What tips do you all have for the first solo flight? Like...take offs, and landings. I don't think takeoff will be a problem at all, but the landing approach makes me a bit nervous. I think I've pretty much got the feel for the reversed control movement when the plane is flying toward me. My friend can probably guide me through it, but I was just wondering if you guys had any tips from things you learned on your first solo flights. I don't want to rush it, but at the same time, I'd like to be able to get out and fly my own plane, and stop taking up Steven's time when he could be flying his own plane as well instead of sitting there watching my plane on the trainer cord. Thanks for your help in advance!
-Grant

Hi,

You will get endless advice. I would humbly suggest that you don't solo until you and your instructor think you are ready. If you are going it alone it is likely to cost you lots of $$$s until you learn the hard way. Unless you are on a spad of course.

A couple of tricks that work when landing with the model flying towards you on finals move the aileron stick towards the low wing to level or fly it over your shoulder so port is still port.

Cheers,

Colin

Grant,

With all do respect, if you are still questioning yourself on control reversal them you may want to consider a little more training time. Landings are always somewhat harder than the takeoff and for the landing to be succesful you really do need to be in complete control. The last thing you need to have on your mind is the worry of control reversal. Again, I am not picking on you nor am I trying to tell you that you are not ready.

I have read a few of your other posts and my guess is you are somewhat of a natural. Questioning yourself is perfectly natural ( I do it all the time).

As far as acutal tips that the easy part. If you have a set of manuevers that you must do to pass the solo do them all except for the landing, most likely you will have more than enough fuel after the actual manuvers are done that you could practice shooting approaches up high going through all the things that you would normally do. On each practice get a little lower and at one point it will look really good and land. You will know when it looks good. This all assumes that you are not required to land as soon as the last manuver is completed.

During you training you may have discovered that at certain points in reference to the ground or something in the background, you would throttle back and land. Use those points of reference.

As far as Steve goes, when it is all said and done, give him a gift certificate from the LHS or buy him a gallon of fuel, or take him to a good lunch. Beleive me my students have done both of those for me and it really makes me feel good. I really do not mind standing with my students, I have a blast watching them go from the first flight to solo. Give me the warm and fuzzies and my guess it does the same thing for Steve.

Your concern about taking his time is understandable and quite a nice thought on your part. Talk with him if you have not done so already and see if he thinks you are ready. Then tell him your concerns.

Oh and most of all, breathe.

Once you do go solo let us know everything

Good luck and enjoy yourself

As a fellow instructor I agree with Bubbagates, I get my satisfaction seeing my student do his first solo. Most instructors I know would rather see you spend your money on the hobby than buying me something. I teach because I enjoy seeing other getting into the hobby that I love so much.

As for your solo, wait until your instructor thinks you are ready. You've trusted him to get you this far, let him finish the training. Trust me, he won't cut you loose before you are ready and won't delay any longer than needed. It may seem that he's being over cautious, but he's not. When you are a student it feels like it's gonna take forever before you can solo. You will get there when you get there. I've had students that take a year's worth of weekends to solo, and I've had students that solo in 2 weekends. Hang in there.

As far as a tip, I'll give you the same one I give my students that are in your situation. If you are worried about stick reversal on your approach just remember, alway move the stick to the low wing. This applies with the plane coming towards you. If you more the stick to the down wing it won't take long before it becomes an automatic reaction.


Good luck

A landing tip:

Many beginners tend to line up the final approach coming in toward them rather than straight at the runway. Stand in the position that you will be at when you are landing and note the approach that experienced pilots take. Pick out a landmark that their planes seem to come from. At our field it's a large tan colored industrial building. When I've coached beginners, it seemed to help them a lot if I told them bring it from the big building. Some say to stand square with the runway and bring it in over your shoulder.

Good luck, you'll do just fine.

I, as RCKen does, just enjoy the feeling of watching a student progress. My instructor still grins to this day when he sees me fly. As he was with me, I am, and as are most instructors, bound and determined to make our students better pilots than we are and Steve sounds like that kind of person from your other posts. Buying him a gift is totally up to you. I did with my instructor and I was there when he walked into the LHS and found out. Totally made his day.

Something I did in order to not confuse the whole left and right when the airplane is headed towards is to turn my body in the direction the airplane flies. If it is going left to right, face a little to the right (the direction the plane is going) and look a little bit over your shoulder. When it is going from right to left, turn left and look over your right shoulder. You dont have to exagerate these movements, but for me it really helped me to keep my bearings. You are facing the same way the plane is, (and if you were in the plane you are facing the same way as the pilot) Its a simple trick that helped me a lot. It has become habit and even now I catch myself doing that from time to time.

As long as you land on your landing gear, and not the prop spinner, you'll be fine. I've landed mine both ways, and the spinner landings [:'(] do much more damage to the plane

Don't bother wearing clean underwear that day

All great advice. I solo'ed last August. It was an experience for me mainly because I did it alone. Long story, but I was ready so I did. But, I had, oh, probably at least 50 approaches and landings. I was confident and was ready, and it felt really good when I saw that plane glide in and grease in the landing like the pro's had been doing all day.

