Accurate Poll

This would be a great poll, but there are a few other possibilities:

1) A friend instructed me (my choice)
2) Instructor not from club
3) I got somebody at the field to take me up each time.
4) I went for a week to flight school
5) Learned on sim, didn't need human instructor

I would really be helpful to break down the numbers on the self-instructed:

1) Self-instructed, park flyer
2) Self-instructed, glow trainer
3) Self-instructed, other

Also, the right place for the poll would be the club house, since many experienced pilots may not hang out on the Beginners forum.

Thanks Mike,

That was a good suggestion.


Wings

Mine's not there either. My dad taught me. First with single channel escapements, then "Full House" Reeds systems in the mid 60's. and finally proportional in the late 60's early 70's.

You don't consider your dad a friend?

I learned on my own with a $150 complete airplane setup from a garage sale. I purchased it from some Amish (I think thats how you spell it) people. I never did figure out how they acquired it but it did fly Ok. It was a old 1990 eagle II arf with a futaba conquest radio. I had no previous experience just watched a video from a friend of a friend on the extra easy II. The first flight was a bit awkward and almost landed me in a cornfield a few times. That was on july 10th of this year. Since then I caught the "bug" and now I have graduated up to the Giles 202. The only problem I have is I cant stop buying the @#$ things even though I have only crashed 1 plane since july and have personally kept a log of over 110 flights. My flying buddy has not been so lucky since he is on his 5th trainer and has only logged 57 flights. I think Rc flying is just a matter of your talents and some people do need instructors while others do not .I would strongly suggest a instructor now that I look back at all the near misses I had during those first 20 flights or so.

That is very odd.....

I don't think I have a very good understanding of Amish people. I thought they had no electric or cars and lived basically like people lived 150 years ago. But... I see them at Wal-mart all the time selling fruit out of a pick-up. Now they are flying RC planes?

Maybe their belief system is evolving or something. Maybe they are coming in touch with reality. I don't want to say anything against Amish people, just don't understand them. But, if they are truly Amish I don't think they will be reading this..

Wings

As is well documented on this board, I started with a $185 Aerobird package and taught myself with a little guidance from some other members of our club. You could get as much or as little instruction/supervision as you wanted. Our field is large enough that we can do that when there are few flyers around.

When it is busy, you don't just toss things in the air.

My dad taught me on control line then single channel radio nearly 35 years ago, he also taught me how to build. I remember him saying you want to fly models, well, you better learn how to build, how right he was............
Now teaching my own son........

I guess 35 years ago you had to bulid your own planes. There were no RTFs and ARFs to buy. Today we can start learning to fly first, then repair, then build.

This is similar to the path I took with cars. I never actually built a car, but I could take 'em apart and put 'em back together pretty well. Rebuilding engines was fun.

I think some of those skills have helped me as I have made larger and larger repairs.

For those of us who would not want to build something and put it in the air, this has been a great way to go. I can't tell you how many people have told me they bought the kit, and the radio, etc. Then they spend months building it and it is sitting in their basements for years because they are afraid to fly it. Some have been sitting for so long that the radio equipment is no longer legal.

After all that work they are afraid they might crash it.

Sad.

Someday I will build a kit. Maybe next year, in my second season.

I stepped inside my dads A-7 corsair, not knowing where the start button was I pressed every single one of them. The canopy closed and all of the sudden I am moving forward quite fast and to the horror....there was a cat on the taxiway so I grabbed the stick and pull back thinking it was the brake lever. Now I am going up and I see the ground moving away from me, what have I done? I started to think.....I just need to do what birds do! So I follow a flock of seagulls and lined up on their right wing. I looked at one of them and signaled I need to go down. One of them winked at me and waved me to follow. On the distance I can see a big runway and the birds are doing the approach so all I have to do is follow. About 50 ft from the ground this bird gets on the front side of the canopy and while holding on with one wing tells me to start pulling back on the stick.....its funny seeing birds playing charades......so I pull back and since I didnt know how to stop that thing I just took the key off and corsair settled so gently on the runway. After I came to a stop I opened the canopy and the bird pad me on the back then told me next day its gonna show me how to fly over tourists at the beach and "bomb" them.

Where is the option for "A bird taught me to fly"?

[sm=lol.gif]

cappio777,

I loved your story

One question Did the Seagulls charge you for the lesson or was it Free

Started builing in the early 30's when the only instruction for free flight was give it a shove and watch what happens. My RC learning consisted of a beginners sailplane and a hi-start. Went to the place where the glider guiders were flying and asked for help. I was already a full scale pilot so I understood what the controls did and this was only a two control. Nice guy at the field explained the hi-start, told me to back up until it felt as if the model would break and let it go. He flew it about half way up the hi-start and handed me the box. Said that was all there was to it and walked away. I flew it for a while and made a safe landing. Oh boy where has this been all my life? Flew every chance I got and have been at it ever since. I still fly on the buddy box occasionally. Having been in RC for over 40 years I'm still only an intermediate pilot.

