I was hanging out at the field Saturday, and heard the head instructor comment that he had students stacked up. OK, I'm an "Intro Pilot" so I can do this. He introduced me to "Bob" (not his real name) and said that he is a rookie, with only 3 flights.

So we got Bob's plane fired up, and I told him to taxi out. I had to let go of the trainer switch and save it twice between the pits and the field. He seemed to have No concept of cause-and effect
between the transmitter and the plane.

I took off and got it about 6 mistakes high, and turn it over to Bob. So the plane starts slowly to drop the right wing and ease into a spiral dive. "OK, roll out left and pull up a little. You're diving. Roll out left.You're diving. Roll out left." About out of altitude, I let go of the trainer button. rolled it out, pulled the nose up, and climbed back up to training height. After about 3 or 4 of the previous scenario, I reached over, and pushed his transmitter stick left. "When I say roll left, it means push the stick like this". Silence. But he started paying a little attention to the roll. For a minute. The next flight was even worse.

Basically I don't even know if the guy is watching his airplane. I have never even considered telling somebody to find a different hobby, but this guy is my first candidate. Otherwise, he could not be a nicer guy and I would not hurt his feelings for anything, but I just don't see this ever happening for him.

Has anybody ever instructed a guy like this? The other instructor and I compared notes, and he said the same thing. Help.

I"m working with a person very similiar to "Bob." In fact, I've been working with her since last summer and she still flies like a raw beginner. She doesn't understand simple commands like level the wings and she wants to micromanage the airplane all the time, I just can't seem to convice her that the plane will almost fly itself and that she need only guide it through the sky. I believe she really wants to solo, but I"m wondering if she has the ability. We've tried several takeoffs this year so far, were batting about 500 on that, she still tries to control the rudder with the aileron stick, I keep telling her the right way to keep the plane straight but she just doesn't seem to get it. It's frustrating because I sometimes have to spend more time standing by watching her fly while sacrificing my time with my more advanced airplane. Anyway, I'll admit that I"m no teacher either, I don't think I have what it takes to buddy cord her but she won't fly with our club instructor, oh well, it was good to let out some frustration anyway.

I've found that I can sometimes get though by taking some time and doing some "ground school", not in airplane theory, but in "what your fingers should be doing" and "what you are seeing" theory. Also, finding a polite way to get the guy talking about what he is seeing and what he was thinking. Maybe get him to talk out loud while flying, describing what he sees the plane doing. Something to get the student to engage the brain.

btw, I've worked with students who "white knuckle" the sticks. A guy here the other day was pusing his thumb down so hard he had a divit in his thumb for a while after landing. You could count the "teeth" from the top of the stick. I made a point of telling him to let go of the stick totally, and watch the plane fly level from one side to the other. I told him "ok, now touch the stick and turn" and "ok, you're level out of the turn, hand off the stick". It helped a little. This particular guy just needs a bit more time to be more comfortable and relax a bit.

ps, I'm not convinced that some folks just aren't cut out for this stuff though. Usually they figure that out on their own though.

I taught a gal in a full scale that had the same problem and a few on models as well.

What I did was like Montegue said. On the ground, put the radio in their hands and have them understand what each function does. Explain why the aileron goes up on the left and down on the right, and how left stick makes the left wing go down and the right up. Expain why the elevator and rudder do what they do and also the throttle. Then hold the plane up and bank it and have them move the stick to where it needs to be to correct it. Make sure they understand what each function does.

It is very easy for someone to walk away from a student like this. It is a real rewarding challange to get them to solo.

Every time I told the gal in the full scale to turn one way or the other, she held both hands up for a split second. I finally asked what she was doing. She said, "the one with the L is left", talking about the shape of the thumb and forefinger.

We actually got her to solo and she flew the plane quite well. It didn't end up taking a whole lot longer to teach her, but I did have to use totally different methods to teach her.

Adapt, thats what makes a good instructor. You will feel a great accomplishment when you are done.