Keep on practicing both landings and takeoff's (touch and go). Just do bunches of them. Just keep going around and getting in the pattern, approach then land, take off go around and repeat. Once you feel real confident then do a few more then ask to solo. Ask your instructor if you are ready. If he feels you need more practice, then do it but don't sacrafice your expensive airplane on a "I may be a bit scared" attitude. Being on final can be a real tough time to learn you need a little more practice especially if you are not teathered with the buddy box.

Your instructor would MUCH rather stand out there and help you fly than see you damage your plane. As I tell my students, I will be out there with them as long as they need me OR as long as they want me. Whether that be 2 flights or a year, what ever it takes. Putting a set time limit on it is a sure way to trouble. Sure, you can quickly get a general idea but some are naturals and some are airborne disasters that take longer or should take up tiddly-winks. Even once off the buddy box, I'm sure he would be glad to go out and "advise" you. When you try some advanced maneuvers, you may want to do them on the buddy for the first try or two until you know you can recover from possible errors. Take your time.

Another piece of advice. When I teach somebody their solo flight is just that. I usually stay in the pits so the student does it all themselves. Start and tune the motor, taxi out, take off, land, and taxi back. I usually like for them to do 3 complete take offs and landings before they are actually soloed. I don't know if that's how you instructor plans on doing it for you, but you could find out where he will be during your solo. If you are so nervous that you may actually be in danger then ask him to stay close enough to take over in an emergency.

But if you are that nervous then you need some more practice before you solo. You should be nervous, but not to the point that you can't function.

Just my .02 worth

What an instructor told me and this works, is if things start to go wrong, remember what you were doing a second before. If you loose sight of the plane for a few seconds and then find it again you might be wondering what the plane is doing. If you were making a right turn just before you lost sight of it then the plane will probably still be going to the right. If it is out a ways and you can't tell whcih way it is going just think which direction or what you were doing and you will have an idea what to do to get control again. Does this make sense? [8D]

I think this sums it up nicely.

I remember my solo flight, about 9 years ago, and I was definitley nervous. My knees got a little weak, my mouth went dry, but I did everything my instructor told me to do, and did it pretty well.

I had probably 20 to 25 flights with the instructor at that point, but that was before sims.
Dennis-

Well, just about flew solo today. Got a couple flights in after school. Steven and I went out with the van, and he was flying his Tribute electric as I fueled up, and that sort of thing. Then Marcus, his brother came out, and offered to fly with me. (He's just as good as Steven) So, we fired it up, I adjusted the idle mixture a tad, did preflight checks, I drove it out, range checked, everything was working fine. I plugged in to Marc.'s radio, and Steven gave me the go ahead to take off. So, I throttled it up, and it was an awesome feeling watching my very own plane take off. Flew around for a while, did a couple rolls and loops, (AFTER telling Marc. what I was going to do, and to be ready to take over if something should go wrong) and started the low passes. I probably did 10-15 passes, each time getting lower, and lower. About half way through the passes, Marc. told me he was going to take over, and show me how. He did a touch and go, and another pass, and told me to try it. So, I brought it around a few more times, and was having some trouble with approach angle. I was always cutting in too short, and bringing the pass too far away, and off the runway. So Marc. told me to wait a bit longer before I bank in, and make the approach. I had a beautiful pass about 3' off the ground, and Marc. said the next time I had that good of an approach to bring it in and land that sucker. So, the next pass looked good, brought it in, and it stayed on the ground. Once it was down, it turned toward us, and Marc. told me to use the rudder and steer away. Here's the bad part... I was doing fine on the reversed ailerons in flight, but......yeah, you guessed it. I turned the wrong freaking way on the ground, and brought that sucker straight toward us. Also, somewhere in the process, (Probably in my frantic moving of the rudder lever) the throttle went up. Marc. and I went our separate ways to stay away from that prop., and Steven grabbed the wing, and got a hold on it. The plane pivoted around, and the prop. hit one of the flight boxes. Thankfully, noone was hurt! The thing that was hurt the worst was my pride. OUCH! I felt really bad after that. I mean, really, how hard is it to drive a plane on the ground? I used to drive radio controlled cars around toward and away from me. But, just a second before, I had been using ailerons. The only things damaged were my pride first and foremost, a broken airscrew prop., and chip out of the flight box, and a slightly chipped fuse behind the wings. When Steven grabbed the wing, it torqued it, and chipped the fuse right behind the wings. We packed up, and headed for the shop. We put a new prop. on it, and epoxied the area behind the wing. I also re-taped the wing seam between the two halves, and checked over everything else. Firewall and engine mount is fine. Sorry for the long post, but I had to write something about it. After we got it fixed, and ran it just to make sure everything was fine, I went in and flew on the G3 simulator until 8:30 practicing landings, and re-creating the scene that had caused so much havoc on the field. I believe that I am now ready to handle that situation if it should ever come again. What I should have done, as soon as it was down, and I saw things were going bad, I should have hit the trim slider and killed it immediately to eliminate the spinning prop., then steered away. I always had this dream of a perfect first landing, but those dreams were crushed today. Oh well, that was probably good for me though. I don't know if we are going to fly tommorow or not. It depends on these Kansas winds and the weather overall. Thanks for listening. -Grant-KS



