Have been practicing with the G3.5 simulator and can now taxi, takeoff, circle the airfield, throw in a loop or two with a barrel roll and land consistently well. Using a PT 40 trainer. Was at the airfield yesteday and there was a big competition show going on. So being a beginner I was talking with some of the folks that were there for info on flying. I was talking to a "OLD TIMER" and he said that I should be using rudder to turn and control landing yaw and leveling the plane with the airlerons. Later that day I went to the hobby store to look for a second plane. One of the salespersons said that I was fine for now and that rudder will come into play later for acrobatics which I don't foresee myself getting into. I enjoy the larger scale planes and really don't have a interest in snap and roll right now. Right now I'm putting together a Hobbistar 60 with a .61fx OS. Now all this time I have been using the airlerons for turning and landing and have no problems. Should I stop using the airlerons now for turning and landing? Tried to switch to using "RUDDER" and crashing all the time on landing but can turn in the air OK. Also I use elevator alot for controlling up and down pitch when landing with using engine power. Getting a little frustrated because now I'm thinking I have start all over again and shake possibly what might have become a "BAD HABIT". I do go to a local club and they seems willing to help so I just thought I would get the forum's input as to how everyone feels about this subject. Thanks again to all.

Don't worry about using the rudder for now. There are some that will say you need to learn how to use it - and you do... Some day.

There are also those who say you should learn to drive a car with a stick instead of an automatic transmission. BS

Using the rudder is a lot more critical on full-scale airplanes, but it's not nearly so important on models.

Learn one thing at a time as your comfort level allows. When you are ready, start learning to use the right stick, but for now, stick with ailerons.

i fly in 3-d competitions and trust me if your not hovering or throwing in some high g. and slow speed mauevers there really is no reason for a beginner to bother jump to far ahead of himself and making a silly mistake causing the loss of a plane or a close call. if you need help on progressing i have no problem making your flying look smoother and add confidence to your flying. just email me... [email protected]

the answers are yes and no. You have to coordinate turns using both ruder and ailerons for the most effective turn. The trainer is different then more advanced aircraft. When you use the rudder the trainer rolls in the direction of the turn and points heads down. you must learn to use the aielerons and the rudder together for a better turn. The old timer meant to use the rudder to adjust the yaw of the aircraft meaning adjusting the heading of the plane when you are near the ground and unable to tilt the wings with the ailerons for fear of cartwheeling by touching a wingtip on the ground. This comes up more when you have lower wings. Also a coordinated turn using rudder and ailerons if faster and more precise when you get the fell for it so you don't have to make those long 747 type landing approaches. You should be practicing flat turns high up using the rudder for yaw and neuatralizing the roll and downward heading with the elevator and ailerons. These skills come in handy when you have to make a landing in a severe crosswind situation. Our field has crosswinds about 75 percent of the time and these skills come in handy for side slipping the aircraft and when you use them consistently you never have to think about them again. The more advanced planes will have less rudder aileron coupling and you will have to increase you use of rudder to maintain headings in good looking rolls and knife edge flights and hammerheads, so in other words you might not use it much now but if you want to improve and advance in the hobby start adding the rudder to your skill set and you will have less problems in the future. The reason you are not originally trained about rudders in the trainer is that you have enough to think about to fly the plane before we add another control surface for you to think about. When I train a person to fly the flat turn is near the end of the lessons just before landings due to the fact of the consistent crosswinds at our field.

Learning how to incorporate your rudder control is important. What happens if your landing at a RC field that has one runway, and you've gotten yourself into a pretty hefty crosswind situation? Rudder is your friend. You dont have to overdo the rudder, just tiny uses with your rudder. play with it, See how it works and see how it reacts when you use rudder.

Add a bit of right rudder, left ailerons, keep adding a little more of both and watch how the plane flies... straight, but at a crab.. thats what you will need to do in a heavy crosswind landing, its also useful for recovering from stalls and other basic manuvers on landing..

Using your rudder is important for clean flight, but its not the end of the world if your not using it right away.

