Yesterday I met with another member of RCU for some instruction. He’s been self taught, wanted to check out or flying field since it’s a rather large treeless area, and was having some problems with his landings. The weather was clear, temp in the low 80’s and winds variable up to about 7 mph (absolutely perfect weather). The plane we flew was a Hanger 9 trainer with a Magnum 4-stroke. Since he flew a different radio brand than mine, we didn’t have the luxury of a buddy box. Here’s how the flights went:

Flight 1: He took off, was very erratic and over flew the pits. He was really over controlling and basically all over the place. I took the box and found the plane was severely out of trim. I trimmed the plane and then demonstrated how to do smooth, coordinated flight maintaining altitude control and keeping banks at 45 deg. Then I showed him some of the capabilities of his plane (how it will fly basic aerobatics) – and how to fly smoothly. Since my student has depth perception issues, I shot several approaches and touch-n-go’s and showed him how to fly a good rectangular pattern by counting when between banks. This works on keeping the plane in a fairly parallel course. During this flight I had him watch the transmitter to see how little stick movement was actually required to fly his plane smoothly.

Flight 2: I took off and got the plane to altitude. Gave the box to the student and guided him on how to make smooth, 45 deg. banked turns while maintaining altitude. When we decided it was time to land, he said he would do the landing. He was erratic and over controlling on his pattern, and stalled on short final at about 8’. Luckily only the prop broke – the rubber bands on the wing saved the day.

Flight 3: I took off and got the plane to altitude. Gave the box to the student and he worked on the left hand rectangular pattern. After about 10 minutes he was tired and I took the plane back. I did a couple of loops on the way back to set up the pattern and just as I pulled into one loop it ran out of fuel. I then showed him the maneuverability of his plane dead stick with a quick stall turn and landed at our feet. During this flight I could see his confidence come up and he did good maintaining altitude and keeping 45 deg. banks. He also was getting a feel on when the plane was flying parallel to the runway.

Flight 4: I took off and got the plane to altitude. Gave the box to the student and he was starting to work on the right hand rectangular patterns when the engine started surging like it was running lean. I could hear it, but due to his limited experience he couldn’t. I took the box back and the engine immediately quit. I then trimmed the plane for a good glide (we where at about 450’) and demonstrated how well, and long the plane glides with gentle control movements with another landing right in front of us.

What was the effect of a self taught student getting some instruction? While he already knew the basics of what the controls did, here some my observations what I think he learned on these flights:

• Overall he really improved on his flying ability. He was flying a plane that was really out of trim and didn’t realize it.
• He learned how to do smooth, gentle control movements and also saw some of the capabilities of his plane under controlled flight.
• He realized there is a lot more to properly flying RC aircraft and you can learn a great deal from others who have a lot more experience.
• He learned that his plane flairs and lands on the main gear at a very slow speed, with a short rollout.
• He learned when you get too slow in the pattern or on short final bad things can happen very fast.
• He learned several safety issues on starting and ground handling a plane, range checking the radio, and a quick control check just before taking the runway.
• He learned how, when dead stick, you may have to re-trim a plane for a better glide.

I recommended he not fly solo until he can work more with an instructor. It shouldn’t be very long before he’s ready to solo, and he’s very patient about it. He does realize it’s not the easiest thing to learn to control a moving object in a 3 dimensional environment, and little bit of instruction made a huge difference.

He did remark that it was very hard to judge the plane on short final and when landing. I remember going through the same thing when learning - the plane is not where you think it is in relation to the ground. Developing this perception takes time, patients, and having a good instructor as landing is by far the most difficult maneuver to learn.

Hogflyer