hey guys

2 minutes on the buddy box with my friends alpha, last night I took my avistar out and flew it all by myself, did 12 take offs and landings... loops, rolls, hammerheads, all 3 point landings, its now 20mph winds, and i just flew it again, a little tricky on the landings in the wind, but its all good, didnt' flip over or break prop once, Who says ya need an instructor...

Shane

humm, your that good huh? maybe you should get a seat on the stock market.

there has to be more too this story.

spill it !

Congratulations on your solo!

Sounds like your an awesome pilot.

Your like the Doogie Howser of RC Planes.

Have fun flying.
Ryan

Dont get too over confident now, just because you solo'd it does not mean you are a great pilot you will still have a lot of learning to do. In this hobby i think you ever stop learning. but congratulations on your solo

have fun flying
paul

Well, more to the story, I do have years of expirence with flying full scale, which helped me alot.

Me

But congrats on the solo and the really good luck

Full scale and RC is like apples and oranges.

LAter,
Tim

Ya know,

not to besmirch anybody's pilotage experience, but here's an experience of mine.

At the field, a guy shows up with a SPAD 3D plane he designed himself. He's a pretty competent pilot, and is pretty stoked about new airplane. Range check, fueled up, engine running and tuned, and off he goes into the, well you get the idea. He did snap rolls and loops and hammerheads and stall turns and all sorts of manuvers I don't even know the name of, and ended it off by doing a really neat landing trick, that is, sticking the whole plane straight into the ground so it didn't even fall over when the wind blew! That was quite a flight. Fortunately no damage to anyone and only very minor repariable damage to his plane.


Moral of the story:

Loops, stall turns, hammerheads, etc etc are all very nice and dandy. They look impressive, and are GREAT for bolstering pilot confidence and enthusiasm. But the real meat and potatoes, and what impressess me personally the most, is controlled flight with an airplaned trimmed perfectly, and nice level turns with no alititude loss that start and end up in the same place. Straight controlled landings, the same every time. In short, mastery of the basics, and mastery of your airplane and knowing it's characteristics. Forget the aerobatics... do touch and goes.


Sorry. I really didn't mean to rain on your parade, or come across as as a stuck up a-hole. What I really meant to say was congrats on the solo, welcome to the hobby and above all, don't ever forget to have fun.

Andy


P.S. Avistars forever!

Hey Andy,

You're not raining on my parade at all. I've been interested in RC for about 6 years or so, and finally got running with a plane this week...


I had it up tonight and when i took it off the engine died and I panically started moving the throttle in and out quickly as possible because the thing was dieing and finally it took, scary.. I think she's too lean.. My muffler fell off so now I have a straight pipe making it loud as hell.. lol

Congratulations,

Despite what you will read here ("After my 30th flight on the buddy box I finally soloed!") this game isn't really that hard. Anyone with decent hand-eye coordination and an understanding of basic flight principles should solo after few sessions on a simulator or buddy box (just to get that right-left / left-right stuff worked out). Your full-scale experience undoubtably helped you pick up R/C, but some of the old timers at the my club say that full-scale pilots are the worst to try to teach R/C. It may come from their self-perception that "I fly real planes, this is nothing.". It's very different.

I read a book by a shooting instructer who said that the best students he ever had were teenaged girls who had never fired a gun in their lives. He said he could teach a girl to shoot well much easier than he could teach a man who has been handling guns his whole life. Has to do with learned bad habits and machismo, he said.

I love this hobby for the challenge of flying, tinkering around with the equipment and tools, and the people that I have met flying R/C. Remember, it's just about having fun with toys.

Congrats -- it would appear that you are a "natural" -- consider yourself fortunate. Don't get too cocky just yet, there will be plenty of smoking holes in your future. I was a full scale jet pilot & I have been flying models longer than many folks live -- & I still dig the occasional hole.

Congratulations.

In my expereince teaching guys to fly, there are two distinct groups of full-scale pilots who try to learn to fly RC. Those that approach it as something different to learn, but apply their full-scale knowledge, and those that think that since they know how to fly, you can't tell them anything they don't already know.

The first group pick up the hobby very very quickly, I have had guys doing touch and gos on their 2nd flight, and solo in a dozen flights. (solo here is a bit more than a simple take off and landing, and we tend to hold guys back just a hair to make sure they are "safe" and can repeat it, we also do deadsticks, basic acrobatics, and lots of safety stuff).

The second group often go away after the first bit of frustration.

Also, different people learn at different rates, some people naturally have no problems with the "control reversal" as the plane is coming towards them, some guys struggle with that for months. It varies a lot.

The left-right right-left stuff was nothing, I have flew Flight simulators for 7 or 8 years now and always enjoyed using the tower mode... kind of like RC I guess.. Its a really fun hobby.. My engine has a thing with dieing on take off now so I have to slam the throttle stick back and forth like a mad man for it to start going again, haha.. oh well, maybe shes too lean... kinda windy now to try it again.

