When you can say, " I promise that I will not let you crash" , then you are ready to be an instructor.

Its that simple.

I have flown for about 10 years, but my skills are pretty average. I taught my 10-year-old son this summer, and, I have to say, it was great experience that really improved my flying skills.  He made his first solo flight after a few months and now flies a .40 Pulse.    Here's what helped me to teach someone who was a total novice and still pretty young to fly a nitro plane.

1.  Use the "I got it" phrase each time control of the plane is handed over.

2. Instill the idea that practice makes perfect, and so it takes time to learn.

3. Have a routine that you follow.
          a. Prepare and check the plane exactly the same way every time.  
          b. Practice similar skills each time (level flight, left and right turns, approaches, landings/take-offs). 

oops... I accidentally hit the post button before I finished.  

4.   I taught my kid that after a close call, one in which I had to take control of the plane, to take the plane up high and fly it around slowly so that he can just relax for a minute.  

I hope that this provides some real encouragment for you to give it a try, even if you don't have a lot of faith in your own skills.  As  I said above, my skills are pretty average compared some of the people that I fly with.  Nevertheless, I have been a teacher for 20 years, and teaching someone to fly an RC plane was one of the most rewarding teaching experiences I have ever had.
Good luck!

"What should YOU do?" You should do whatever you think you really want to do and what you think you will like. Flight Instruction is a demanding thing, if you wish to do it well and PROPERLY. The psychology of learning can be extremely different within different personalities. That can create a large chore for those that think there is only one way to do things and that is his(her) way.
The aviation student can be a handful especially in the RC world where many individuals have never been subject to any form of personal discipline in the realms of being the person totally responsible for the behavior that a toy RC airplane can present. [X(]

I have instructed student RC pilots since about 1972 when there was no such critter as a buddy box. The differences in individuals that the RC Instructor has to contend with are many and very different from student to student. As an Instructor in the USAF, both T-33 and T-38, there were always individual differences, however those students were a select group, and they knew that there was but ONE Boss in that airplane. Not so on the RC line.

So brace yourself to the fact that you not only need to be "Boss", yet still be friendly-firm. Not always easy. Now you need to be able to give good lesson briefings, you need to understand basic aerodynamics, how to cope with a dead engine forced landing, when to take control, how to find a student's weak spot and provide more than one technique to correct such deficiencies, plus how to set up and trim a new model. You should be able to brief Pitch, Power, and Bank from the real world, not just formulas. You should know that while the lift equation has a number of factors, that a pilot controls only speed and angle-of-attack, the really important factors in the equation.

The one thing that I always do is to assure a student's Trainer doesn't have a Center of Gravity (CG) aft of 25% of Mean Aerodynamic Chord (MAC). After several flights you can start moving the CG aft a small bit at time, but never go aft of 30%. Far too many commercial kits/ARFs show CG at 35%. That is a crash about to happen. I see it frequently, but just not any student I instruct.

If you are really new at the game, just remember that YOU are also LEARNING. If you goof, admit it, do NOT make excuses. Then you will find a student wanting to be a part of the flying and will have even more self-confidence. That actually never stops. No matter how good you are, you're going to mess up every so often. Be honest about any goof and everyone will be on your side. Try to make excuses like, "The wind got it." and such, you will only be suspect! If the wind is too bad for your ability, don't fly. If you can't hack the day's cross-wind, stay on the ground. That is a sign of GOOD JUDGMENT" which is a sign of a good pilot, not an excuse maker.

So, If you wish to instruct, I'm betting you will do very well, simply because you wonder about it. That signifies a desire to learn which is a vital part of starting something new. Enjoy!

Thank you, Hossfly   <div>
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You are not teaching aerobatics to a beginner so if you can consistently take off, fly ,land theaircraft safely and are a patient personthen there is no reason why you should not be able to teach a beginner to fly.</p>

Actually I find that training goes much faster if you do teach basic acrobatics early in the instruction. Long before learning to land I have students doing loops and rolls, and combination maneuvers like Immelman turns and split S, even Cuban eights. Having them put their airplanes into unusual attitudes and recovering makes flying landing patterns much easier and less stressful.

BGR, that may well be true, however I rather term your definition as teaching a beginner to DRIVE the airplane rather than to FLY the airplane. In reality we all started "driving" the airplane rather than "flying" the airplane. A Driver is up with the airplane reacting to the airplane. A FLIER, a real pilot is already well ahead of the airplane and has planned what the airplane will do. A good instructor grooms that "being ahead" into his student. If an instructor is not yet there himself, then he cannot instill those traits into the student. Sure the student will make a few landings then be declared solo, yet he will not be really safe on the flight line among other pilots.
Every instructor needs a lot of time doing more than boring holes in the sky. He needs to challenge himself and be able to make landings in more ways than a rectangle pattern. No one has to be a 3D or Pattern or IMAC champion to be a great instructor. If they did then I would NOT be an instructor. When my student goes solo, he/she will be ahead of the airplane, know how to keep safe distances form other pilots on the flight line, how to set up a good approach and an engine-out pattern and have his total flight plan safely between his ears.
Even now I see experienced otherwise good pilots, er, uh, actually airplane drivers, that cannot make a right turn to final approach. Sad! The Instructor needs to get that problem fixed prior to saying, "You're soloed."

