The other day I was wondering what a novice should be tought before being awarded his wings. A member of the club I fly at received four or five sessions with an instructor before soloing and being awarded his wings. On the following two weekends he managed to smash three airplanes beyond repair.

Did this novice receive the amount of training necessary? His particular instructor was only focused on takeoff and landing procedures. Get him soloed as fast as possible. But basic skills like stall or spin recovery were skipped. It seems like there are instructors out there that teach students just enough to be dangerous.

So, what does your club do? I believe there should be list of skills, other than takeoff and landing, that the student should be trained and checked off on before being turned loose on his own.

My instructor would not have taught me some things. I had to ask him to show me a spin and what to do to recover. Then I practiced it a few times.

Anyway, what basic skills do you folks think are necessary before a novice is awarded his wings? Maybe if we come up with a list then the next novice reading this board can print this list, take it to his instructor and say: "Teach me these."

I'll start with some obvious skills:
1. Takeoff
2. Landing
3. Stall recovery
4. Spin recovery

Hello,

I have also ran into a situation similar to the one described. I haven't crashed though thanks to the help of several experienced club members and flying buddies. My instructor was quiet thorough with the teaching but haven't taught me any rudder control. In addition to that I also had to learn dead stick landing techniques, crosswind handling (since our runway is very wide he let me take off perpendicular to the normal direction in crosswind), and I still have to learn the spin recoveries and techniques from my buddies.

I don't neccesarily blame the instructor since his average training day was booked with up to 10 students and it was probably very hard and complex to teach all of these students. Again he is only human.

So here is what I would add to your list:

5. Rudder control on landings and in combination with aileron input
6. Crosswind take-off and landing
7. Dead stick landings (hhmmm,...take-offs too :spinnyeye )

P.S.: Here are some that my instructor didn't teach me that are not neccesarily related to flying.

1. Plane preparation at home. (Developed my own checklist for that)
2. Plane clean-up (Again these forums helped with the proper maintenance procedures)
3. Engine adjustment (Although my adjustments were correct on the engine I still think that my instructor should have explained the engine carburator settings and operation Since I was still only a newbie who saw his first RC Engine when it arrived in the mail (Thank god there are instructions with these :stupid: )

Well, these are my $.02 for now.

RF

Sorry for the "basic" question. What is the meaning of "dead stick" landing and takeoff ? Thanks..........

Dead stick means the engine has stopped. Landings can be made safely if you have altitude.

Dead stick take offs would require a large "bungee" cord and very strong wings.

Bill

Takeoff
Ascending turns (right and left. Judged on takeoffs)
Descending turns (right and left. Judged on landings)
Left pattern to a touch & go
Right pattern to a touch and go
Power off stall/recovery
Power on stall/recovery
"Unusual attitude" recovery. (you hold radio, instructor grabs your sticks and screws
up the plane... snap/spin/inverted whatever. You recover)
Regular "full stop" landing
Dead stick landing (must not break anything, must be "On field")


The dead stick part may or may not be a good idea.
Could really upset someone if they lost their plane that way,
and it's a strong possibility for someone who's already nervous
and under a lot of perceived pressure.

At the field where I fly now, misjudgement wouldn't be pretty.
(On a hilltop... and one side has a STEEP dropoff.)
It wasn't much better where I learned, though... there's a barbed
wire fence surrounding the runway there, since it's on the outer
edge of a cow pasture.)

Ours is straightforward

3 take offs
3 landings (engine must stay running)
procedure turns at each end of the field
square circuit
round circuit
figure 8
loop
roll
deadstick landing

We look for safe control of the plane. We used to do the "out of trim" test but an incident occurred that had us stop that practice. The deadstick is imperative that they land it on the field and it's the last manouveur before being awarded the wings.

Our field almost guarantees that they need to do cross wind landings and takeoffs and consistent altitude during the moves is also considered

Our pilots have to be able to fly with some pressure (even perceived) so that they have more confidence in themselves and be ready should something occur. Deadsticks are a part of that.

Nuker

Just posted a link to our club's Flight Training Guide on another thread, but seeing the similarity to it here, I thought I would add it here:

http://www.kamsrc.com/training.shtml

If you like it you can go to the home page and get a copy for printing from the 'downloads' area. Good luck and enjoy it.


quint

Our club's test includes a dead stick test, but, it's *simulated*. From 200 feet you cut back to idle and land the plane safely. I agree that actually shutting off your engine would be too risky a test for a newbie.