Yeah..my intructor use to slap my hand when I put it on the left stick.
One stick at a time.lol
It was to earliy at that stage for me to make it look scale during banking.

The only time I use the rudder in the earily stages was only when the model was on the ground.

And when I was first allow to use the rudder....it wasn't during banking.
It was slight input to correct my flight path when pratice making a stright path over the runway 2-3 mistakes high.

The wake up the left thumb or left stick usage... I simply practice doing a stall truns, practice letting off
the throttle once I get to top of a loop, or do snap rolls 2-3 mistakes high. None these manuver
require precision input of the rudder..but to simply get me using the left stick agian.

Many of the instructors at my field are not big on rudder use, unless for 3D flying. There's one who I believe uses it a bit but hasn't been around in a few weeks. I heard on this forum that you should get into using it at the early stages, at least for landing and taking off, so I started with it right away, and I guess to the astonishment of the club instructors. They think I'm a little nuts for already trying to learn to use it, but then they haven't seen someone (well one other guy a few years back) pick up flying quite as fast as I did, either. I just hate the look of the plane going around a corner with the tail falling. I feel like it can be prevented. Maybe I should learn to accept it.

well the first model i crashed...was an eaglet (3 channel)...you know, that stage you go through before join a club
And that thing that most noobs do is too much input
It 's was okay until it went inverted ....and of course I pull on the elevator too, trying to recover.

Even after learning to make minor adjustments while trying to keep a straight flight path...I still coudn't slip very will.
Becuase i was just bumping the rudder.

Way before I incorporated the rudder into my banking.
The manuver that taught me to hold the rudder a little longer was the slow roll or a 4 piont roll.
At 2-3 mistake high, i practice doing a slow roll without losing altitude.
It helped me to use the rudder stick with more precision.

Gotcha. I learned not to over control the sticks using the sim (FMS). That and orientation are the two things that I really gained from it. Haven't used it once since I put a real plane in the air though.

No, practice to prevent it (adverse yaw), but don't get all hung up on it. It's a subtle thing, and subtlety is hard to learn. Just like perfecting flairs on landing, or not popping a take-off.

Work on it, don't sweat it. Have fun, as always!

As FlyX says, right now you simply must wake lefty up. That you try to do so is licking that most important part of the battle. He'll become proficient at his new job before summer's over, and you won't have to do a thing but fly. His real training comes as you work those aerobatic figures, and become dissatisfied with corkscrewing loops and non vertical verticals.

It'll come!

J

Ok, thanks. I just realized I was expecting to be able to fly like a pattern pilot in only a month of rc flying. That's rediculous. Will work on some basic stuff to wake up left thumb and get to the point where I don't have to think about direction. Will practice side slipping, correcting rolling with rudder, etc. but will just be having fun flying for a few weeks.

Still the basic question is this: Do pattern pilots initiate turns with rudder when flying a basic pattern, and use elevator and ailerons to keep plane in desired attitude? Or is there a lot more to it than that?

Actaully out of all things..I finally learned to apply the rudder with better precision was
after I started doing knife edges then going inverted.

Oneday I was flying around only going inverted 10-15 feet off the deck only on a straight path...thinking
i was all that.
My instructor told me ...I still sucked..lol
He said try going inverted completly without rolling back.
So i took the model 3-4 mistakes high and start praticing using the rudder during banking
while inverted.lol

given i've been flying couple months, I didn't use rudder in the beginning. Right i now i use high expo on my rudder and i ever so slight apply small rudder when i'm initiating a turn... that's it. and this is when i'm doing circles in the air. When I'm goofing around in the air, I don't use rudder at all except when landing, even then i line up and then bring the plane down and use my ailerons more to keep the plane leveled

I always consider a crab as the airplanes reaction to a crosswind...with no input from me....while a side slip was caused by me using rudder and opposite aileron

Yea, I rarely use my turn signal too. Dosn't mean I shoudn't and I'm not supposed too.

Yes, crabbing and slipping are two different techniques. Both are commonly thought of as being used for crosswind approaches, but they also have other uses in flight as well. In crosswind approaches, crabbing is using enough rudder to "point" the airplane into the wind slightly. This keeps the airplane on a ground track toward the runway while the nose (longitudinal axis) points slightly to the windward side of the flight path. Slipping allows the pilot to keep the longitudinal axis of the airplane pretty much pointed at the flight path while still correcing for drift. The wings are banked slightly into the wind (again, in a crosswind approach) and enough rudder is given to keep the airplane from turning and/or drifting into the wind. I typically use slipping when flying models because it also keeps the wing facing the wind down. This makes the wind much less likely to try and flip the model on a gusty day. Notice that slipping requires aileron going one way and rudder going the other. This is one of the few times cross controlling is beneficial and safe. Slipping, however, is also a little more difficult with models.

Let's imagine this:
A world wide model airplane manufacturer will sell a new 3 channel trainer (No rudder) with 50% off the normal price of a 4 channel trainer.

Would you buy it?

In my opinion this does not make sense to me, I learned to fly with Rudder and elevator only (2 channels), then appeared the throttle control and finally the ailerons, which were a fancy ad to our models.
Of course, now, things have changed and the use of ailerons is very important in flight, many routines in pattern flight need ailerons. (And all routines require a bit or a bunch of rudder)

Just get or build a 3 channel aircraft (NO AILERONS) and have the rudder on the rudder channel not the aileron channel, and then you will learn all about the rudder.

Cheers

I hope you reversed the rudder direction while inverted.

Ghost, I learned to fly that way! And for anyone who thinks you don't need it, try getting the turns to look right on a large warbird without it. My big corsair has the tail drop badly in a turn without the use of rudder.

^^^

...it was a good thing I was at 150' high.

Becuse the darn model didn't go right when I put right the first time.

It's the thing when you do a torque roll....
when the bottom of the model is facing you...trun the rudder stick in the same direct the wing
is diping to level her.

At our club they do push learning to fly with rudder also. Mainly the instructors want to see you use it on the final approach to the runway. And while landing all corrections to the aircraft approaching landing should be done with the rudder. Which on my trainer really tilts the wings in the direction of the rudder movement, so I have to correct the wing position with the aileron. I practice in the turns and have found that now it is kind of habbit to apply alittle oposite aileron to the plane while applying rudder. I am basicaly doing it b/c I was told to. I can do some very cool slow aproaches with the plane pretty flat using the rudder.

But I guess I would say be ready with the aileron while using the rudder.