Hi,

I am a new pilot and have soled and all that. Other than buying a bunch of books, is there a methodical list of things I should start practicing during my flying and in the order I should?

For example:

Touch and Go
Stall
Spin
Cuban 8
etc
etc

I need some structure to get better.

Thanks

just let her go and have fun. remember to leave yourself plenty of room for when you get "dumb thumb" and have to twirl around a full circle straight down to fix something. it's all in practice and no matter what, it's all fun. [8D]

Take off........land. Take off...........land. Take off..........land. Take off..............land. The better you can do both, upwind, down wind, crosswind, the more accomplished a pilot you really are, IMO. I've watched guys who can Harrier roll all day just like Que-whatsisname, but their takeoffs and landings look like s**t, and that doesn't impress me. The greatest thing , what I enjoy most about flying, is greasing a landing, especially in less than ideal conditions, and not doing it just once, but being able to repeat it. I get the biggest sense of accomplishment of all my planes, not with doing an outside loop or rolling circle, or series of scale warbird maneuvers, but landing my DR-1 without bouncing, dragging a wingtip, or ground looping. Hardest plane I have to land, unsprung, narrow gear, poor tail steering (skid, no wheel). If I can grease it in twice in a row, I consider it a great day of flying, regardless of how lousy the rest of the flying might have been.

Of course, have all the fun you can between Take-off...........landing; it's just that those are the most critical times of flight, when you're in the corners of the flight envelope, not enough altitude or airspeed. When you can react to a deadstick 5 feet up and you're pointed the wrong way, and you can do the right thing automatically to save the plane, THAT's piloting

When I first got my wings I wasn't very happy with my landings so i did a whole flight of touch and gos. Before i was bouncing, bending undercarriage and killing the engine but after that flight I could get it down on the runway every time back wheels then front and I've never gone back. In fact just last weekend in quite windy conditions i got an applause from some of the jet guys after I landed which is quite an honour since I've only been flying for 6 months and it was in my relatively slow Seagull PC-9. As Khodges pointed out you could do an amazing flight doing rolling harriers for 10 mins and screw up the landing and nobody would care, but if you do rolling harriers and other perfect 3D manoeuvres for your entire flight then put your plane down perfectly then you'll get respect!

Congratulations on recognizing the need for method and structure in your flying.

One approach you might try is to have a specific plan or goal for what you want to do on each flight. It doesn't need to be elaborate or complex, just form a habit that you know what you want to do before you even start up the engine. Work on basic maneuvers, such as the loop and roll. Make loops that are bigger and bigger, requiring you to fly the plane through it, not just hold back the stick. Try 3 consecutive loops "in the same air", if you can. Work on axial rolls. Try slow rolls and then real slow rolls, keeping the heading and altitude constant. Try 4 point rolls. Easy to say, but hard to do! When you do cuban eights, be as precise as you can as to entry points, roll position and exit point. Do stall turns with an eye on making sure the vertical is on target. Fly inverted traffic patterns around the field so you are completely comfortable with inverted flight. Practice landings to a spot on the runway, and choose different spots, just to keep it interesting.

You will find that the more complex maneuvers are simply more complex combinations of the simple, basic moves, but require precision and timing to make them complete.

Have fun!

At this stage, don't worry so much about precision competition flight. Have fun with flying, try stuff, get to know your aircraft. About the only really good thing about the direction you're wanting to go at this time is if you're going to practice all the aerobatic moves, you'll really be practicing getting youself out of trouble when you're planned stunt goes into unplanned mode. Go with the easy stuff to keep your interest. Loops, rolls, split-s. Relax, have fun, don't make it a job.

I think you should have fun, yes, but also keep trying to be precise. Do rectangular patterns, with upwinds, cross winds, down winds base & final approaches, have square corners in the rectangles. Be profficient and comfortable at flying both right hand and left hand patterns. Flying figure eights which meet precisely in the middle and stay at the same altitude, with equal banking and sized circles, is great practice. T&Gs until you really feel at home with the plane. Bust all this up with some just plain ringing it out fun. Then try to do three equally sized loops that don't drift off one way or the other. Do insides and outside loops, fly pattern's inverted and figure eights inverted. I find that loops do more to tell me if my plane is trimmed and balanced right, then any other manuver.

