I probably getting a F-22 PTS when I get enough money and would like to learn to fly it on my own. I have real flight G2 and a Super Cub but I doubt that is enough practice. Do I need an instructor or can I take it slow on my own?

Trust me that if you try it on your own your progress will be sllooowww. What with all of the repair time and all that.

Do yourself a BIG favor and join a club with an instructor. Any associated expenses will be recovered in money saved on repairs.

OK, Just WHY do you want to do this on your own? No clubs, no money or too much macho ego?

While it's possible that you might learn to do it on your own, the chances of you doing it without damaging or destroying the plane are very slim.

Ken

Get a good Instructor or get a lot of X-Tra planes.

If you can get an instructor for a few lessons, do so. I wanted to go it alone myself and I'm glad I listened. Your instructor can teach you some basics that you won't necessarily learn on the sim. For example...My flight controls were not setup right and it flew awful the first flight. I'm pretty certain I would have crashed had I taken it off on my own. If you have not flown before, at least get some instruction for the first few until you know your plane flies right. It's hard to get it in the air and work out all the bugs when you really don't know how to fly it. I got some instruction and still have made a couple of bonehead moves and damaged mine when I went at it alone.

http://www.modelaircraft.org/clubsearch.aspx
A list of local clubs

You absolutely can do it, but just remember you'll have to land it.

I recently went to my LHS to buy my first plane. When the owner realized I was prolly gonna spend some cash he got 2 models that I was interested in off the shelf and opened them up. I was looking at park flyers with about 35 inch wing spans. One was a Great Plains and the other was something similar. Good kits that needed electronics and some "put together" time. I kept asking questions. I think he finally realized the obvious. I had never flown before. He asked, what is the last plane you have flown? I said I've never flown. He grabbed those 2 planes and put them back up on the shelf. Says, I'm not gonna sell you those planes. Then says, I want you to be successful and come back to my shop without being hacked off. He shoved a GWS Slow Stick at me and says here, go fly this then come back and buy the other one. Made perfect sense to me. The Slow Stick was only about $30. If I wreck it, no biggie!

Oh, I almost forgot. I've been flying a sim for over a year and I told him that I could fly and land everything on the G3. He still says to fly the Slow Stick. I took his advice because he told me last year that he had been flying for 30 years.

I have plenty of time to find and talk to locals and decide then but while I'm here, do you have to have AMA insurance and are there restrictions on where you can fly?

eatmydust, so your learning on your own with it? hows it going?

I was wanting to start gas now though

Hi there metabolicmaggot.

Welcome to R/C Realm[8D]. I have been flying the plane almost for the last 16 months not years, I had P51 Mustang PTS, My mustang crashed it was not my fault, it was due to Rx failure which burned inside, my high wing trainer, unfortunately a friend of mine lost it in the air, it was a great flying plane, nearly 14 months I have been flying solo, I control plane well, land it good, and take if off nicely, Im pretty confident now. When I started flying on the Simulator, I flew it for a month, then I was pretty confident, I can fly by my own, but honestly, when senior flyer handed me the Tx, I was going to crash my plane, in couple of seconds, he took the Tx from me, and told me, you need training. I used to get so aggravated why the hell they don't let me fly, but honestly, Simulator flying is much more different then real flying, Sim does help a lot, get you control over gimbals and many things, but with senior flyers I learned more quicker than flying on my own, and crashing the plane in the first place. I can assure you with instructor, maximum 15 to 20 flights you would be flying solo, if you learn quickly like I did, which Im sure you can, its another plus point. Getting an instructor saves time and saves your plane.

now Im flying my second plane, which is easy sports, unfortunately engine is giving me hard time, and I know I can fly it easily, one of my friend who is senior flyer and instructor, he hands me his plane, for take off, for landing for everything without having a fear of being crashed as he sees me flying.

Im sure you would progress quickly.

All the best to you

Mody

Read my reply to your poll.

M_Maggot,

One of the easiest things to do is to find your local club - or clubs.

In m MANY cases, they will have a club trainer that they will let you try at no cost to you at all.

Then depending on how good or bad you do, they can recommend a good trainer (Someone may even have some cheap used equipment) and will fill you in on Club Dues, AMA, etc.

I think it is a bad idea to try and learn on your own, especially with a plane like the PTS F-22. Join a club and don't waste time crashing and buying a new trainer everytime you go out. www.midwestsundowners.com
The field is in wheeler and we have enough experienced pilots to train you. Or go talk to the guys at G&G hobbies and they can tell you about other clubs.

I just finished building it. Waiting for the wind to die down now.

Well if you have the money laying around to keep purchasing one trainer after another when they constantly crash, I say "go for it."

How dumb would it be to start flying a PTS without a trainer?

