i learned to fly in a gentle lady glider no instructor. Hand tosses then low hi start flights. after a year of soaring i built flew and still have a goldberg sr falcon. this was 26 years ago. now im into ww2 fighter bombers bipes and helis all without being in a club or instructor. I have my own private field so that makes all the difference. Power planes make everything happen faster. dont overcontrol and try anything other than flying the pattern. learn to land smoothly. then get a 4 star 40 (tail dragger) master that and you can get into a tf p-47. This will take several years as mastery takes a while

timothy I thinkyou are the only one who has read this entire thread and understands my situation, for all others I am not going to join a club, I already have 6 planes and I can fly an electric super cub. I have 10 acres at my house and 80 wide open at mom and dads.
Timothy I am 27 and I built a 4 star 40 when I was 14, cod from great planes, never even put a motor in it, I can't wait to fly it. So what should I practice on my dura plane or the towers voyenger, and should I run my dual rates so the alirons rudder and elevator barly move, or not.

i've been flying for a year now and i had no instructer to help me. like all the other guys are saying i'm sure its the best way to go about things with hands on training buti just did it with the simulator. i musta spend about 50 hours on that thing and then i made sure my plane was trimmed as close as you can get it when its on the ground and away i went. had my first crash hear a couple weeks ago cause my engine quit in flight and i misjudged the distance to a grain bin and hit while floating down. just make sure you can do anything on the sim that you'd do in a real flight without having to think whcih way to move the sticks. you should react instictively. i used a real fight simulator and had good luck with it. i always todl myself i wouldn't try flying my plane unless i could fly inverted a few feet off the ground and right into the camera. after i could do that i had the guts to try my real plane which was landed perfectly ok the first time. i woulda tryed an instructer but there is none close to me. all the best man....Good Luck

I don't think there is a magic time when you are ready to go from the sim to real flying.
How often do you use the reset button? Are you actually in control of the plane or do you
end up saving it more than telling it what to do? are the controls becoming instinct or do you
have to think then react? (please give honest answers it will help).

One of the problems with the sim is that it is very comfortable to have a reset button. If you
choose to continue on the path you are on (no instructor or outside help) you need to be on the
sim until flying the plane away from you, toward you, and any where in between is second nature.
Then you can start another pahse of sim training, have someone screw up the trims and you don't look
at the transmitter just take off and practice trimming without taking your eyes off the plane. also when
my buddy was doing sim training I would screw up the trims and he would practice safely landing as close
to the runway as possible without making any trim adjustments.

Next start killing the engine during the flight, I found that asking my wife to periodically walk in and hit the K button
helped me, (plus she liked doing it) as I would have to deadstick land from wherever I was. I only had 2 formal
training sessions with my instructor before soloing and alot of that is due to the Sim. I only used the PT40
trainer on my sim for 3 weeks 2 hours a night. I flew until I was comfortable taking off, Landing on the center
of the runway everytime, regular and inverted circuits, and deadstick landings.

I am not an expert pilot by any means, not even a novice, I learn fast and practice alot, Sim and Real. I can't give all the
credit to the Sim I had a good instructor (CGretired) and a few weeks after he finished with me one of
the competitive pattern flyers at my club started training me in the art of aerobatics. I wanted to learn by myself
and I am fairly certain that after alot of busted stuff and dissapointment (and money) I would have succeded.
but instead I went withn training and started flying pattern in my first month I finished fifth in the NSRCA district 1
points series in my first year of flying. If I would have learned by myself I would have been lucky to get a plane
to properly takeoff and land in my first few months.

Good luck with your decision whether it be to go it alone or try a few flights with an instructor. I realize
that it sounds like a broken record here when it comes to getting and instructor, but these guys would
like to see you succeed in this hobby, not get discouraged.

follow throw instructions. youll need the throw for getting out oF trouble read my pm. GET A ARF TRAINER THE DURAPLANE IS A DOG! A NEXSTAR WILL WORK OR GET ONE OF THE TRAINERS WITH THE RADIO ENGINE AND SERVOS INSTALLED. A HIGH WING TRAINER NO P-51. ONCE YOU MASTER THIS YOU CAN GO TO THE 4 STAR READ MY PM IM SINCERE AND WILL DO THIS FOR YOU ID YOU CAN GET HERE. i FLY EVERY DAY IN THE SUMMER. iM A TEACHER AND AM OFF

just on a side note,(I didn't read all the posts so it may have been covered already) I just parked my multiplex magister(which is electric) and the damage that was done the the gearbox and motor alone is enough to buy a glow motor that is going to replace the stock power plant. electric really isn't that much cheaper.

What does the " dura plane is a dog mean" and I pretty good with the sim, I fly the yak 54 and funtan 40 99% of the time, I can take off fly where I want to fly and land where I want to land I can hoover the planes like a helli for a while, I am just getting to where I don;t have to think about the sticks just move them according to what the plane is doing maybe I will make a video of me on the sim and post it, that might be kinda fun, what do you guy's think.

its heavy and doesnt fly as well as a lighter wing loading aircraft. Do some reading up on aeronautics it helps to understand wing loading , c of g, and what MAC mean.

you better keep a garbage bag on hand then. I have seen lots of people with you attitude and all they do is crash hope you got plenty of money.there is a person in sydney australia doing 10 years for manslaughter in jail because he had no insurance just for the start then when he gets out he will be sued so his life is all *ucked** uf for the rest of his life let alone the family of the person that he killed just for 10 minutes fun

I hear this alot, the sim is not quite the same as the real thing and flying a Yak 54 and Funtana in a hover is not what you need to be practicing to make a sucessful flight with the real deal. Fly the trainer only and practice making turns while maintaining altitude, figure eights for orientation and touch and goes from both ends of the runway. I know it sounds monotonous and it is but it will make a difference.
The Duraplane remark? alot of people feel that the Duraplane was built to handle a crash with minimal damage but by building it this way it was not built to fly very well. The wing loading on a duraplane is much higher than any other trainer out there so it needs to be flown faster and lands faster, not a good combo for a beginner.