Took my Sig 4 star 40 out for a spin yesterday with a friend of mine. No flying, just mowing the lawn the slow way to break in the engine. When I say no flying, I mean no intentional flying. Being a student pilot im used to throttles with the right hand and pitch with the left. So when i was headed for the ditch and my buddy said to idle the throttle, i pitced it up instead, and got about 3 feet off the ground before letting her settle back down. Other than that just did circles on the lawn.
I have to say, I had always heard the it was difficult to get the hang of it, and I was willing to accept that i would need some help with it. But I didnt think it would feel this odd. Much thanks to everybody on RCUniverse who has helped me along.

Pretty awsome. My four star comes in tuesday, and i am so excited... Can you show a picture of how the tail gear is set up and steered

You intentinoally set it up with the throttle in the right side of the transmitter? Do you intend to fly that way all the time?

Not a problem if you learn to fly that way, just most of us fly with the throttle/rudder on the left with the elevator/aileron on the right.

Aside from that, when I was learning with my NexSTAR, I had been flying with my instructor (I was on the buddy box) for several weeks and was getting close to solo time. One weekend, my instructor went to a Pattern meet (he is a Master Class Pattern RC Pilot) and I wanted to fly so I went out to the field, knowing that someone would come and buddy-box up with me. So, while waiting for someone to show up, I decided to practice to taxi around and do aborted take offs.

Ok.. fine. I cut the grass for a while, doing right and left turns, coming toward me and going away from me.. all the stuff you were probably doing while on the ground. Then I decided to go ahead and line it up and go to half throttle for a 'high speed' taxi, abort the take off sort of thing. Well, it lifted off the ground and there I was, flying. So, I did a few orbits, left hand turns, right hand turns, figure eights, and so on, then I said, Ok.. now what.. so I lined it up for an approach and greased the landing.. absolutely perfect, but a tad on the far side of the center line... no problem, I can fix that. As I was doing that, an alternate instructor drove up and was watching me. After I landed, he walked up to me, patted me on the back, and said, "Congrats.. you solo'ed" And that was that!!!

The next flight, I had a dead stick! Landed it better than the first landing!!! Smack down the center line and it stopped rolling almost directly in front of me. I managed to fly it and have an emergency landing without incident! I was so excited!!

Best of luck!!!

Dick.

No Dick, you misunderstood.

He is a student pilot, so by sitting on the left side of the cockpit, the throttle is on his right while he holds the yoke with his left.

On his Tx, the throttle is on the left and elevator on the right.

The gear is pretty simple, the strut comes up from the wheel and has a bronze hinge attached to the verticle part, then the strut makes a 90 degree turn, this part is inserted into the rudder. Since this connection is not flexible, but the hinge is, when the rudder turns the gear turns.

kluivertfan2- keep up the good work. Be sure to work with an instructor and all should be fine, don't rush it. BTW- I got my BS at Western Mich so I know the area. Where is the field you are flying out of? Are you a local or going to school there or maybe both?

did you biuld the kit or arf? And if you did iuld the kit, was it hard?

Bruce, Im flying out of the Riverside park in Galesburg, or something like that. Im just going to school here, im originally from the east side of the state, near Detroit. And I should have mentioned, the friend I was out with has been flying for better than a decade. He has been instructing me, and helping me to put it all together.

Chad, It was ARF. And still plenty complicated to keep my mechanically-retarded-self busy for a few weeks.

Grew up in Detroit near Plymouth & Southfield Rds. Then moved to Novi after high school. Went to Schoolcraft Comm Coll for a couple of years before finishing up at WMU. 71 grad

Enjoy the flying.

Ah, gotcha. Thanks for that.

Dick.

HA!

Took her out for her maiden planned flight on Saturday. Im having some trouble correcting for when the plane is flying directly at me, and I didnt mark the underside of the wing enough, so it was sometimes hard to tell when it was inverted. Other than that all was well. Some of the guys at the field were pretty impressed with my flight, so hopefully im getting it. Oh also, on the third takeoff, I hit a bump and the aircraft began to cut to the left, I put in to much aileron correction, pulled it off the runway to the right, flipped it, and broke the prop. No worries though, 2 pieces of airplane is about 150 less than I expected.

Glad to hear all is going well. Just take it easy for a while and try to avoid that inverted part for a while. Just get used to flying it aound and that to/from thing.
Don't want to wreck it too soon.

yeah, pretty much, if it flying toward you and a wing is drooping, point your stick the way the wing is. It is just muscle memory.

Wanst trying to invert it, just a little overzealous with the controls. Towards the end, i was starting to get a much better feel for the aircraft, cant wait to go back out.