In your turns, try to make sure the fuselage is parallel to the ground, not diving or climbing. In level flight attempt to maintain a wings level attitude. Developing a sense of these two things being right will make you much more precise in your flying and is a problem you can work on the rest of your flying life. People don't really pay enough attention to these two simple things. However, knowing when you've got them right allows you a platform for jumping off to the rest of the manuvers. Or, you can be a good flyer and have fun, without paying attention to these items and just letting the plane fly you.

Touch an Gos are good. As others have said practice a lot of landings. Between takeoff and landing, try using your rudder. Practice slipping for when you have crosswinds.

A nice, even racetrack pattern is a good ptactice (the "routine" landing pattern at most fields). From there a horizontal figure-of-eight at a constant altitude. Not as easy as it sounds. Then, big, as close to perfect loops. Anyone can jamb the stick back and do a loop. A 15 or 20 second loop that is nice and circular is a little harder.

Split esse - Roll the model to inverted and then feed in up elevator (which takes the plane down) and bring the plane back in the recripical heading. An elegant way to reverse course.

A half-loop and half-roll. The opposite of the above. (aka Half-Immelman). A way to gain altitude while reversing course. Travel level afterwards and then do a split esse back down and you've dome an Immelman. Originally a way to evade and then attack a following aircraft and a fun maneuver to fly.

Spins you might want an experienced buddy on hand for the first few. Some trainers will not spin. Some spin well. Rarely you'll find one that will flat spin, or do an inverted flat spin. Not everyone has a "trainer" they are learning on. Some planes do not recover from spins well. Some not at all.

Stalls - get 200 fet up and throttle back until the plane stops flying while you try to hold altitude. There's more danger you'll konk the engine at idle than the stall will be a problem for a trainer. Some models snap suddenly to one side. VERY good to know how slow is too low for your model. Finding out for the first time at 10 feet above the runway is not good.

Cuban 8, inverted Cuban 8. Good to practice. If you've got enough horsepower they are easy and fun.

And as others have said: landings, landings, landings. The whole flight can be ferschimmel but if you land well you'll still be happy afterwards.

Nope, that is an Immelman Turn, named for famed German WWI ace Max Immelman.

Lots of good advise so far. I will agree that having fun should be right up there, but learn a few basic maneuvers, and once you have them down, work on making them better. I say, "Making them better" because "Precision" is too strong a word.

So how do you make it better?

Well, let's start with your basic box pattern. Is it rectangular, or does the down-wing leg tend to arc around you? (Many people allow this to happen)

Do a Loop. Is it round?

Do a Roll. Did you lose any altitude? Did you come out on the same heading you went in on?

Those are the little things you can practice with basic maneuvers to start honing your skills for the future.

Hi, garywi. I found myself in the same boat as you when I solo'd a couple of years ago. I was interested in learning aerobatics and improving my piloting skills, but there didn't seem to be a whole bunch of additional information out there for what comes next.

Fortunately for me, I fly at a club where we have several decent pattern flyers who practice a good deal. I would often take breaks from flying my sport planes so I could watch them practicing their pattern manuevers with their graceful 2m pattern ships.

I wasn't so much concerned with competing at pattern events, I just wanted to learn the various manuevers and flying techniques that they focus on. I also didn't intend on spending $2500 for a composite 2m pattern ARF or $2200 for a Futaba 14MZ. I found out that you can learn and practice pattern flying with regular sport plane airframes and equipment, and it's every bit as fun as it looks.

After a little bit of hunting around on the web, I discovered the website for the National Society of Radio Controlled Aerobatics:

http://www.nsrca.org/scheduleA.htm

The schedule of pattern manuevers at the NSRCA is a great place to start. Print off a copy of the Sportmsman Pattern schedule for a list of manuevers to learn. If you see a manuever you're not familiar with, simply visit http://www.masportaviator.com and check out their "Flight Term Definitions" glossary link on the home page of the Sport Aviator web site. Sport Aviator will provide you with a basic definition and diagram of manuevers like the snap roll, spin, stall turn, and most other Sportsman-class pattern manuevers.

