this thread keep's getting more and more interesting, the direction it's taking.....in my 25+ year's of flying, i've taught well over 100+ people how to fly.....my old club was right off the interstate and as car's went by all day, people could see all the planes flying in the air.....mind you this was a big club, we carried a consistant 60-80 member enrollment base and there was alway's 15-20 people at the club field at any given time, sometimes more......these people would get off they interstate andpull up to the club and get out of their car's and just like that start asking question after question about getting into the hobby......i don't know if anybody else would've been as inclined as i was too assist these "potential" flyers but, i've alway's beleived in the saying that, somebody took me under their wing and taught me the ropes so i was gonna do the same for everybody else.....on the day's that i had scheduled instruction for a fellow club member, then i already knew to bring my "trainer plane" or tell the student to bring there's, if they had one....on the day's that i was just out flying and not expecting to teach anybody and didn't have an "actual trainer" available, if somebody pulled off the interstate and wanted to fly, who was i to deny them.....if i had one of my big 3Der's or my sport planes or one of my gliders or anything else, well we just put it up in the air and learned with that.....a good, seasoned pilot, with a well balanced and well trimmed plane that doesn't behave badly, can teach anybody how to fly.....i had a funny way of enticing these "prospective" new club members to give it a try......they would ask so many questions and i was more than happy to answer as best i can.....finally when they ran out of questions, i would ask them "well are you ready to fly".....you should have seen the look on their faces.....they would give me every reason why they wouldn't want to take this plane into the air......i would plead with them to let "me" take it into the air, it wouldn't take but a couple of minutes of their time and it wouldn't cost them a thing......that got them to at least follow me over to the flight-line and stand next to me, while i lifted one of my beautiful birds into the deep blue sky.....after i flew around for awhile and i did a couple of loop's and roll's and low, inverted fly-by's, so they could see what the plane and the pilot were actually capable of, i would again try to get them to take the sticks, but they refused because they were afraid to damage my plane, being that it was not their's......i landed the plane, fueled it up and took it back up in the air.....after a couple of wide-oval's, i would fly it out kinda far , line it up with the runway, set the trim and the throttle for slow and level flight.....the plane would crawl ever so slow right along the runway and i would put the radio down on the ground and walk away to my truck.....you guessed it, the plane was flying itself.....that person would look nervously at me and then look back at the plane, as it flew by itself......i would ask them if they were ready to fly now???....if they replied no, i would ask them why not.....then i would look down at the radio sitting on the groud and tell them, what are you waiting for, if the ground can fly that airplane, what's stopping you????.....i hooked more people that way......it just made more sense, how "relatively" easy it is to learn how to fly......i say "relatively" easy because you still have to have a good, skilled, pilot instructor.....also, i want to point out that the ideal situation would be to learn on an actual trainer but, any plane, when built right and more importantly, when built "straight", would be a suitable candidate, as long as you have a seasoned, qualifed, experienced pilot/instructor.....think about it......back in the day, when all of these people were pulling off the interstate and asking all these questions about getting started in the hobby, if i would've cut them off, so i could run home to get my "trainer" plane, chances are they wouldn't have been there when i got back and they would've never learned how to fly???.....cease the moment, i alway's say.....i taught 100+ people how to fly and therefore brought them into the hobby....now, if each one of them brought 2-3 people into the hobby and then those people brought 2-3 people into the hobby......oh,man! this could go on and on.....that's the spirit of the hobby.....if somebody took "you" under their wing and taught you how to fly, then why not pay the favor forward and introduce that person to new horizon's????......gotta love this hobby......GOODNITE.....KOOLKRABBER47......