A thread about how many progress to a second plane got to discussing what proficiencies are needed to progress to that second plane.

If you want to become a good RC pilot... you need to practice flying with some discipline, rather than just "boring holes in the sky."

OK... now what does flying with discipline mean?[&:] It means... PLANNING what you will do with a flight and then attempting to do what that plan requires.

You choose a task such as... 10 "perfect" touch-n-goes. and you do laps around the traffic pattern shooting touch-n-goes until you have 10 that meet your standard of perfection. (and next week you may decide you need a higher standard...) During your laps around the patter... (especially on the downwind leg...) you can do anything you want.

Eventually... it s a VERY good idea to read up on the Pattern Aerobatics schedule... and try to learn to do the Sportsman Pattern. Its a CHALLENGE! It puts a purpose to the flight and gives you something to measure your proficiency by. (and the Sportsman schedule can be performed by most 4 channel trainers)

You don't have to compete... you don't have to devote EVERY flight to this stuff. Its a method to improve your skills.

How are you supposed to go from one maneuver to the next? Is it all supposed to be done in the same spot or is it a continous transition from one to the next?

If you will look at the www.nsrca.org site you will find a diagram series of how the maneuvers are performed in competition.

When you are practicing... you pick one mameuver and work on it in stages until you have it down pat. (if trying for competition) such as:

The Cuban 8... you first work on the first half. The 5/8 loop needs to be ROUND, and the 1/2 roll needs to be directly in front of the pilot. You fly the approach from upwind, pass in front of yourself and pause a second... then pull for the loop portion. to be round you have to vary the amount of elevator and may actualy push down elevator at the top. then wne the plane hits a 45 deg down angle you ht the ailerons to roll upright... let the plane descend to the entry altitude and level off... fly straight out and do a turnaround... come back and try again. (It really helps to have the loop down pat to do the Cuban 8 correctly)

When you are practicing maneuvers to mprove your skill and discipline... you can strng them in any order you want. When practicing for cmpetitin do them n the order specfied EVERY time you string any together.

Note... most beginners at aerobatic competition fly the maneuvers too close to themselves... the 250 ft out line (specified in the rules) is about 1.5 times the distance your downwind leg is out from the runway when doing a normal landing approach. (if you are doing a good landing pattern... with a .40 to .60 size plane) Its WAY out there!

I used to work with a guy who always said: "Practice dosen't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect". If you're just practicing bad habits, you just get better at them!

Keep it simple.
Just fly a straight line and make level circular turns.
If you can do those two things regardless of the wind, then you can fly.
Many people can't fly straight if their lives depended on it.

OR MAKE CO-ORDINATED TURNS!!!!

Roger that!!!!



Jetts

I agree with the concept of flying with discipline, and I've been teaching that to my students for a while. It's easy enough to fly around any which way, it's a lot harder to put the plane exactly where you want it exactly when you want it there. I find I tend to preach at two different points when teaching.

The first is really early on, when a guy is just getting the hang of flying, and wants to learn to land. But you can't possibly land until you can accurately position the plane. Before I let a student shoot approaches, I want to see them fly a nice, level, controll pattern, with the turns in the same places each time, and the plane passing down the runway on each pass, and I want it to look smooth.

Then later, when we are talking about acrobatics and emergency situations. Being in the mental habit of flying with discipline means to me that you are always in front of, and in control of the airplane, planning what you are doing before it happens. That means that when something like a deadstick situation develops, you're able to think about when you're going to need to do next, and make the proper decisions to either make the runway or ditch off-field safely.

I have to whole heartedly agree with all these posts. When I was first learning I was pretty disciplines, but fell into a "hole boring" attitude my second or third year. I found myself getting bored with flying until I found that discipline again.

Then spent time perfecting my take offs and landings (which are in no way perfect yet ), keeping my loops round and at the same entry and exit altitude, axial rolls, that sort of stuff.

Very many of my flights this past year were spent perfecting my inverted skills, entering from rolls or loops, exiting, inverted loops, inverted Cuban Eights..

I find myself enjoying my flight time a lot more.
Dennis-

While these are excellent goals, I don't think that doing perfect maneuvers is a prerequisite to moving to a second plane. In fact, I think that the second plane IS the tool for learning basic aerobatics. (Let's face it, doing 3 straight axial rolls at constant altitude with a trainer is difficult for the best of pilots)

I tell my students that their trainer is to learn basic flying I.E. Straight flight, Left and Right turns (and how left and right is reversed when coming toward yourself) Flying "The Box", Landings and take offs.

Once they have learned the basics, there is one more skill that they need to acquire, and that is: They must learn that when their plane gets into a bad attitude, they must overcome the instinct to pull UP, and level the wings FIRST!

Once they have acquired those basic skills, they are ready to solo. And once they have spent several hours of solo time (even if they learn nothing else, just keep practicing what they know and getting comfortable with it), they are ready to move up to something that won't fight them through simple aerobatics like a trainer will.