There is an interesting thread going on elsewhere on this site about teaching without the buddy box. From what I understand you overlap thumbs on the stick with the students. You manuver while they relax and feel the inputs you make, then you have them try and you feel exactly what they are doing. It seems like it might help Bob et. al make the connection between inputs and what they see. As long as you are willing to sacrifice your personal space for a while.

How I was taught was having my thumb on top of the aileron/elevator stick and my instructor's thumb and forefinger was underneath my thumb. As far as invading any space is concerned, he stood next to me close enough so I could hear him give instruction. BTW, it was only about 5 minutes that he was this close, after those few minutes, he stepped back a couple of feet and more or less simply made "suggestions" as to which way I should move the sticks.

On my very first lesson, I made several landings and takeoffs; with no previous RC flying experince nor sim time. I've also seen him do the same with spectators.

To show me how stable trainers are, he laid the tx on the ground and stepped back for approximately 1 minute. After that, I realized just how easy learning to fly can be.

nascarjoe

You know, I always thought this hand-eye coordination thing was measured in just a few percent from the best to..."needs work".

Boy, was I wrong!

From what I've seen over the last 6 months, is is more like a 90% difference.

Finally got my wife on G2 sim and it took her almost one minute to move the cursor to "new plane"....using both hands!

Tried it on her daughter (29) ....45 seconds just to get the cursor on the right spot to click!

My wife is a hair dresser and ambidextrous...can do many things at the same time with both hands.

Her daughter is a masseuse, same thing!

If you were a client of theirs, you've never know. Never.

But if you're a flight instructor....God help you.

Strange, yes?

2 things i can think of.

put the plane on the ground in front of the student with the transmitter and plane turned on (engine NOT running) now talk the student through a flight from take off to landing "right aileron, a bit more, pull in some elevator to keep it level" etc do the whole circuit from take off to landing with you and the student watching the control surfaces, see if that helps.

also get them to down load FMS and tell them to practice at home on the PC.

Hey, Thanks for the commiseration and input. This student and his wife are both "salt of the earth" and I just want a way to help them succeed. I will spend a lot of time in ground school next time. Maybe all day. Until I'm confident he is understanding what's going on.

I learned with the one-transmitter method. It's more invasive, but sometimes it helps to follow along wiht the stick motions.

We had a guy the same, he never really learnt to fly even tho he could do a good impression of flight, he lasted a few years but gave up.

Thers a couple of tricks i've tried.

hold the plane up and walk around slowly with it, if they move a control make that reaction with the plane, and if they dont let off the stick in a bank, then keep rolling it, if you have to touch the ground ( crash ) then do it. i found after 15 mins of this my student turned from loosing control every few seconds to doing a whole flight almost. He's since been playing on FMS, hes got the orentation, but also turned into a bank and yank monster, thats easier to train out.

Another strange trick is to make the plane more senstive!! yes it works, i got a EPP glider for my girlfriend, like your student she would let it do things and react too late, it turns out she was moving the stick, a good amount for normal flying, but not for low rates, she was waiting for the reaction that wouldnt come, so i turned up the rates, and she had to "fly" it all the time now, suddeny concentration was up and she flew it great for the first day out.

I just rememered something else with my guy above... he wants to fly the plane, so i would punish any small mistake by taking it back, i knew by now he could fly propper circuits and stay at one height, so if he got slighty off i would take it back, he then tried harder to get it right. He can now do whole flights, but his landings need some direction control, giving an example of the correct angle to come in dosnt seam to work too well and 90% of the landings dont use the patches postcode.
i will have to cook up some other trick for this

I too think that nobody is beyond learning to fly, hell NASA taught monkeys to fly sims. I have seen a few people go through the same things that other's here are saying. The key is to find what works for a particular student. One person at my club was having trouble learning to fly. It was'nt until someone started talking to him about model flying and they found that this guy didn't understand what was happening or what to expect when he moved the sticks. I.E he needed to be shown (on the ground) That the aileron and rudder are not the same thing, that a change in power will change the pitch attitude of the plane etc. Once he understood what was going on he progressed at a more rapid rate.
You could try to get them to fly a sim for more practice too.
Think of these problem students as a challenge, don't give up on them. They have probably spent a large sum of money to give this hobby a go.