I got into RC back in the late 80's after buying my 1st ARF when they first came on the market.I joined a small local club. I ended up getting elected club president . After getting the club back on its feet , I was able to finally solo in 1995. I started off with a club instructor, but due to him injuring his back my learning to fly RC was put on the self for two year. I ended up going to a RC flight school and finally soloed, ans later returned to my club to earn my solo status.
Since my solo status , Ive bougt a Sim and try and fly one a week.
Almost 10 years later Im flying Intermediate status and flying a EDGE 540. Still like the ARF's, because it doesn't hurt the ego when you ding them up. They just need alittle more TLC when accembling them out of the box.
NEDYOB

I bought my first kit around 1992. Got it about half finished, then let it sit for 5 years. Then I hooked up with a local club and they helped me finish my kit and then they taught me to fly. Since then, I have built about 1 kit per year. I cannot imagine ever purchasing an ARF now. I did consider this at the time I bought the kit, thinking an ARF would be easier since I was more interested in flying than building. However, I found that building is such a large part of the hobby. especially in the northern climates where we spend several months a year with cold weather.

I'd expect this poll to point out one important fact for beginners. First, consider that people responding to this poll are still in the hobby. Without checking I'd guess some of these people are still beginners (this is in the Beginners Forum after all). As number of respondents increases you should find that most people that stay in the hobby are taught by someone else. This is because, if you are self-taught, you're likely to crash several times before you bring a plane down in one piece (unless you've at lleast used a simulator). After the first 2 or 3 crashes many beginners get discouraged with the hobby and give up. If you're really interested in this hobby, get someone to teach you. If there's nobody around to teach you then get a simulator. I've started to teach my son to fly on Realflight and he's 4 years old. This should give him a good start before I take him out to the field.

This look familiar? I realize that all the people that recommend instructors are doing with the intent to help. But this is one of the quotes I read that has sparked my (un warranted) anger towards people whom I have been argueing with. Again, I am sorry for taking my frustration out on other people, but it is quotes like this (this is not the only one) that gets all us happy-go-lucky people (including myself) argueing over pointless issues just like women do[X(].

If any women read this, I apologize, be we all know its true .

Wings,

I think he posted that more as a joke than anything, and he is part way correct... there is no way to learn everything on your own, I know you can learn to fly purely on a sim because I know somebody that did it, but if an unforseen event happened and the plane crashed is the sim going to show them how to fix the plane?? Say they are out flying one day in the middle of an open field that they didn't know lies right near a club's field and somebody from the club flying a turbine jet suddenly loses his radio because of interference and the plane crashes into spectators, he is going to be paying for lawsuits out the nose when he could have payed a little more money and get AMA membership and instruction from somebody who knows what they are doing. Also the servo reversing thing is a good point, I'd imagine any instructor would teach you to pre-flight your plane before you give the engine any throttle, maybe you don't have this drilled into your head on your own, if you accidentally hooked up your aileron servo's backward you won't notice until the plane rolls the wrong way, and unless you have amazing reflexes you may not be able to prevent a crash. Throttle servo, no problem... hook that baby up the wrong way and then flick start your engine, then continue to see how easy it is to fly with one hand.

I'm certainly not saying everyone is imcompetent and moronic, but some things you just don't know if you don't get proper flight instruction, its not your fault if you crash your plane into someone because you didn't know someone near you was using the same frequency because you didn't know that, but you could have known.

Wings,

Sometimes you just have to take the good with the bad

BTW Quoting one post out of an entire thread can be misleading....
Most of the posts on these forums are more of written conversations. In order to get an understanding of the context it is usually neccessary to read the preceding post in the thread

Since you seem to be fond of finding "other peoples unwarrented" comments you might want reread your own. I've noticed that your posts tend to turn sarcastic when some expresses an opinion contrary to your own. I seem to recall you Bashing MikeL in another thread for no apparent reason.


You do realize that you last post could be considered offensive to an entire gender!!!!

Yes it is accurate 57% did not use an club Instructor. Same result as the "inaccurate" poll asked earlier!

they are allowed to ride in rubber wheeled vehicles, but cannot own any. they can use gas powered engines under a certain size (weird yes , do I understand no) any wheeled vehicle has to be steel wheeled. they are not allowed electric at all strange group of people. just cultural tho. when they work.. they dont say a word untill lunch time then they dont shut up for an hour then its back to work . total work day is 12 hrs. from what i have seen..
sorry to hijack the thread but its something interesting.

What im wondering is how you possibly fly a plane without electricity, I'd imagine gas powered servos would be very expensive, heavy, and hard to control.

Yeah...there's different kinds of 'amish' factions too...I've seen some at dances, and down on the riverboat shows in Pittsburgh!!??
I even think there was a group of 'em up by the OH line that got caught sellin' crystal meth/crack!!! hahaha
]Jim....that avitar it TOO coll!! heh-heh.
Um.....BTW...I learned to fly on my own too, but I plan on getting help/guidance on bigger/faster planes.

Brian

I remember reading about that, there was actually a whole TV show on about amish teens gone bad where they went to raves and popped X all night long and everything, then were working on the farm the next morning. Talk about rough, doing farm work hungover

Wow! Talk about putting a twist on hippocricy. You are trying to say I am a hippocrit because I posted a sarcasted post to Mike L. At the same time you tell me I shouldn't pull quotes out of a thread without the rest of the context. Everyone one reading that thread can see that I apologized for my inappropriate comment. I guess that would take the thunder out of your jab if you included that.


Peace out,


Wings,