Practice, practice, practice is the key to getting better at some of the most basic manuevers. Just practicing inside and outside loops takes a good long while until they finally come out nice and round. Flying inverted for extended periods of time is also a really good skill builder. Trying flying entire circuits around your field while your plane is inverted. Once you're comfortable with that, try flying inverted figure eights. When I can finally fly smooth circular loops and I can consistently fly smooth figure eights while inverted, it will put me ahead of 90% of the guys that I fly with regarding aerobatic skill. These basic manuevers require practice to do well.

If you decide you really enjoy this type of flying and you want to compete, that'd be great. The important thing to remember, though, is to have fun flying and try not to practice so much that it feels like a chore instead of a hobby. You don't need a fancy plane or fancy equipment, a Goldberg Tiger 2 with a .46 ball bearing engine and basic 4-channel radio will allow you to learn the whole Sportsman pattern schedule.

Good luck and good flying!

So the countering maneuver bringing you behind your attacker is really an Immelman Turn followed by a Split "S"? Shazam! I thought that was a "Full Immelman" and the reversing manuver was an "Immelman Turn".

Charlie P., Never heard of a 1/2 Immelman before, only the Immelman Turn, which is as MinnFlyer describes. The Immelman turn was an evasion maneuver. However, the fact that it put you higher then your foe was the advantage in it. WW1 pilots did a maneuver called a "Reversement" and I have never heard it describe well enough to understand it.

Here's a good thread for someone like you (and me!). The original question was around use of the rudder but the post by Mike East went way beyond that and I use his exercises all the time.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_4439752/tm.htm

Regards,
Andy

Plan ahead a bit. Don't go and invent a new manouver while doing a touch and go or low pass over the runway. Think about it and, if you still want to try it, do it in a part of the sky that leaves you a little space in case it does not go the way you wanted it to.

Like others have said sometimes you need to plan your flights,fly with a purpose. Plan to work on slow rolls for a whole tank of fuel. Then pick another manuever and practice. The best way is to have fun and sometimes plan to do more than just burn holes in the sky and fuel.

Or even better think about it, LAND, think about it more, and a little more, then if you feel confident that you wont end up with a pile of matchsticks at the end of it give it a shot.

Lets see if I can do better with that. I think a "vertical reversement" is a sharp pull to vertical and 1/4 roll, then a full down elevator deflection at the top as the speed is bled off and a 1/4 roll back as you descend. It's a reversing maneuver for low power aircraft with lots of elevator and not much rudder or aileron authority. Like a Chandelle but twisting to use elevator instead of rudder. Somewhere I have a photocopy of a period training poster that shows the reversement.

I always wondered how Max Immelman was able to roll his Eindecker at the top of an "Immelman Turn" at low speed after completing the climb with just wing warping.

Thats nice but what I have found to be a problem in many pilots is the ability to fly a basic rectangular traffic pattern. Seems to be the most difficult manuever to perform.

a basic rectangular traffic pattern is not the most difficult manuever to perform... By far the most difficult manuever to perform is straight level flight, Been flying for years and am now flying pattern contests, but still have problems with that manuever...

Ah, but two legs of the traffic pattern are straight and level flight (so it's twice as hard as you have to compensate for wind in both directions).

Charlie P. What your calling a Reversement sounds like what would be called a Humpty-Bump, now. A Chandelle is simply a steeply climbing 180 degree turn. At least that's what my flight instructor showed me, when I was taking flying lessons. If I'm right, what a beautiful name for something as simple and un-noteworthy as a steeply climbing turn!

I found my copy of the page. We have: Horizontal Vrille, Retournment, Renversement and the notorious "Change of Direction" (two diagrams). I came across this years ago when I was researching a Nieuport 11 build, so I would bet it has something to do with the Escadrille Lafayette training; the aircraft is an early SPAD (and not the McDonald's hamburger box kind). ;-)

Originally published in the New York Evening World.