I have had a few flights on my LT-40 and was shakin in my boots, but I started to work more heavily recently on Realflight and have gotten pretty good at it. It has boosted my confidence so at least I am not so scared to fly the plane..

Hey you are scaring the Beginners!!

I aways find it interesting that this type of post is counter-balanced by the "I soloed on my first flight".

My suggestions (as a college instructor):

See if anyone can bring a laptop to the field with a flight sim on it. Since you are recovering the plane, there appear to be no negative consequence to mistakes made (and hence no learning).

Second, when I was (the learner) on a buddy box, I had no real way of knowing when the instructor had taken over. Mabybe that's the problem here.

i normally let the mistake go as far as i can to give the student every chance of recovering them selves, normally watching it get that low and scary is good enough, however if they can now fly reasonable and are just mucking about rather than doing what i tell them ( plenty of time to muck about after you go solo, and when i give them a few mins to settle in at the start of the flight ) i take it back, this only works with some people....

i do make sure i say, ok i got it, as i take over, i then take it back up, do a circuit so they relax again and then give it back.

however that does lead to the problem that they ask if i did take it even tho i didn't say anything ( coz i didn't take it ) and they are sometimes surprised to find out they did it, a good ego boost for them, but worrying too for me... they should know really...

I make it a habit to say "I have it" and explain why I took over....

Also, I'm a recent convert to Clarence Ragland's "Kinesthetic learning" technique (previously alluded to). I challenged him by offering him a session with students at our club. In one session he had many students (including problem student and one heli student) flying literally Instructor hands off.

Even if the Ragland method is 100 times better than buddy box, I don't think it will become that popular. The problem is that it requires the instructor and the student to be very close and touching. A lot of men find that very uncomfortable. They are much more comfortable being a few feet apart with a cable between them. I know this probably sounds crazy, and it's not the kind of thing anybody would say anything about, but I believe it would have an effect.

I looked at his website and have to say that the diatribe against the buddy box was a bit over the top.

I'm sure the method is effective, but it might be more appropriate to compare it to Sim -> Buddy Box, rather than just Buddy Box. A sim certainly gives you feed back as to the reaction of the plane to control movements.

I don't think any of the instructors or students at my field last year (all men) would have been too keen on this approach.

I have had instruction with the buddy-box and the Ragland Technique and believe me, the RT is many times better than the BB. As far as those who may be a bit homophobic, please reread
this thread: http://www.rcuniverse.com/showthread...334#post960772

For the most part, sometimes I didn't know if he was standing next to me or not. In fact, while taking instruction, I was chatting with him only to find out that he was some 10 feet away.
When he assisted in my first few landings, he had to convince me that that I had indeed landing completely on my own.

I've seen Ray Smith's pic of him teaching on his website and although these teaching methods are similiar and with nothing against Mr. Smith's method, Mr. Ragland doesn't hold his hand over the student's hand. In fact, there is little to no physical contact at all. For the most part, there is much less than shaking hands with someone.

Why do I get the feeling that some don't want there to be any improvemnt over teaching technique. As a hobby shop owner, I am certainly glad that there is a much more productive teaching method such as the Ragland Technique.

nascarjoee

Paranoia.. Maybe?

I generally agree that the Ragland technique seems to work better for most people. Personally, I learned on the old "gimme the box" method. It worked, but I wouldn't suggest it

Some of the other ideas about holding the airplane and showing how it responds are great, wish I thought of it (I don't have any difficult to teach people right now, but had one years ago that I still remember). I wonder if something like the AMA's little table top plane would be useful in this area.

I think part of that is that the Buddy Box is frequently "mis-used", and Ragland tends to compare his technique to the worst of the BB, not the best. (though as I said, I do think it's better than the best BB). I don't use Ragland myself, though, my club has a rule that all beginners have to use a BB, beleive it or not. And I don't feel like fighting a political war over it. Too much BS, not enough flying.

