I'm relatively new to flying planes. I've spent hundreds of hours on realflight and am very comfortable flying just about any aircraft there. I've just started flying a real avistar .40 and doing quite well. I'm anxious to get to low winged single/double engined scale war planes, as well as biplanes. My question is; how do i know when is right to make the transition from the trainer? Are there certain skills I should expect to master on the trainer before I bother with moving on?

welcome to this great hobbie and site. its hard to tell when one is ready to move on. if you can take off and land good and fly in any conditions and are quick on the sticks and a fast learner, you might be ready. but we all thing of ourselves more ready than we actually are. have your club trainer evaluate your flying to see if your ready. the best thing to do would have the club trainer put you on a good second plane with the buddybox. and no the buddy box isnt just for newbees. its a good way to move on with the next plane without having to worry about if your ready or not. go to kens list of trainer planes and pick a plane on the second plane list. slow down on the warbird stuff. get that out of your head right now. you need alot of stick time to prep for those. you should have gone through the 3 to 4 major planes changes before the warbirds, unles you go to the hanger 9 p51 PTS. now with the full trainer setup, that could be your second plane, good luck, take your time and enjoy the hobby without rushing yourself









area 53 SPAD shop

The skill that you need is called, "being ahead of the airplane". The faster the plane and the more difficult it is to fly, the more experience and skill is needed to " stay ahead" of it. Its best to take smaller steps. Advance just a little at a time. Get a slightly faster and heavier plane, become skilled and experienced with it. Then move up again, etc. Jump all the was to warbirds, especially twin engine warbirds and they will bite you before you even know what happened. So the short answer is, you probably want an advanced trainer, like a Stik or a Sportster before leaping to a warbird. The Avistar is an excellent trainer. And in many ways it is much like an advanced trainer. So, my best guess would be that one step to a sport plane like a Sportster, then if all goes well ,you would be ready for a scale warbird. And thats still a pretty fast progression. Most folks might go 3 or 4 planes between their first traner and a scale warbird.

I would ad to Draftman1's good advise, each plane has it own feel. Just after I first soloed, I started dragging out planes that I had built before learning how to fly, and a couple of other old planes I aquired. Although I had some trouble going from the stable trainer, to the big stable 4*60, to the skitterish Quicke 500 to the 3D I built, the switch became easy. I had a couple incidents, putting the quickee and the 3D back on the bench and I settled in on the 4*. I flew it for several month and then lost it. I still didn't have either of the other two flight ready so I picked up an ARF 3D. I had gotten in the grove so bad with the 4* that I about lost the new plane in the first 10 seconds of it first flight. I finally got it down and it was three days before I got the nerve to try it again and it was a repeat of the first flight.

My point is don't get in the grove with one plane. Sooner or later, you will loose it and it's not fun learning to fly again. If you are doing good with your trainer, go for a second, something like the 4*, and after you have a few weeks on it, go for the next step. Keep flying all of them. It makes you a better pilot and the stepps up become smaller.

Don

Yes campgems, very good advice. the stick is an excelent plane, so is the 4*. I fly spads (coroplast planes) and not balsa. I went from trainer to tricycle gear stick to symetrical wing taildrager to low wing taildrager. It took a few weeks in between. the bad part for me was when I would go the the club to maiden these planes, nobody was there to maiden them for me so my next level was made really exciting by having to maiden a plane that I had no knowlegde of there flight caracteristics.the Spads have made flying more affordable to make the transitions. it was me and my two boys learning how to fly, balsa would have broke me. spads are very cheep to build and very durable

First off, remember that a simulator is a good tool but it is no substitute for the real thing. Most people tend to move from their trainer too early (myself included). Your Avistar is actually an advanced trainer/high wing sport plane. You can fly it for a long, long time with no fear of outgrowing it. In fact, there is nothing wrong with keeping it around for years, well after you've become an advanced pilot.

Concentrate on the basics. Be able to control the plane rather than respond to it. Master landings, dead sticks, turns, basic maneuvers and so on in all sorts of conditions. A lot of people can toss a plane around the sky pretty impressively but can't land it to save their life. Perfect straight and level flight on a purposeful heading can sometimes be more difficult than some aerobatic maneuvers (without precision of course). Mastery of the basics seems to be what separates OK pilots from excellent pilots.