P.S. I should add that I was indeed weak in the knees on that landing, which didn't help things, but I'm proud to say that my FTLs remained clean! LOL

Grant,

Don't be so hard on yourself about the landing. As you said no one was hurt and the plane survived to fly another day. The best thing is you recognize what happened and are already taking the steps to correct it.

I see solo in your future pretty soon

Congrats and keep doing what you are doing and by the way have you knees stopped yet

At least your plane wasn't hurt too bad, I hate ground steering too, But i have noticed tail draggers are MUCH better with ground steering than trike. What kind of plane do you have

Glad to hear no one was hurt. When the plane hits the ground, chop the throttle. You really shouldnt drive it back to the pits. You never know what could happen, like a wind gust that whips the plane around.

Just rember these things are dangerous. Go over to the crash forum and check out the post about the guy whose hand got caought in the prop.

But look on the bright side, you did actually land it[sm=thumbup.gif].

Just learn from your mistake and move on.

Thanks for understanding guys. The plane is an Extra EasyII Trainer(trike) with a .40 glow. Yeah, I think I'll just kill the engine from now on.........at least until I have way more experience under my belt. The plane with the engine cut won't do much damage once it's on the ground. As for reaching through the arc of the prop. YIKES! A guy that flies at the local AMA club flicked the prop. on a gasser I think, and chopped part of his thumb off from compression recoil. I learned another safety lesson today. Propellers can be dangerous even if they aren't moving. I was turning the brand now airscrew with my bare fingers with no glow starter, and was priming the engine to make sure everything runs right again. I sliced my finger on the sharp edges of that blade. Either I'm smarter now, or not as dumb as I was. Thanks for your help guys!

Here's a hint: lightly sand the trailing edge of the prop to dull it.

Even seasoned Pro's have bad landings. This won't be your last, just avoid injury. When in doubt sacrifice the plane, not a human or part thereof.

Last time I solo'd a student he was doing so well I just had him fly up about 3 mistakes high. When he got there I unplugged the buddy box, handed him HIS transmitter and stood back a few feet and watched. He was a bit surprised but did fine. Of course he had already done many good T.O. & landings etc so I knew he should be fine. After that I would just walk out with him for a few flights and stand there and answer questions if he had them but it was HIS flight.[

I like that line. Maybe you should make it your signature line.

Anyway, as others have said, don't feel too badly. You learned from the mistake, and are making the attempt to avoid it in the future. The fact that you did (do) feel badly about it also says a lot about your character. And that's a good thing.

I'd be proud to have you as a student, and expect that Steve and Marc feel the same way.

Keep at it. You'll be soloed before long.
Dennis-

Just a li'l update...I flew yesterday still on the buddy box. Basically just did TOs and landings for 30 min. or so. On a few of the landings I flared way too much, and it stalled and bounced. I should have pulled out of it on the bounce and tried again, but I gave it all the up elevator I could and bounced it a couple more times before it settled down. I wasn't a happy camper. Did probably 10-12 landings in all. I had a few really pretty ones that even Steven was impressed with, and so was I. I think some of the time I was just seeing that it was level, and at an even rate of descent, and let it land itself, but I needed to keep my focus all the way through until all three wheels were on the ground for good. We learned that the plane lands best with the nose up about an inch or so. Bring it in on main gear, then settle it down. Slid into the landing like hot butter. I could have just as well done it solo, as Steven never took over unless I asked him to do a demo pass/Touch-n-go. Didn't do any aerobatics. Just landings, and solo skills. Earlier I had just been flying back and forth, and practicing slow level rolls, snap rolls, immelman, etc. Don't know if this bird'll fly inverted or not...we'll have to check that out sometime. Also can't wait to start building a plane. Too bad it takes so much money. LOL Anyway, just thought I'd update a bit.

I think a good rule of thumb is that if you can fly a full circuit around the field inverted in the trainer you are ready to try your second model. So yes, your trainer should fly inverted. Just carry it a little higher bc in a trainer it can be hard to do an outside loop to pull out of inverted flight so you have to roll it over.

Grant, a good thing to do now is to start build a second plane. Something like a Sig 4* or equivalent. Take your time building it and learn some more building skills. Take your time with the trainer, only when you have "mastered" it are your ready to move on. I totaled my second plane bc I lacked the skills to fly it, I went back and spent months on my trainer and then I was ready to move on again.