D with planes that are not very suited for it if you have the opportunity to get something capable. 4 star 60's, Sticks and Something extras are somewhat capable of some stuff, but a good flying well powered 3D capable aircraft is a night and day difference. Guys ask me to fly their planes, and I do sometimes, but after flying something capable it is hard to get excited about something that is not.

RE: Your Piloting Progression
 

I'm not very good at 3d yet, but here is where I've been and how I plan to get there.

Last summer was my first year flying. I spent hours and hours on G2 nexstar edition learning to fly then finally it was time to fly the real thing and I forgot to plug in the aileron servo and crashed the nexstar. I then picked up a tower trainer and started reading up on setup and safety. I flew the tower trainer all summer, then when it got boring at the end of the summer I bought a twist3d with a magnum 70 FS. I set up the plane with really low rates and flew it for a couple of weeks getting used to the tail dragger and low wing. I started getting pretty comfortable with the twist so I started turning up the rates and moving the CG back.

At some point I decided that I wouldn't be able to get this 3d thing figured out unless I had a sim I could do 3d in. I was just to nervous to try real radical stuff with my twist because I didn't want to crash it. So 3 weeks ago I picked up G3 and started spending 30mins a day on the yak. Now I can hover, harrier, flat spin, knife edge, and other things.

Today I went out to try these things on the twist and knife edge was a breeze and I even got an inverted flat spin out of it. Granted it didn't look that great, but it was stalled, upside down, and falling.

Next I will start looking into rolling harriers on the sim while applying what I learned on the sim to the twist. Once I can do it all on the twist, I will probably move to a funtana 90 or something, then after that I will probably get a gasser.

Now, all that said, I am running into a few problems doing spins on my twist that some of you might be able to help me with:

1. When I get out of the throttle it takes a good second to second and a half for the plane to respond. Why is that? Do I need a faster throttle servo?

2. When I go into an inverted flatspin by pointing the airplane down then full left aileron, 2 turns, then full right rudder and down elevator, the plane gets flat for 2 spins, then the nose goes down and it starts spinning on the rudder. What do I need to do to get it to stay flat? More elevator throw?

thanks,

schu

RE: Your Piloting Progression
 

This is a good thread for me to watch so I'm subscribing :)

I've only been flying a year but spend WAY too much time on a simulator. I haven't really had anything capable of 3D but I have a OMP katana 46 with YS 63S sitting downstairs to assemble. So...hopefully I can transfer everything from the sim to something that really flies. I also have a Copperhead Aviation Yak Stiffy I'm going to be practicing on as well. Between the two and the sim time I think I can really do this stuff :D

Akchu, I hope that video I sent you helped with the flat spins some. From my understanding, the whole purple of the elevator in a flat spin is not really to control pitch but to keep the plane stalled. Power will help control the pitch and bring the nose up in some cases. CG has an effect as well - if its really really nose heavy, it will fall out.

RE: Your Piloting Progression
 

I agree with STG about the sim practice. Use it daily BUT do so with a purpose. Its so easy to sit down and lose track of what your trying to accomplish on there. I always go from flying precision to 3D to stick banging. I have to keep making myself focus on what I have sat down to accomplish. I found a cure for me is to fly for about 10 min. at a time. Grab the IMAC sequences and work your way through them and you will become a better pilot from using the sim.

RE: Your Piloting Progression
 

14 years of flying 3D no sims. Airplanes?????? too many to name. Allot of profiles, redesigned several birds with bigger surfaces, imported birds from all over the world becasue America has been slow come around to 3D/AA. Luckly we now have a vast assortment of good flying 3D birds. That has not always been the case, you can look for several post I have made over the years about airplanes that say "3D", however were not.

