Well I have been flying a firebird commander and an aerobird challenger for awhile so I bought a Hobbico Superstar 40. It was used and was way out of trim and the motor was not tuned. I have spent the last couple of weeks reading on the forums and I finally got the motor tuned and I tinkered with the trim to what I felt was ok. I had a guy lined up to help me out, but I have not made contact with him yet. Today I went out to the old airport we fly at. I promised myself I would only taxi around and maybe if I felt comfortable I would do a very small touch and go. Of course everyone with me was saying fly it, but I knew my limits and told myself I would stick by them. Well I was taxing around and did a small lift and set it back down. I really was not nervous because I had no intentions to get her in the air. Then I taxied down the runway and took off and she went up a little more then I expected so I started setting her down well the plane started to bounce and I felt it was going to break something so I just full throttled the plane and away she went. It took off perfect like it was trimmed by a professional. Since I was already in a do or die position I just flew it around for a few minutes. I was really nervous and my legs wer shaking. I was so scared to land but I felt that this was my hardest obstacle. I decided to line her up and come in for a landing. I lowered the throttle and she came right in with a couple of small bounces, but I could not have asked for more. I decided to park it and fly the challenger for a little while to get all that adrenaline out of my system. I felt like I was on top of the world . I know that this forum and the flight simulators have helped so much.
the plane flew just like the one on aerofly pro, but the landing was nothing like the simulator. I cant wait until the wind is calm again because I am going back out.

Way to go...

Wanna bet you knees start to shake when you think about it. Sometimes it's during the unexpected things when you do your best and you did just that.

Congrats...

Congratulations!

Dave Olson

Most unexpedted...but MOST joyful!

Jim C

Knees stop shaking yet?

nice, how did it fly? I haev the superstar select MKII

It flies excellent. The wind died down so I thought what the he** so I went back out again. This time I thought I was going to short out my tx from all the sweat on my hands. It was a next to perfect flight, but I do need to work on my landing. I will give it a rest and do some more simulator practice. Maybe by tomorrow my legs will be back to normal LOL.

cool any aerobatics tried

That's terrific zlm. The weak knees and sweaty palms will go away in a few weeks!

Welcome to the club.
Dennis-

No I did not try anything fancy. I am just flying around. If I start trying to do any aerobatics I might crash and I would like to get in a few flights before I explain to my wife that I need another airplane.

haha ok good thinking. I am gonna try to make it out sunday, but it looks like its gonna rain

GREAT!!! Congrats on a successful flight!! Now, go back and get that help and make a few flights just to be SURE you are ready to go!

Welcome to my addiction!

Congrats man! I got the Firebird Commander last August for my birthday and my dad was flying it. He got it up to high and we lost it over the woods. I have no idea where it went! That really discouraged me from RC but now I'm back and more exited than ever!

Hope you get better with it and can do some aerobatics!

Cheers, now you're addicted.

My wife got the second flight on the video cam so here is a link to the vid. Remember this is only my second attempt to fly a nitro without an instructor. I will leave the video up for the rest of the day. I am running low on bandwidth !!!!!!!

Hey, I really enjoyed your Video, that was a lot of fun. I am a newbie also, been at it about 5 months now, self taught, self taught how to repair also, a lot. I can relate to the week knee thing also. I have been flying sucsessfully now for about 3 months and there is nothing like it. I am adicted, just ask my wife, old whats here name. OH, well it's better than having a mistress, maybe not as cheep though. Anyway it was exciting watching your Video and knowing what was going on in your mind. How did the landing go on the second flight?? Good luck and get use to repairing, that I think is inevitable in this Hobby.
Regards, and good luck.

Very nice job on the flying. (you need a new cameraperson, but for free thats good)

ZLM, that's some good looking flying there! Good Job! Great song too, Styx performed a concert in our town last month! I was hopeing to see the landing though!!!

I was impressed by your second flying. your takeoff was very good for a newbie need a little work but that will come with practice. for me my 5 takeoff slammed into tall grass on the side. takeoffs didn't look real good until I hit about 20. I noticed that you were in a left bank pattern. I hope that you are not getting into the habit of flying behind yourself, this is ok if you are at your own site but is frowned upon when you go to any other club flying site. One thing to watch out for when you start reversing your direction of turns, you get used to left to bank and right to staighten and it gets ingrained in you so that when you go right to bank then want to staighten a lot of beginners then hit right to staighten and roll the plane inverted. this is just something to think about if you have no instructor on the buddy box to back you up. keep it high and good luck you have a great start.

good job,,,and welcome to this great hobbie.....whoooooooooo hoooooooooo....Rod