ORIGINAL: elenasgrumpy
While you may or may not be ready to fly the NexStar is a question only you can answer. After killing many small electrics planes on my own. I decided to heed the advice of the experienced ppl in here & go the Instructor route. In my case it didn't work, lost them both to cancer (as instructors, they're are still with us) . So I too bought the NexStar, & simmed myself to death until I actually did land it on the roof in ridiculous wind settings, set right down the roof like a Heli & then took back off again. That was when I decided i was ready & went to the field & soloed by myself. The main difference betweeen the way I did it & the way roltech did it is the insurance! I joined the AMA first before I ever tried to fly a plane & got my name on the waiting list for the local club I wanted to join. By doing that & allready having made friends within in the club (by attending their meetings) I was allowed to guest fly since I was an AMA member.
So I soloed by myself at an AMA chartered site with my AMA card on the freq. board.
Just because I may have found a place way out away from any ppl doesn't mean I could keep the plane out there. If the plane would have got away from me & it allmost did on the maiden flight because I didn't turn off the AFS, there's no telling how far that plane would have flown itself & what possible damge to property or personal injury it may have caused. Luckily that didn't happen I got lucky & managed to get it back & it was far enough away the it was just a tiny speck in the sky. The point is if I had lost it & hurt somene I had AMA coverage because I was observing AMA safety rules when I did this.
Going out & flying it several times & then joing the MAAC is a ricky business. While I respect the fact that it is your business, & your choice to make, I certainly wouldn't suggest it to others.
I think with some recent sim time to get your thumbs back, & the AFS off, that yes you probably can solo a NexStar by yourself, but I would certainly get AMA membership first so you are insured if something does go wrong as long as you are observing their safety rules & regs.
A little tip while using your sim, turn the AFS off learn to fly without it. It works great everytime in the sim, but it's junk in real life. Then turn the wind up, I mean way up to where you're hovering & flying backwards, when you can set it down on the house or even close in 25mph with 50mph gusts, you'll be ready. Good Luck.
The difference is I started in the fall when the flying clubs were closed for the winter, another thing I did not even know about MAAC or AMA. It was only in the following spring I started to look for a club and was told I would have to get MAAC before I was able to fly at this club. I never used the AFS with the sim or real time. But I tried it after getting my wings just to see how it works so if anybody ask I can tell them since I tried it. as far as flying far enough away from the city and the plane could get away from you at the club and where I was, the thing was that I had with me one of possibly more experience than most of us
he's been flying for over 35 years, and he would of taken the control from me before anything happened.
I must add! and did before, is if all possible is to get an instructor, you can save yourself a lot of grief.
roltech