Here's an idea, Go to Vegas and tell some casino that you are willing to plunk down $400 and if you get a double with one roll of the dice you get to take your $400 back - otherwise they get to keep it

That's about how dumb it is

Hey, you asked

Actually it woukld be smarter to lay the kit down on the driveway and run over it a few times. Would demonstrate that you don't want to prolong the aggravation of it all and just get it over with.[8D]

You might be able to fly the plane in a reasonable facsimile of normal flight if you can fly the simulator and you have natural ability. The problem is that if and when the plane is acted upon by natural forces of wind gusts updrafts and a myriad of other factors you might not have time to think about the proper control inputs to save your plane. Instructors usually have a lot of experience flying and react instantly to the problem and save a plane where to newbie has a small brain lockup for a few seconds becuase he is unfamiliar with the controls and orientation of the plane. One of the big problems that a newbie might find himself in is banking an aircraft and instead of righting the aircraft by reversing the ailerons he inadvertently rolls the plane inverted. the new flyer might not realize all the options to recover the plane. If you have altitude you give up elevator and do a half loop. Giving negative elevator to try to right a trainer from inverted is almost always a bad choice. giving negative while trying to roll a plane is ok if you are to low for a half loop but trainers are very slow rollers. An Experienced pilot would attempt a negative snap roll if he had minimal time but a newbie would not even have time enough to think of the manuveer. Instructers keep you in the air and give you stick time and experience and help your plane live through bad choices

How dumb would it be to start flying a PTS without a trainer
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Really,Really,Really,Really,Really,Really,Really,R eally,Really DUMB, But go ahead & have a good time.

You cannot legally fly on or overfly public or private lands other than your own with most glow planes.

At best you could obtain permission from someone to use their field ( assuming you don't own a farm, etc. ) but then there are the liability issues.

Any neighbor could call the police and they could cite you with wreakless endangerment if you fly outside the perimeter, too high, around power lines, etc.

You could potentially give the rest of us a "black eye" so to speak, by your actions.

Most parks just barely tolerate SMALL electrics, and want nothing more to remove you and your plane from the area when possible.

Your best bet is to join a club, there are many, many benefits that you will not realize until well after you are a member.

AMA membership and insurance is usually required by most clubs. This is a good thing for you in case something ever goes wrong.

Most clubs will also provide FREE training, and sometimes trainer planes for you to use.

Most clubs will have sanctioned fields that are kept in good condition. You can usually fly there without the worry about being kicked out, neighbors, etc.

So take the advice being given to you, join a club.

That was one of the best pieces of advice I was given.

If you have no local club you can join or go get lessons from, and are left with no choice but to learn solo.

You can learn solo if you live out in the middle of no where on your own land or someone's land you have permission to be on or from a rural paved road even; as long as it's out in BFE and no houses around for miles. Just be ready to hit the sim hard and have a big pocket book for plenty of covering, epoxy, spare balsa and wood to make repairs.

Getting in the air is not hard, it's the landing and flight orientation when the plane is flying at you that will bite you. Practice on your sim doing long even circles and figure 8's to get your hand eye cordination used to the flight orientation as iplane comes towards you. Next practice touch and go landings on your sim, then transition to landings. Once you have mastered the circles, figure 8's and landings; your not ready yet. You then need to bump up you sim winds speed to 10-15 mph and put your sims controller trims to the extremes. Once you've mastered that now go and put the trims to the extremes in the opposite directions. If you mastered the circles, figures 8's and landing with your sims trims at the extremes with the winds at 10-15 mph, you just might be ready to try a solo flight. Just remeber use your sim as a learning tool, not as a game were you banging the sticks; use it to learn the subtle stick movements it takes to fly a plane.

So to answer your question, is it dumb to learn without a trainer/intructor; yes it can be considered dumb if you try for the instant gratification on your own; but if you take the time and seriously learn what it takes to solo flight on your own it can be down, lot's of flyers are self taught, while others learned from a instructor or like me were it was a combo of self taught with a couple of buddy box flights. Only you honestly know your skills and learning curve, only you can honestly tell yourself yes I can learn to fly solo properly and take my time doing it or no I don't have the patience to learn to fly solo properly therefore it's not a good idea. To each his own.

I think it irresponsible for anyone to encourage this idea of learning on your own. The last post eluded it could be done under certain circumstances. Given where metabolicmaggot states he is from this really a bad idea. Highland, Indiana is in Northwest Indiana part of Chicago land. It is a densely populated area with not many open areas, and no parks were flying is legally allowed. On the other hand as I stated prior there are at least four clubs within a 15-20 minute drive that all have sanctioned flying fields and all have instructors and none of them have club fees that are hefty. As someone said it could give us all a black eye if you go out and do something foolish. Being a flier in the same area at on of the four clubs I know we need no p/r. So let's stop encouraging this kind of behavior for the sake of this hobby.

You need to learn to read.... I said he should only learn on his own if he has no choice as in no clubs nearby and he lives out in BFE, out in the boonies with no house's around for miles... apparently I guess you don't know what BFE means.