Yeap don't worry about the rudder for now.

You're suppose to use the rudder to yaw, which will help you align better but as a newbie it'll complicate everything for ya.
Becuase you'll over think, over correct or move the rudder too much.
Which will actually make your model roll. Then you'll try to corect it with the rudder..only and it won't roll back fast enough
....becuase you're loosing speed...Speed is your Freind (wind blowing over your control surface)

Wings with higher diahidral will do that..Just read up on flight theroy a little bit and you'll comprehend .

As you practice making a striaght path over the runway more. 25"-50" off of the deck. You can practice making those little
input or corrections.

My instructor...would not allow me to land until I've had master my striaght flight over the runway and master my proceedure
truns from all directions at a slower speed.
Bascailly he was teaching me how to land 50' feet off of the deck. So i don't trip if i get in trouble...I add power to abort bad
approches instead of yanking on the elevator.


As you did with the airlerons.
The samething in a torque roll or hover...when the model's bottom is facing you....trun the rudder stick in the direction
the wing is dipping to level the model.

Practice doing a slow roll or a 4 piont roll with your trainer. To keep the model on a level flight path..you must apply rudder and elevator also

If you have a single runway and a heavy cross wind, a beginner has no business flying.

As I said, eventually, you'll want to learn how to use it. But don't worry about it for now.

You've been using the simulator to help the learning, so keep using it. Practice using the rudder on takeoffs and landings for runway alignment. You need to rely on the rudder for that no matter where you are in your learning.

It's not like it's a really difficult skill to learn. It isn't. And rudder is what you need to be steering the airplane with on takeoffs. It keeps you from killing your airplane. So is it needed to begin with? If you wish to keep from causing takeoff crashes, yeah, probably. And if you want to keep from causing tip stalls into the dirt on final, you betcha.

When a model is near stall speed it's best to do yaw correction with the rudder. If the airplane is just reaching flying speed and needs to be straightened back onto the runway, if you give it aileron/elevator to turn, you're increasing the chance one wing will stall first, and that the plane will stall. Look around these forums. There must be a billion posts about just exactly that. And a couple of trillion about tip stalling on landings. And the bottom line is you steer the airplane on takeoff and landings with the rudder when the airplane is slow and low.

You need to learn to use the rudder? Yeah. Unless you don't plan to takeoff or land.

And your sim will help bigtime. BIGTIME..... crank in some crosswind and have at it. Won't cost you a dime. And since you've got Real Flight it's easy to vary the wind direction. So while you're practicing, change the direction every so often.

BTW, dial in some appreciable turbulence while you're at it. It significantly increases the reality of the practice.

I really should just write a script for this.

[link=http://www.amazon.com/Stick-Rudder-Explanation-Art-Flying/dp/0070362408/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206902677&sr= 8-1] Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying - Wolfgang Langewiesche[/link]

Buy, Read, Enjoy.

You have to remember...a cub's diehedral is not as much as it is on a trainer.

If you havn't mastered the slip sand slide.

You watch the flag and go around until the helfty cross wind or swirling wind drops.
You don't have to land it on you first apporch, second, or even third.

That's what proceedure truns manuvers are design for, it'll teach you to fly a stright path
over the runway, trun around from different directions, banking in different directions, keep the model in front of you.
This way you can pratice sliping 50-100 feet off of the deck if you enconter cross wind while making that stright path
over the runway.

you're not going to be controling that rudder like a mad man..i might bump it once or twice to make what people said....minor adjustments.lol

Good rudder practice and a bit of fun to boot. When you get the airplane in the air, sim or real, do flat turns. ie... turn the plane with the rudder while keeping the plane level with opposite aileron, this is good practice for cross wind landings without putting your plane at risk. You will learn how to keep your wings level while the airplane makes needed rudder turns to stay lined up with the runway.
Play around with the rudder and ailerons while in the air and it will make you more comfortable using them when landing.

Every time I go up, I " play " with the rudder, I'll get about 50 ft are so high on final and " play " with it and watch what it does, ie; the yaw.