Hi mjd3,

Thanks for the clarification. I am not a full scale pilot, so I defer to your knowledge.

I grew up in a family of pilots. One of them is a very experienced, old-school, stick and rudder guy (with about 8,000+ hours of time instructing in everything from Stearmen to King Airs) taught me the above technique as something universal. Another of them - who it happens, was taught by the first - was a very experienced (35,000+ hours, mostly in commercial airliners), made sure that I understood the ramifications of losing an engine, on both single and multi engine planes.

As it turns out, I never pursued full scale flying (too busy with work), so I am not the one to listen to for full-scale flying advice. I have found that everything that they taught me applies amazingly well to R/C, though

-Wade

--same principles, just smaller. You might want to try the level off and acceleration during your soft field take-off technique because without it, you're climbing out just above stall speed. If the engine quits like that, the nose will drop before you can react. It could save your model in the event of engine failure during the climb, plus, it looks cool.

-Michael

Yeah but my instructor never taught me to use the rudder and I never had enough room to pick up enough speed.

Hi Perjar,

The rudder is a pretty important control. If you are not comfortable with it, that could be a big part of why takeoffs are hard. You'll also find that the rudder is essential to do landings in a stiff cross wind.

If you are still working with an instructor, I would highly recommend that you see if they will work with you on use of the rudder.

If you have progressed beyond working with an instructor, then I can make some suggestions for learning about the rudder.

*** Note that you should use caution whenever you try something new in the air. If you are not absolutely confident in your ability to recover and land the airplane from unusual attitudes, please don't go out and try any of this. Also, consider finding an experienced pilot to go out and buddy box with you and work on the skill of recovering from unusual attitudes. ***

Now, if you are comfortable flying your plane, then it would be a good idea to go out and play with the rudder. Always go at least 3 mistakes high or more when you try these things. At first, just move the rudder left and right. Don't be shy (you've got lots of altitude, right). Move it all the way to one side and then the other. Don't jerk it, just move it smoothly and somewhat slowly back and forth. Watch the plane. You should make to big observations: One, you'll notice that the rudder has far more authority than the ailerons for turning the airplane. Two, depending on your plane, you may notice that the nose drops far more abruptly than it does when you use the ailerons.

After you've wiggled the rudder a few times, you should try anticipating the nose drop and using just the right amount of elevator to prevent it. This takes some practice. When you get it right, the nose won't drop or pitch up when you feed in the rudder.

Once you've got that part down, you should try doing a turn using just the rudder - no ailerons. The first thing you may notice that the rudder works "correctly" for doing a turn. By that, I mean that you'll feed in rudder to start the turn, hold the rudder all through the turn, and release the rudder when you want to end the turn. This is quite different than what you do with ailerons. With an aileron-only turn, you probably feed in aileron to start the turn, and then release it most or all of the way through the turn, and then feed in opposite aileron when you want to stop turning. The other thing to notice here, depending on how your plane is set up, is that you'll only need a little bit of rudder to do the turn. If you crank the rudder all the way and then hold it, you might find out that the rudder overpowers the other controls. If this happens, the wing on the inside of the turn might drop excessively and the elevator cannot hold the nose up. If this happens, the plane will spiral down. This is no big deal, since you're 3 mistakes high. Just release the rudder and fly out of it. (Note that, if this happens with a trainer, it is very likely not a spin - most trainers I've flown really don't like to spin, and you need to use power at just the right time to "kick" them into a spin).

With a little bit of practice, you should be able to fly circuits around the field just fine using only rudder and elevator. Once you're comfortable with that, it's time to bring ailerons back into the equation. Try using both rudder and elevator to enter the turn. You will find that the plane is *very* responsive. As you are doing this, remember that you want to use rudder to control the rate of the turn, and ailerons to control the bank. You may also find that using a bit of aileron to level the wings when you are done turning makes things look nice and crisp. When you get this right, you will doing "coordinated turns" (when you use just ailerons, you are "slipping" through the turn, and when you use just rudder, you are probably "skidding" through the turns. If you could ride in your airplane, you would find that both rudder-only and just aileron-only turns are pretty uncomfortable to passengers. It takes both controls together to turn properly.)

Finally, once you've gotten the hang of coordinated turns, I would strongly recommend that you learn slow flight. By slow flight, I mean *really* slow. With a nice breeze, you should be able to turn into the wind and match its speed and just float in one spot (I call it "kite flying" because the airplane looks just like a kite with no string when you do this.)