With all that said, everyone has to start somewhere and experience only comes with performance. Therefore my rants should not say anything other than do give as much as you can, just remember there is always more to learn, and then teach/instruct.

I myself just started instructing.  I was unsure as you are till I had a talk with my current mentor about it.  He told me he saw me fly and that I was capable of doing the instructor thing.  I had already started doing some ground work helping the pther instructors so the teaching part was there.  I was a bit apprehensive to fly someone elses plane.  Well we had an opertunity to assist a school in doing buddy box flights for the students and it was so much easier than I thought.  I just kept the plane where I was comfortable then gave the student the control.  I think this is what really helped my confidence in buddy boxing.  There was no lesson or teaching it was just let them goof off with the plane then take it when it was not to your comfort.  One older student was actually taking to lessons and landed on my first day of buddy boxing.  It all has to do with your comfort.  If you can take your plane and recover from adverse attitudes then you know what there is to do.  The hardest part is not panicing and work on calmly saying my plane fix it then give it back.  Explain what happened if you know and what can be done to remedy the problem.  If you remain calm then it goes a long way to the student gaining comfort with you.  I lost the rudder on the trainer when I was planning to treach a student.  It had a failed hinge and was jamming over causing a roll when jammed.  I took off and had the failure immediatly called that I was in emergency condition to the other pilots then calmly climbed high to get an idea of what to do.  I wiggle things and got the rudder to slip back into place then set up and landed right away.  The student was scared for me.  He was like man I thought that was going to crash for sure.  I just repeated what was taught to me never stop flying and altitude is your friend.  I was shaking after the landing and thought I had just bought a trainer for sure myself but the comfort from those around came from keeping my composure and keeping my lessons in kind as things happened.  Stay in your comfort and remain calm. 

Hossfly, This is I suppose whyI have this view.

Onmy third flight my instructor informed me that I was to make approches for the entire flight, each approach was to be just a bit lower than the last one until i could slowly skim over the runway a foot off the ground. when it came time to land my instructor was 15 feet away, just far enough to keep me from handing him the radio to land the plane. So I landed it myself...Viola I was an RC Pilot! Things were simple in the 70s eh

jet mech I have an even better suggestion for you. on the trainer aircraft I have every surface set for maximum manuverabilty and control so that I can get the aircraft out of trouble immediatly. I set the dual rates to give student a more docile plane but I have the rate switch be the trainer switch so that as soon as I have to take control I have full rates to flip the plane instead of it acting sluggishly at lower rates

Pilotfighter...You can say I promise not to let you crash...but that is an empty promise...there is no instructor that can save an airplane in every situation.....I used to think I could promise not to let you crash until with one student....while praticing approaches I called for go around the airplane powered up and from an altitude of about 6 ft in the blink of an eye nose dived to the deck.....The only thing that could have happened was the student pushed instead of pulled...he confirmed that is exactly what he did......now this was not his first pratice approach...nor was it from the direction we were coming in from......
It happened so fast it was over before it began

Yup. I had a student who couldn't get it into his head that you pull the stick back to raise the nose. Apparently, some video games are set up just the other way. He'd do OK most of the time, but when he got tense he'd revert to video-game mode. On his first shot at landing he made a very good approach and then, when he tried to flare, he pushed the stick hard forward. Nobody my age has the reflexes to recover from that. Similar things can happen on takeoff.

I've always " marveled " at all the instructors that can teach you and claim to never crash . I guess after 30 plus years instructing I need one of those instructors . ENJOY !!! RED

Own it bro.

Someone caused that crash.

You can blame your student or you can admit that you had your student doing something they weren't ready for. But airplanes don't crash themselves.

A few decades of flying doesn't necessarily make a great instructor.

A relatively new guy has at least one advantage: he still remembers that there were many things about flying that were not obvious to him.

To say that because a student crashed it is always the instructors fault is asinine. If you dont push the students abilities a little then they will never progress. Knowing just how far to push is the trick and I'm sorry but last time I checked instructors are human, judgement is not black and white, and students don't always give you the whole story. Flying is inherently dangerous, but fortunately it is usually only dangerous for the airplane when flying models. A real instructor will know the basics required to build a strong foundation for learning to fly. If you don't have a good understanding of the aerodynamic forces and how they affect flight than you will be doing a great disservice to your student. As Hossfly said there are drivers and there are flyers. Drivers know how their plane will react to different control inputs but are very reactive to outside forces. A flyer knows how airplanes react to their control inputs and outside forces such as wind, humidity, temperature, and the various forms of turbulence and are more proactive. If you are always ahead of the plane and you have a firm grasp on the basics of flight than you have the potential to be a good flight instructor. Give the student a solid foundation of aerodynamics, safe practices and risk management and they will have the best chance to succeed. If you are struggling, get help. No one was born knowing how to teach and sometimes you just don't mesh with a student no matter how good you are. Finally a good thing to always keep in mind is that students are trying to kill that airplane. While in reality it is not true, if you keep that thought in your head it will better prepare you for some of the wild, seemingly insane, things students due in the course of their training.

