I ve never flown one of these before, but this weekend i should be up and running, how should i practice? touch and gos? simulators?

Never flown what?

IMHO the best way to practice flying is with an aircraft......

Andy

Just for clarification, are you saying you just finished your first airplane and are going to try to fly it for the first time this weekend?

if you havent flown before the best way is with an instructor or you won't have it long
enjoy our hobby

On another post Chimes mentions owning a Hanger9 Eazy2, your general 4ch trainer.

Seriously, if you haven't flown before, you will need help. Flying planes is not like RC cars. That extra dimension (up/down) is a real killer. It is extremely rare for anyone to be able to pick of a plane and fly it successfully if they have never flown before. If you are quick on picking up the skills, you may be flying solo very quickly, but you still need someone to help on your first flights.

For now, the best thing you can do is practice on a simulator if you have one. I find sims boring so do what you need to stay entertained, but you should concentrate on control, i.e. putting the plane exactly where you want at the speed you want.

When you are ready to try the real deal, find a flying field and instructor.

Cheers.

If you flap your arms REALLY hard...

Dr.1

With an instructor using a 'Buddy Box'.

BEFORE you attempt to fly your plane, find a club and an instructor. RC car experience is nice, however it will not prepare you for actually flying. The same holds true for simulators. They both help, but neither will teach you how to fly.

I am not saying you can not teach yourself how to fly, however, the usual result with someone trying to teach themselves how to fly is that the flight lasts about 30 seconds (usually less) and typically results in damage to the plane and/or the equipment onboard.

If you have a sim, crank in as many nasty environmental factors as you can -- strong gusty crosswinds, etc -- otherwise it won't even approach reality.

What you really need is a ton of sim time, PLUS an instructor & buddy box -- that will get you safely up -- & more importantly -- safely down in the quickest possible time.

Doing it on your own is possible, but the odds are very much against success.

thanks guys, think sim is the way to go for now, but i do have an uncle thats good witht these things, so i will ask him for help

Britbrat's right. I've been at this game for 3 years and can only now take off and land with a reasonable degree of certainty. Most of my landings occur in the ground rather than on the ground (must remember to flair out!!!) but due to the poor weather in my part of Britain for the last couple of years I haven't had the regular week-in, week-out flying that really improves your skills. That's one of the reasons I haven't posted up my "I soloed" message, because I don't feel I deserve it yet. So, get as much practice in as you can with an instructor, or at the very least someone capable who can take your tranny from you and get you out of trouble. There, I said it...

Britbrats right, If you've got the sim, make good use of it. Turn the wind & gusts up to ridiculous, that what I did till I had the darn thing taking off & landing like a helicopter, wanna make a trainer hover? 25mph wind, 50mph gusts. You'll find it's alot of too, & the sim doesn't get boring so fast that way either. Good luck & don't forget the Instructor, buddy box & AMA.


Mark

str8

Practicing flying is alot like practicing medicine.

You need to know how to do it before you can practice it.

What you need is instruction. It sounds like your uncle is the man to see.

Great analogy! I will have to use it sometime in the future. But you are so right. Great difference between sim flying and buddybox flying, then the transition from buddy box to solo. Hard to push the pause button on a bad move moment. But the Sim has saved me thousands of dollars and months of time in repair. Get with that uncle, bet you will have an awesome time.

Correct

Incorrect

You can absolutely learn to fly on a sim and solo a real trainer on your own successfully.... No question about it. People are doing it all the time now.
Personally I think there is no substitute for an Instructor teaching you on a buddy box,,, and most AMA fields will all but REQUIRE that you prove your skill with an instructor on a buddy box if you are new to the club and the sport..

BUT,,, The simulator can DEFINITELY give you a platform where if you spend enough time on it and practice until you can
1. takeoff nice and clean and fly straight out nice and smooth,
2. fly around upright and NEVER get confused, that means plane coming at you and or going away 100% of the time you dont make the wrong corrections, flying in any direction.
3. do basic roll, basic loop, horizontal figure 8's, tight turns,
4. make good solid controlled approaches to your landing area.
5. land under control, from right to left AND left to right equally well, in the wind, ON THE RUNWAY and arent "almost crashing" the plane upon landing
6. Have good throttle control and use only the throttle necessary to sustain stable flight ( not full throttle the entire flight!)
7. All on the sim with both calm and windy conditions equally well

YOU CAN FLY THE REAL THING right off the sim... I have seen it numerous times now...

Now,If you
1. halfway do it and get good enough on the sim to just barely have the skill to takeoff and land
2. can only fly in one direction
3. get disoriented and confused, AT ALL, in the least little bit at any time.
4. cant fly in a wind
5. cant CONSISTANTLY land softly ON THE RUNWAY, under control
Then you will crash the real thing on the 1st flight,,, guaranteed..

You show me a person that can make 50 consecutive flights on a simluator meeting the criteria above and I will bet you money he can solo himself. Again,,, I think its a fact,, BUT, I dont think its how a club will/should handle it. Before a person should be allowed to solo at an AMA club site, specifically a professed newbie who hasnt soloed yet, they should have to demonstrate a few complete controlled flights with an instructor on a buddy box before they are cut loose just for safetys sake... IF the pilot is really ready, this can be done in an afternoon at the field and will save the instructor a lot of unnecessary time on a buddy box holding the button watching an already semi skilled pilot fly.

interesting, i got some sim time the other day about 3 hours full. I got pretty good. flying it was not the problem at all, its all landing, just like in real life.

Possibly. Coming from someone who spent a tremendous amount of time on the sim prior to attempting to fly, I can testify to the value of a good sim (in my case, G3).

But there are a ton of essential things that my instructor taught me that I would not have learned on my own. Such as the proper and safe way to start the model, the boundaries of "the pattern", and the initial model checkout. Not only did he go through my model with a fine toothed comb for an hour, but he told me the "why's" of how things should be set up. Just the small tips he gave me during the buddy box sessions are worth gold to me now. (Like "Land the wheels, not the plane")

Plus, the smile on your face when you finally solo, and you turn to your instructor who has unknowingly walked back to the pits during your flight and starts applauding you on your first solo!