To learn slow flying, get even higher than 3 mistakes. Fly straight and level for a bit and then reduce the power to idle. After reducing power, use the elevator to maintain alitiude. Be very gentle on the stick. You don't want to pitch up and climb; you want to gently feed in just enough elevator to maintain altitude. As the airplane slows down, you will find that you are slowly pulling the elevator further and further back, and the airplane is getting slower and slower.

Eventually, one of two things will happen. Either you'll run out of elevator, or the plane will stall. Niether of these conditions is a big deal (your more than 3 mistakes high, right?) In either case, if you keep the nose straight with the rudder, the plane will start floating down slowly.

*** Ok, I have a caveat here...I'm talking about a trainer. If you try this with a highly wing loaded plane, like a warbird, it could come down in a hurry and if you aren't right on with the rudder, it could spin. If you believe that you've entered a spin, apply rudder opposite the direction of rotation and release the elevator. When the rotation stops keep the nose down until you've picked up a fair bit of airspeed, and then return to straight and level flight. This is just a caveat here - I don't want to panic you. I've *never* seen an R/C trainer enter a spin from this exercise. ***

Ok, back to slowly floating down... While the airplane is floating down, try moving the ailerons side to side. You'll probably see that they have very little effect. You may even see, depending on how the wing might be stalled, that the wing banks opposite of the direction you moved the stick. Now try the rudder. You should find that the rudder still has considerable authority, and never moves opposite the direction you expect. Before the airplane gets too low, you should recover it. To do this, just release the elevator (which you've had all the way back while the plane is floating down) to drop the nose and add some power. (If the engine quit, drop the nose down enough to gain a good amount airspeed and then land.)

The final stop in mastering slow flight is to apply some power just when the plane begins to float down. The trick is to give it just enough so that the plane stops descending, but doesn't climb, and doesn't accelerate (if it does speed up, it's probably because you released some of the back pressure on the elevator stick.) With a bit of practice, you should be able fly all around the pattern right on the edge of a stall - probably a not much more than a jogging pace. Remember that this is *slow flight*, not 3D, so we're talking about a small amount of power. You definitely want to fly "on the wing", and not "on the engine." Practice up high, and do all of the things that your instructor taught you do to at cruising speed. You should be able to do left and right turns, descending turns (I discourage climbing turns on the edge of a stall unless you are high enough to recover from an accidental spiral or spin), 360 degree turns, and figure eights.

Once you've mastered slow flight, and know how the airplane responds "on the edge", you should find that your landings improve dramatically. Part of this is that you'll have more confidence, and part of it is that - if you're like most new R/C pilots - you're probably landing too hot. Slowing things down really helps (especially if you have a short field, which it sounds like you do.)

If you get this far, I hope that this is helpful - or at least interesting reading. I've found over the years of doing this, that there are lots of "right" ways to do things, and that my suggestions are only one way. Even after teaching R/C flying for 8 years for our club, I find that I still learn new things myself almost every week.

Thanks,
-Wade

WadeH, good idea, your suggestions about learning "slow flying." It a good confidence builder and also helps students learn more about his/her plane and get comfortable with it. Lots of them move to a more advanced plane too soon after learning to take off, fly around the pattern, do a few loops and land. I try to get them to stick with their planes a while longer, some do, some don't. If we can get them to observe the 3 Mistake High rule when they want to be "creative" then we've accomplished something at least.

You also mentioned "Parking It." I like flying in a good stiff breeze, but with an airplane I know well. It's a lot of fun to run through a series of aerobatics then swing around into the wind, chop the throttle, feed in up elevator and using all the controls keep it "parked." Sometimes it will backup, depending on the wind. It's a good exercise for hand and eye too! We used to call it "hovering" until 3D came along.

I once saw a (full size) Pitts pilot at an airshow, take off and go vertical. Then at about 500 feet he reduced throttle and hovered. We had a good stiff wind that day, and he rotated the Pitts putting the full wing area into the wind. When the wind hit all that surface it carried him hovering, back along over the runway. Just past Airshow Center, he went to full power climbing out to continued with the rest of his routine. It brought everyone to their feet! A fantastic and impressive effort. That is knowing your airplane. One of these days I'll duplicate his manuever, but at 3 Mistakes High!