Ok pilotfighter you're gonna see some day......

I was an instructor with the FAA. I taught students to be air traffic controllers in some of the busiest airspace in the world. It was intense one on one live traffic training that typically lasted for about 1.5 years for each student. It is infinitely more difficult than teaching someone to fly model airplanes. And guess what; on the first day of training, when the student is reluctant to open their mouth and transmit for the fisrt time, I always promise the student that I will not let them kill anyone. It isn't an empty promise either.

If you don't understand that the instructor is the person responsible for everything that happens then you should not be training.

If you cannot control everything that happens while giving instruction, then you should not be instructing.

If you think that "things" just happen that are out of everyone's control and it is nobody's fault, then you should not be instructing.

And if you believe that teaching someone to fly models is so difficult that the above don't apply , then you have lived a charmed life indeed. But it simply is not true.

There is a huge difference between taking over for a student air traffic controller and a flight student on short final. Yes you should be very confident with a student before you let them get to that point, but they need to eventually get there and you can't know how they will react in that split second before landing. I have never had a student crash with direct supervision, but there have been many times that had the same input been given at a slightly lower altitude and it would have ended badly. We are human and we need to do as much as we can to midigate the risks but every time you fly you accept some risk, both instructor and student.

Actually there is very little difference. In either case, the instructor lets the student go until the last possible second leaving just enough time for the instructor to make the needed corrections.

The decision to let the student land an airplane is the instructors decision. The instructor is making that call, not the student. The student is trusting your evaluation of thier performance and assuming that you have made an informed accessment of their abilities. After all, that is your job. IF you make a poor accessment and then the student crashes while landing that is the instructors fault alone. It is nobody elses fault. It is not the student's fault. It is not the universe's fault.

I am not claiming that instructors do not make mistakes. I am stating that a crash is the instuctors fault alone. And every instructor needs to understand that.

We are not rolling dice here. We are evaluating a students abilities. And it is our ability to access the student and determine if the student is ready to move forward that is in question.

I realize that not everyone has been formally trained to be an instructor. I am trying to pass along somethings that I have learned in my career. You can take them or leave them.

All I am saying is you cannot know what a student will do in reaction to a sudden gust of wind at 5 feet based on what they do at 50 feet. They may seem able to compensate easly at 50 feet, yet panic at 5 feet. I have seen normally calm competent students, out of nowhere, panic under seemingly simple circumstances. To say that you are at fault for allowing this is a little extreme.

As an R/C instructor I don't warranty against crashing!

I've been put in recovery situations where a student unexpectedly does something stupid like rolling the airplane inverted at 5 feet off the ground on takeoff. Yes, I got the airplane out! That event was after the student had been making pretty consistent landings just about ready to solo. Takeoff and landing IMO is most dangerous phase in that there is not much time for the instructor to react regardless of how vigilant he/she is in expecting the unexpected.

The another issue I have is that most people come to this hobby without the slightest idea of how an airplane flies. I give some basic ground school and try to assign some kind of homework to give the student a basic level of aerodynamics. Many students don't want to extend an effort in learning basic principles which would certainly help to increase their success in this hobby. They just want to fly, but unfortunately somewhere down the road that lack of knowledge will most likely bite them. You can only lead them to the water, not make them drink.

I find instructing rewarding with few drawbacks other than it often limits my personal flying time. Many students when they see me at the field are of the opinion that I should be flying them because I am present. I find it hard at times to say NO, not today. This is my time for flying we will fly again at our next appointment.

In the real world, the certificated pilot, (or controller) is the party that is legally liable. The uncertificated student has no liability unless some action was deemed an intentional act to harm or destroy.

With modern equipment, (such a buddy cords), an instructor can easily intervene even at lower altitudes.

But you mentioned something else in your scenerio. You mentioned wind gusts. Please explain why an instructor would select a day with gusty conditions to practice low approaches. And please explain how this is not poor judgement and unlitmately not the fault of the instuctor.

Where I live, if you only instruct on calm days you'd have maybe five days a year to teach somebody to fly. Part of what we teach people is flying in the wind.

Buddy cords are a good thing, but they're not as good as real dual controls because you don't have the stick moving when the student is flying. So when something does go wrong, you first have to see it and then respond, and you're responding with your stick(s) starting from neutral. I suppose if you jump in the minute something looks like it might go awry you could keep a student from ever crashing. But I don't consider that kind of over-cautious instruction desirable. I like to let my students get into a little trouble and get themselves out, if they can. It's not that I crash a lot, but sometimes I do, and I don't feel that bad about it: it happens.