WadeH, good idea, your suggestions about learning "slow flying." It a good confidence builder and also helps students learn more about his/her plane and get comfortable with it. Lots of them move to a more advanced plane too soon after learning to take off, fly around the pattern, do a few loops and land. I try to get them to stick with their planes a while longer, some do, some don't. If we can get them to observe the 3 Mistake High rule when they want to be "creative" then we've accomplished something at least.

You also mentioned "Parking It." I like flying in a good stiff breeze, but with an airplane I know well. It's a lot of fun to run through a series of aerobatics then swing around into the wind, chop the throttle, feed in up elevator and using all the controls keep it "parked." Sometimes it will backup, depending on the wind. It's a good exercise for hand and eye too! We used to call it "hovering" until 3D came along.

I once saw a (full size) Pitts pilot at an airshow, take off and go vertical. Then at about 500 feet he reduced throttle and hovered. We had a good stiff wind that day, and he rotated the Pitts putting the full wing area into the wind. When the wind hit all that surface it carried him hovering, back along over the runway. Just past Airshow Center, he went to full power climbing out to continued with the rest of his routine. It brought everyone to their feet! A fantastic and impressive effort. That is knowing your airplane. One of these days I'll duplicate his manuever, but at 3 Mistakes High!