The war birds and biplanes are a common goal for everyone. Learn to fly right and fly well though through a logical progression. Then when you do get to those advanced planes, you will have a much easier, more enjoyable time.

When you've done 15 smooth landings with a trainer that only require a refuel to fly again you're ready for a aerobatic model. A low wing can also be model #2 or #3. Most second planes last a much shorter time because the pilot gets overconfident. Not a good idea to sacrifice an expensive model for #2. After that a biplane is no worries. But scale usually means relatively delicate landing gear and the need for a great deal of finesse in landing to protect it; as well as more difficult engine acccess for tuning and set-up. A scale twin engine? Yowzer.

I guess you'll know when you're ready.

Don't put too much faith in simulators. They are helpful, but no substitute for actually flying. No one ever got worked up worrying about destroying their computer when a simulator crashed.

I have to agree with about everything that has been said in this post Frecky. It's all good information IMHO. Just to reiterate a thought that has already been addressed, I would say two things, don't get rid of your trainer (you can always come back to it) and don't be in too much of a hurry to move up. There's still alot that you can learn from each plane as you progress. Remember, it's not guys at the field who fly a lot of planes that everyone admires, it's the guys who fly a lot of planes WELL. Learn each plane individually as you progress, it'll make you a better pilot. Don't just mash the throttle and tear around the sky. Instead, learn to fly the plane at all throttle settings, perfect your landings and learn to fly each plane (trainer included!) throughout the entire envelope of its capabilities.

Yeah, I too must agree. I keep telling people here on RCU that that best friend they have right now may get boring while you look forward to moving up, however, you can, and will, go back to it for a reality check once in a while. I sold my original trainer, but bought another for two reasons. 1. to have a club trainer and a buddy box to help those that wanted to try it out without spending the money on a plane until they knew it was right for them, and 2. to have a basic airplane to go back to just to relax and to re-learn the basics of a trainer after flying some of the high-performance stuff. Always good to go back to your roots and just relax and play.

You'll solo soon, when you are ready, and that will open up a whole new set of doors for you.

CGr

Wow. Thanks to everyone for all the great info. That's another reason I'm enjoying this hobby; everyone is so willing and anxious to share their knowledge and help out the newbies. I am going to perfect my abilities with my Avistar and then start looking for a good 2nd plane. I did my 1st landings and several touch and goes last week. I hope to get out today and focus just on landings. I'll try to keep my anxiousness for the warplanes at bay.....

Thanks again guys. I really do appreciate the help.

Jeff

Hey man it sounds like you started just like me. I also got an avistar for my first plane and I thought I had mastered it so I steped up to a hanger 9 f-22........dont reccomend that plane. But I will say that the avistar was a great trainer......mine is now dead cause I got a bit to comfortable w/ it, snap rolled it onto the runway......may she rest in piece.

the next plane that I would recommend to you is the low wing Sky raider, got mine at hobby town usa for 70 bucks arf. it was simple to put togther and cheap enough that if I put it into the ground its no big deal. I def wish ya the best of luck with whatever you chose, be sure to take care of that avistar, you can always put a .46 in it and really wake her up.

Thanks for the encouragement. I had a good day at the field today. I flew solo for the 1st time - from taxi to takeoff to landing - wuz way cool. Another guy had an avistar with a .55 in it and he could do almost anything he wanted. After all the advice above, and my experience today, I think I'll definitely stick with the avistar for a while. I'm going to look for a .46 tho, as I would like to have a little more umph into the wind. I'm really enjoying this stuff....

I've even contemplated buying an Avistar and I've been at this a few years now.

A lot of great advice here. 2 years ago I used Real Flight to train myself and used no instructor to learn on glow. I flew my trainer (tower trainer 40) for about 2 months before It felt to restrictive for me and I upgraded to a basic semi-sym. low wing bird. I too revisit my trainer for basic re-fresh, especially if I have been away from flying for a few months. (like now). I have since started to explore 3D but sport/pattern flying is what I like.

Bottom line is if you feel comfortable with upgrading then do it!


Good luck!