Shane

Aha -- simulators -- that was the missing bit of info. No wonder you got it right so quickly. I also like to fly my Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 in tower mode. The Patty Wagstaff Extra 300 almost flies like a model!

AH HA! so now the "rest" of the story comes out

2 mins on a buddy box and solo'ing, now I understand !

Grats too you. some ppl are just natural

Yeah, the only sim I ever flew was the Microsoft ones in tower mode... Extra 300s is great..

You know you missed one of the best times in the hobby, being able to fly without worry. If you had an instructor, they would have helped you tune the engine so it wouldn't die on takeoff. They would have also taught you how to tune the engine yourself. Flying the engine lean just wears it out quicker (lean = hot = shorter life). They would have checked your plane over well, taken it for a test flight to trim it out, etc. Not to belittle you, but I have seen guys with years of experience take a plane off with the ailerons reversed. Control reversal is hard to overcome. Just ask the guys that are doing low inverted passes over the runway and then pull up from experience. Splat! Take advantage of the instructors. They will help you to learn without you having to make the mistakes. I didn't have my first crash until after I solo'd.

Good advice but why bother. These threads pop up every couple of weeks here.

Didn't you realize that on RCU

1. Every trainer is perfectly trimmed right out of the box?
2. Every body learns just as easily Without an instructor.
3. 2 minutes on a buddy box and your ready for a scale warbird or turbine jet.


Oh and every builder builds lighter, straighter and strong then any AFR manufacturer around.


gp300 congrates on your flight hope you have many more!

I learned how to fly without an instructor, but then again, I did bring my E-Starter back in a plastic bag every night for a week

I have had som experience with RC boats so I knew how the radio worked and how to run an engine when it was time for a bigger plane. It is possible to learn everything as you go, but it takes a bit more time and patience.

So, he has lots of time full-scale, plus lots of time on RC simulator, and then he says "who needs an instructor".

Anyone who doesn't have those things.

And even you did have the first flight on a buddy box. Which is what I'd expect of someone with your (now more known) background.

In fact, I had 2 students do exactly what you did, guys with hundreds of hours in full scale (one guy flew commerically in Africa), plus lots of expereince on a sim. That combination should translate to solo on a trainer in a flight or two at worst. You get all the theory, you get all the reflexes. The only thing you miss is the care-and-feeding, and setup stuff.

Surprise, surprise, you can't quite set your engine up correctly. Never saw that coming. Never. Really. .

I don't suppose it occured to you that most guys learning RC aren't licensed full scale pilots?

I don't suppose it occured to you that most folks actually haven't spent lots of sim time?

Sheesh.

Well, this is the 6th flight tonight and the 16th tank of fuel through it, and its still in tip top shape, i must be doing somthing right, no?


I know how to tune an engine!.. I've worked with engines all my life. You have no idea of my background so lay off.

Being a full scale pilot myself, and new to RC, I had to post my experience two weeks ago with my first RC flight. I built an Ace High MK ll motor glider with a little TD .051 on it. After a couple of lousy hand launch attempts and a little 5 min epoxy, I got the thing in the air. First off, it turned out not to be the slow lazy motor glider I was expecting (probably due to the TD .051!) and even with only two channels, I had my hands full keeping up with the thing. I did have 3 good flights that day untill the daylight started running out. I even did a few loops! I'm sure my experience flying full scale and knowledge of aeronautics helped a great deal, but I'm going to wait untill I join a club and find an instructor before taking my Extra Easy .40 size trainer with four channels out for a spin. I'm pretty sure I could fly it on my own but why take the chance? Why waste a perfectly good trainer just cause I think I can handle it? Besides, I'm looking foward to the fellowship and broad base of knowledge a club enviroment will provide. Just my two cents.

gp,

>> I know how to tune an engine!.. I've worked with engines all my life. You have no idea of my background so lay off.<<

Don't let 'em get to you.

Have fun with R/C and laugh when you do something dumb. I was at the field the other day with my Ultra Stick. On pre-flight check one airelon wouldn't work. I checked connections, swapped servos and finally deduced that a channel of my receiver was out. How strange! Oh well, got the old reliable Tiger Stick out and started prepping it for flight. Discovered that the Tx was already set for Plane #1, instead of Plane #3. Dohhh!! <self administered dope slap> Switched Tx to proper model and the Ultra worked perfectly.

In my short career in this hobby I've seen two experienced pilots take-off with reversed airlerons. Can't forget those pre-flights.

Keep us posted on your progress.

I should also add that I am an member of a club here, its just nice to be able to walk out my back door onto 2200 feet off full scale grass runway and fly after supper, instead of driveing way the hell out to the club and finding the gates are locked. lol.