Met Jon595 at the field this evening and had a great couple of flights. On the first he took off and then handed the Avistar off to me. I flew some race track patterns and a few figure eights. He then had me fly a little lower to get comfortable at pattern altitude or so. After that he took the Tx back and landed. He flew his bird again and when he was done I was ready to take another go at it. He again took off and handed it to me, I began to fly low approaches to landing attitude at altitude and gradually brought it down to where the approaches were about 10 feet from the ground over the runway. After doing this for some time I decided to try a landing. First attempts were no good and I waved it off, second and third were not as smooth as I felt comfortable with and I waved them off as well but on the fourth or fifth I touched down and taxied back to midfield. Jon595 asked if i would like to take off and I did. Took off flew the pattern to a wave off and on the second attempt landed, a bit bouncy but safe and no damage. I will begin working on all the maneuvers the club wants me to be proficient with this week. Hopefully this Saturday i can get signed off by the club instructor and be legal to fly solo at the club. I love this sport.

ZK

Thats cool. Pretty quick. Your going to be good!

First flight was on my Avistar using the hand off method with the Tx as Futaba changed the buddy cord port on their new line of radios but hasnt yet made the cords with the correct connections available :stupid: 2nd and 3rd fligths were on the club trainer last Saturday an LT-40 I believe that flew like crap, well like a big piece of buffalo dung with wings is mor elike it, felt very unstable and unresponsive compared to my avistar. And then tonight I had the Avistars 2nd and 3rd flights my 4th and 5th flights. I need alot more practice before I will feel comfortable with myself flying alone. Just the reassurance of some experience standing by my side for the next 5 or so flights will help immensily i think. Anyways thats my story and I'm sticking to it.

ZK

"legal to fly"???

At my club new members or those new to the sport must have a check flight with a club instructor to fly solo. Thats all I meant.

ZK

well tonight I got another 2 solo flights under my belt. First went great just burned the touch and go pattern for about 12 mins or so. 2nd flight I was on downwind and a bit low as the Avistar was idleing high and not slowing down through the approach turn so i was trying to compensate for that, DEAD STICK!! I couldnt believe it then Jon595 asked "you got it??" Out of the corner of my eye it looked as if he was wanting to reach for the tx so I started to hand it off then I relized as I was handing it off my thumb was still on the stick and I had put the plane in a very steep AOB so I decided handing it off at this moment would be disasterous. I straightened it out but due to its low altitude I didnt have enough energy to make a turn into the wind and the direction of the 3/4 of runway I had just eaten up on downwind so I continued straight ahead with about 1/4 of the runway left to use. Landed a bit bouncy and rolled off the runway into the weeds, plane flipped over and quit . After a short walk we saw there was no damage whatsoever, well thats not true the rubber band holding my rx antenna to the vertical stab was broken, and the prop was dinged, oh well can't win em all I guess LOL :stupid: All in all it was a great day. We are taught to always ditch straight ahead if we lose an engine low vice try and make some big hiacha turn 180 degrees and i have read countless testimonials on this very website about ppl who tried to turn the deadstick 180 degrees or so and just stalled it and made the situation worse. I hope to get a solid day of flying in on Saturday and hopefully a club instructor will be there to sign me off safe for solo Take it easy all and keep the shiny side up.

Zach

Congratulations HoovDriver. You ARE essentially soloed. Your handling of the dead stick landing says a lot about your ability. Like not panicking, and landing straight on rather than the typical, "I can make the turn".

I'm sure Mike will be working up your 'cetificate' soon.
Dennis-

Can't wait until tommorrow when I get to show the instructor I can it. Once that is done it's just a mater of burning fuel every day until I rip the trainers wings off As it stands now I am the squadron duty officer all day so no flying for me today.

Zach

WTG Zach! Quickly too!

You get an "ATTABOY"!

That is awesome, thanks a million MinnFlyer

Zach

RIGHT ON, DUDE!