Had my first flights today. I met my instructor at the field at 9am, and he flight tested my plane, then we went up. As soon as he gave me control, the plane immediately dove straight down. He took control back and figured that he had forgotten to trim the buddy box, so we switched boxes and as soon as he had control, the plane again dove toward the ground. Switching boxes again, he saved it about 6 ft from the ground (Whew!) and landed it to check what was wrong. Even though he checked the servo reverse switches, he got the elevator wrong. You might be thinking that I need a new instructor! But he has been flying for 50 years and has trained most of the pilots in our area. After that it was smooth sailing and I was getting the hang of it. The field started to get a little crowded, so we sat and watched, then after everyone else had a flight, we went up again. It was a good day!

girthdenton,
Welcome to the hobby. Yep, we all have days like that. Hang in there, before too long he'll have you soled and flying on your own.

Ken

Not all instructors are perfect, or know it all. After all they are human. Besides, I would hesitate to learn from one that would say they know it all. I have been lucky in that all of the ones I have had have been very knowledgeable and helpful.

For the first few flights with my NexStar I would lose aileron control when the plane was at the furthest point from us. I had no aileron control, but he would take control (on his buddy box radio) and could bring it back - weird. At one point I put the transmitter in front of him and showed him that it was not me and I would move the aileron stick but no response from the plane. We swapped cords, radios, etc but same thing.

At home I took all of the electronics out and the only thing I could find was that the aileron server did not appear to be plugged all the way in to the receiver. That must have been it because after reassembling I have not had any problems. Of course it would preflight just fine and everything looked good...

Congrats on your flight!

I'm glad that all in all your first flights went well. As for thinking you should get a new Instructor? No way!! We all make the mistake now & then of missing a servo reverse. It happens to the best too, not just us rookies. The fact that he was able to save your plane each time it dove like that tells me you're probably in excellent hands. You guys have straightened out the problem & just like Ken said, before ya know it he's gonna have you flying solo. So just keep up the good work & hang in there with him. The rewards will be endless.

I just had a servo reversing snafu 2 weeks ago. Luckily I had gotten to the field first before any of my flying buddies so I decided to give an Electric GP J3 Cub that I have a try. I put the plane together on the table there in the pitts & as soon as I hooked up the lipo battery it armed itself & as I was starting to check my control surfaces it jumped off of the table & proceeded to taxy thru the pitts at full throttle![:@] I steered it into the brush to slow it down & get it stopped without any real damage & it finally shut down. Turns out I forgot that I had recently flown my Tequila Sunrise with that radio & had the throttle servo reversed for the Sunrise. So at no throtle on the J3, it was actually at full throttle. Luckily as I stated earlier I was the first one there that morning so it wasn't chasing my friends all around the pits.[&:]

Sometimes these things just happen. What's important is how one reacts when they do.

Just to clarify - I have no desire to replace my instructor. I just thought that some people reading the post might think so. Thanks for the encouragement.