MinnFlyer:

You are right that axial rolls will be quite a problem with a trainer But... I've seen guys doing better axial rolls with trainers than some Sportsman level competitors using entry level Pattern design aiplanes.

I also agree withthepost that says many people couldn't fly straight if they had to... Unless the plane is pointed straight n or straight out... the angular motion that LOOKS straight to the guy at the sticks... is a big curve. Some people never even hear that one...

And... This discipline thing should start with the trainer and continue with every other plane you fly. One flight ech tripto the field... have a plan. Work on some skill building. You'll be a better pilot and break less balsa. (I wish someone had told me that at my 2 year point... I might have started bringing home planes in one piece earlier...)

I totally agree with the discipline thing... especially what you said about the straight lines. That is something that I really drum into my students.

As you said, to the flyer, what looks like a straight line is actually a big arch (like when flying a U-Control... To the Pilot, it LOOKS like it's going straight). I really beat it into them that they must get used to the plane flying a straight line with the ground on all 4 sides of "The Pattern"

As a beginner with park flyer experience of only a few weeks and flight sim experience about the same I can appreciate everything being said here. When I started I was just happy to get back on the ground safely, even with the flight sim. Then it dawned on me after my first gas lesson that the instructor was teaching me some valuable skills in having me do nice corners then level flight then a nice corner and more level flight. Little corrections all the time to keep ahead of the mistakes. Now I do the parks and the sim the same way. Get in the air and fly nice rectangular patterns and line up correctly to land. A lot harder on the sim than at the actual field but it's coming. I used to fly full sized sailplanes and it's different in that you can feel everything happening. You still have to continually adjust to changing conditions though, you don't just sit dead at the stick and wait for things to happen. The nice thing about this instuctor was about halfway through the flight he explained how to do a loop then had me do it. I've been doing them with the park flyers so it wasn't to bad but it was nice the way he explained without talking down to me and then stepped back and let me have at it. It actually relaxed me some from the stress of flying the clubs trainer for the first time. On the last downwind leg we ran out of fuel and he took over and landed but the whole time while I really didn't have any control I flew it in as though I did. Good practice I think for that day when I do need to bring her in dead stick.

Horseman

excellent advice and I will definelty keep it in mind when I begin learning this spring.

I agree 1000%. I am guilty of just this. I learned to fly and just ended up boring holes in the sky. I am now getting back in and am looking to improve my flying skills. I will become more disciplined. One thing I am going to do is each flight have a goal. Such as work on approaches, practice the pattern the other direction, begin to learn manuvers ect. But each flight will have a purpose. I hope to improve this summer.

Mark Shuman

phread59: Having a goal for each flight is a very good idea. Before each flight, I'll say to myself, I'm gonna work on X. Then I spend about 1/2 of the flight working on X and the other half goofing off. You can practice too much, therefor the 50% goof off factor.

Yeah the 50% "goof off factor" seems about right, all work and no play make jack a dull boy....
I want to ad my 2 cents on something, tell me what you guys think.
When I first started flying, I had trouble landing for the longest time, I was forever trying to "spot land" right in front of myself, I mean for years! I was concentrating to much on the spot, and not on the landing. So... when you are practicing landings, or touch and go's, do you try for perfect spots, or perfect landings?

Jetts

Practice the set-up and the plane will land itself.

Find a landmark that is straight out on a line with the runway cnterline... 450 to 500 ft from the pilot's box. make your turn to final come out directly over that landmark (or in line with it.) and point the airplane's nos ALMOST at yourself. (a little behind if wind is crosswind from your back.. a bit in front if crosswind from front.)

If you have the altitude correct and point the plane that way... you can shut down the engine and it will roll to a stop about 5 ft in front of you.

Each plane is different, and you need to concentrate on the set-up of the landing with each plane. Check the glide, and such, know if it's a floater, or an anvil pointed down.
I instruct now, and I can get the student to land well in less time than I taught myself!-that's a joke......they generally learn to land in less time than it took me to keep a plane in one piece......

Jetts

yep.. thats why I didn't specify how high you needed to be.

I would like to add that this so called "boring holes in the sky" is not just bad for you the pilot, but for the other people at the field. Last year there was this guy at our club who had a large dual prop plane. It was hard to predict what he was going to do because HE didn't know what he was going to do.

DONT BE UNPREDICTABLE!!!

Yep, there are a few flyers at my field that we basically give a wide berth to. They go up with their pocket rockets and aimlessly wander all over the aerodrome, to include flying against the pattern! Nothing more unnerving than knowing that there's someone's plane cruising towards yours head-on at blinding speeds![X(]
When I first learned to fly, I found landings to be the easiest part! To this day, landings are actually the less stressful part of my flights. I had a excellent instructor that talked me through every stick movement of every manuever. Landings just seemed to come easy, but the rest of the flight, that's a different story!
When the "wanderers" are up in the sky, I'll just park my plane until they come down...

Jesse

If I am not mistaken, there is an IMAC contest near Harrisburg, PA that you may want to attend to talk to some of the guys about flying dicipline.