RE: Your Piloting Progression
 

i have been flying about 9 months. i found that as soon as i was comfortable with controlling the plane, i got bored with anything that was not newer or harder. now that might sound cocky, but i havent mentioned how many stupid crashes i have had. a lot. a whole lot of repairing planes and getting really frustrated. i started 3d with a ucd foamy and then a great planes giles kit that i crashed after forgetting to pay attention. i am now on a funtana 40 with a saito 100 and it really makes it easier. my local hobby shop has g3 out so you can try it out and the owner was nice enough to let me play around 8 total hours in the last few days. i can honestly say that for learning quick reactions and reversing control inputs while inverted or belly-up the sim takes the cake. my knife edge has went from feeling really scary and awkward to feeling completely natural. if 1\2 hour a day of sim helps, 3 hours a day reeeealy helps.

it seems like it is easy to keep flying with out progression. i alwas end up at th field wondering what to try.. but get discouraged because things can feel so unnatural (like slow rolls or high alpha knife edge). as others have mentioned, the most important thing besides avoiding a crash is to keep focused on new things.

RE: Your Piloting Progression
 

Once you have full left aileron, full down, and full right rudder.....slide the aileron stick from full left to neutral and you should see the spin flatten out (you will find the sweet spot)...add throttle to slow down the spin.


I have been flying a little over a year after learning enough to solo 20 years ago and getting out of the hobby. Now I am hooked. If you want to get better fast ...you can.

Simulator Time...learn the maneuvers, practice the manuevers, and practice recovery from the maneuvers...it is crucial to practice recovery from a bad situation. Learn to recover without losing altitude.

Stick Time ...I bought a Funtana 40 after about a half dozen flights with an Xtra Easy II. I had over 500 flights on the Funtana from May to September.

Practice with purpose. Very important!! Pick a maneuver....perfect it....perfect the RECOVERY from it. Pick another maneuver!

Watch videos of experts flying precision and freestyle. Watch videos of experts explaining "How To Do" manuevers. Learn all of the maneuvers.

Start matching/pairing manuevers so that you can transition smoothly from one to another. Develop YOUR own freestyle routine. Pick all the manuevers you want to do, figure out a logical sequence to do them in, and practice, practice, practice.

Practice at safe altitudes until you are comfortable down on the deck. Always practice recovery.

RE: Your Piloting Progression
 

Thanks for the responses, this really helps. One point made that sticks out is flying with a purpose. I often try too many manuevers rather than one thing resulting in 10-12 minutes of really sloppy flying.

Here's my aircraft progression so far:

1st Year:
Trainer
Ultra Stick 60

2nd Year:
PZ Typhoon
Fliton 330 Free Style (over my head, I crashed it after 12 flights getting too cocky with the sticks - did someone mention "practice/master recovery"? :eek:)

This Year:
US60 for confidence building
Plan to fly the Typhoon mostly as I can step out the back door and fly weather permitting saving the drive to the club field. This should help.
I'm building a CA Models 27% Extra that I'm not so sure I'll fly this year because I'm a little concerned it's over my head.
Build another "practice plane" to fly glo at the club field:
- GP Extra 40 or 60 size
- OMP Fusion 40 or 90 size,
- CA Models Widbody 40 size

Any suggestions for a plane that isn't too wild or twitchy that would be good practice for both pattern and mild 3D would be appreciated (a good "third plane" in other words). Thanks.

RE: Your Piloting Progression
 

Start flying foamies & profiles if you want your 3D skills to grow exponentially...

Foamies will give you the confidence to attempt risky 3D manuevers on the deck, since basically they're disposable airplanes... Once your sprung for the gear for a foamy, the replacement cost of the airframe is nominal...

There's nothing that flies like a profile... A good one anyway... There's alot of crap out there, but if you go with a Mojo or OMP profile, you're on the right track...

RE: Your Piloting Progression
 

I could not agree with Torqued-Up more! The foamies really improved my flying skills and the profiles are the way to go for starting out in the 3D nitro class. I am still learning a lot about 3D but the foamies allowed me to try new stuff with little risk. I would highly reccommend a Ultimate design if your interested in learning torque rolls (this is my favorite 3D manuever).

Good luck and keep huckin it!