Here are some common "mis-uses" that I've seen, and ways to make the BB work better. (IMHO)

- No groundschool/understanding. It's really easy to let the beginner on the box before they really actually understand what those sticks really are doing, and how things interact. I've been guilty of this myself, not taking enough time prior to starting the engine to make sure the beginner knows how the controls should be used, and why. Common problems include the things mentioned above like understanding throttle vs elevator, and other things like "boxing" or "jabbing" the controls (pumping in "jabs" of control input, not the proper smooth "feed and hold"), or "binary control" (full stick or no stick). I try to tell guys how to move the sticks, not just which stick to move in which direction.

- Taking over too soon. A lot of instructors take over so quickly and so often that the beginner never learns how to recover, or even what they did to get there in the first place. If the plane is upside down, and you have altitude, let the beginner get out of it, just talk to them. I only take over when I have to avoid a crash.

- Allowing the beginner to become instructor dependant. I've seen beginners who were really fast to say "take it!". I only take it when needed as above, and then for only as long as necessary. Though I do allow newer students to ask me to take it over so they can catch their breath here and there. Guys closer to solo don't get breaks while the plane is in the air, you want a breather, get to level flight, then relax.

- Communicate. Someone else pointed out how important it is to say "I got it" and "you got it".

Anyone have some others?

fully agree with those.
teach rolls and loops ASAP
the reason being is it breaks up the boring circuit flying and keps the brain alert, it also teaches them how to recover, any posistion the plane is in, is mearly a roll or a loop half way through or combination of the both, once they get this, they can recover from most tricky situations quickly. ( if not waiting till the last moment teaches well too )
I dont load them up with silly hints, like propping up the wing with the stickwhen your comming towards your self, this confuses, and slows down reaction, it may take a little longer to get it, but it'll click quicker and become more instinctive, afterall we all look in the mirror and cope ok.

heres by biggest trick, it sounds very weird but stick with me.
Before you sleep you have about 30 mins where you lay there thinking of nothing, this is the perfect time to fly, imagine your holding the transmitter and fly the plane, throw in some wind, some landings ect, your brain will do an amazing job with this, best of all you sleep with this as your last learnt lesson and it will stick. i improved amazingly fast after i started this.
its also well know if you learn one thing in a day, then try to learn something else, you'll forget some of the first, so try to make learning the only big thing you do that day, also practice just one thing like landings for a day, before moving onto something else the next day/week

I agree with phillybaby about the loops and rolls. Usually on the first flight (depending on the student of course) I have them do a loop and attempt a roll (some trainers don't roll too well). This lets them get a feel for the "range" of control they have where just flying a circuit doesn't. After a while I make them take the plane up a little higher and tell them to move the sticks however they want to see what it does and then have them recover.

Another thing I tell students is not to move the stick but to put pressure on the stick. I think this gives them more feel and keeps them from banging the sticks.

Even with the BB I will occasionally reach over grab the stick to show them the control movements with their finger still on it. So it is possible to use a combination of the two methods

Getting back to the original question...

I saw a case like this at my field, with a very experienced instructor. I sometimes hang around the instructors to pick up tips (since I learned with a very inexperienced--actually no experience--instructor). What got my interest was the instructor was saying stuff like, "You have to look at the airplane to fly the airplane," and "Did you see what the airplane did?" I really don't know what the issue was. It was a teen, and it appeared his father wanted him to fly a lot more than he did. It wasn't like the kid had an attitude, more like he was really spacey. It was strange, almost like he didn't understand the connection between his fingers and what the airplane did.

A few years ago I was teaching an older gent to fly and it seemed that very little progress was being made. It was a combination of nerves and a little clumbsiness. One day he showed up with a Futaba Co-Pilot on his trainer. Well, I was skeptical but that thing worked perfectly and was the best thing for him. He soloed that day and his confidence soared ten fold.