Hi Im learning to fly on a sim. To my knowledge theres two ways to turn a plane left or right.

1. You can deflect the aelerons and have it roll/bank in the direction you wish to turn. you also need to deflect the elevators and cause nose pitch up if you want the turn to be a level turn. Turning feels easier using this method.

2. deflect the rudder to cause a yawing motion. this is accompanied by some roll which you correct using aelerons in opposite directions. in addition you will probably need to use the elevator as well to keep the height level. The turns seem to be harder this way.

I was wondering which of these two techniques is the right one. Someone mentioned to me in another post that learning without an instructor can lead to bad habits (unfortunately can't be helped at the moment). Im afraid one of these methods is a "bad habit". Im assuming method 1 is the right way to turn the plane and method 2 is the bad habit. Am I right? Any input/suggestions are welcome.

Im also not very good at landing. Any tips on how you do this right? I just use the elevators to get down to a lower altitude, and also slow the engine so Im descending a bit. My touchdowns are kinda hard tho. Does this just fix itself with practice?

If you guys know of any online tutorials on flying correctly, post a link please. Thanks.

Ok, this is a great question! It can be quite complex depending on who you're talking to. I started a thread about using rudder a while back. Most new RC pilots learn to steer the plane using the ailerons and elevator. I agree that it seems easier.

Most of the guys at my club who started when I did (this summer) were taught to use ailerons and elevator, and not to worry about the rudder. Now, watching them land, especially in any kind of wind, is just not pretty. I joined this forum before I started flying and learned about the importance of using rudder, especially when taking off and landing.

When doing a basic turn in the sky, I started out using ailerons and rudder. Withing a few weeks I was not satisfied watching the tail sink through the turn, so I started adding in a little rudder to kick the tail up inline with the rest of the plane. Now when I make a 'coordinated turn' (using ailerons AND rudder) I think I do both at the same time, or maybe the rudder a split second later, and am actually rolling the plane the OPPOSITE way with the ailerons to correct for the added roll when using rudder.

I am not an instructor, I am a new pilot but strive to fly the best I can, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

As a beginner, your turns in the sky should be with the ailerons and elevator. When you are very comfortable flying the pattern (boxes) in both directions, and figure 8's, start playing with the rudder. When you're landing, you want to try to steer the plane with the rudder. When landing and taking off, you steer with rudder and keep the plane level with ailerons. If you are trying to steer with the ailerons, you will end up landing on one wheel, having a wing tip hit the ground, etc.

I believe it is never too soon to start using rudder. Like I said, start playing with it as soon as you are comfortable flying the plane. Try making 'flat turns' (steering with the rudder and keeping the plane level with ailerons). You are using a sim, so you can start using the rudder now! That's what I did, and my instructors were amazed when I was landing on my third day of flying and using my rudder to steer the plane onto the strip.

Landing...I was advised, and it is sound advice, to not practice your landing too much on a sim. The sim does a great job of teaching orientation and the very basics, but it just does not replicate real flight characteristics, ESPECIALLY the forces and nuances that happen when taking off and landing. The only thing I can suggest is practice controlling decent rate (how fast the plane comes out of the sky) with the THROTTLE and the elevator. I think the most important thing about landing is learning how fast your plane wants to sink - when you are comfortable with that, and can adjust it, landing is just flying slowly onto the runway.

So definitely listen to what others have to say - there is much more experience out there, and people do things in different ways or explain things differently. Personally, people tell me "I've got it" when it comes to landing a plane. Now I might not have it when trying to put it into words on the screen!

Hi Gary,

Both of those techniques are to be used to make an airplane perform a coordinated turn.

Roll slight aileron and hold it to begin the turn while simultaniously imputting a small amout of rudder in the same direction. As a result of this change (banking angle), the elevator will need a small amout of backpressure (up) to keep the airplane at the same altitude. This is all done in one smooth fluid motion. To stop the turn, roll the airplane level while returning the rudder to neutral and relax the elevator imput back to neutral.

Try it on the sim... practice makes perfect.

The most common way of teaching people to fly is elevator/ alerion, but most simple trainers use rudder / elevator control due to the diheadral in the wing. Some models fly better if you couple rudder and alerions together by adding a little rudder with alerion input, and example would be a piper cub, generally any plane that is " short coupled" or the nose is rather stubby benifits from using a coupling mix of rudder and alerion. But seeing or reading that your flying a alerion equiped model, just stick to alerion and elevator flying, but on landings and take off, switch to rudder/ elevator control. The reason being that most people tend to forget about the rudder after having thier hands at alerions, but the alerions aren't going to help you when the wind is not blowing directly up the runway, this is where rudder is most effective for you, instead of banking the plane, you can yaw it into alignment for a landing. I don't know how many people I've seen crash because they blame the wind coming across the runway causing them to catch a wingtip on the ground, it could have been avoided in the first place if they used the rudder more and didn't depend on alerions for directional control all the time. So plug away at it and you'll be ready for the real thing, just remember, the plane can be rebuilt in 3 seconds in a simulator, but the real thing has no reset button and it makes you know that the first time the instructor says " It's all yours"

This is a golden piece of advice! I cringe when I hear/see 'soloed students' fly without using rudder. It MUST be used in all phases of flight (for the makings of a good pilot) ... After lift-off, in flight and on final approach.

I am starting to use the rudder more and more, but even when I was starting it was never an issue, I always had the feel for it on landing, and I think that was because of the Sim, I always liked landing in cross winds or swirling winds on the sim, it really helped me learn to work the rudder on landing. Try to fly the sim in high winds, that can change 360 degrees in direction, you will learn the rudder FAST!

I always used rudder, but recently, I started to fly helis, and you use rudder all the time, can't get away from it, just have to. In the real world, most students didn't like my training because I would tell them to use rudder and elevator on landing only. When they questioned my advise, I would ask them if they used alerion to control direction on takeoff, then they would get it, the best pilots I've seen played around with 3 channel trainers and progressed to advanced planes, the worst pilots I've seen have been the ones that bank and yank, that's all they know.

Well said!

Hmmmmm, Do I know the same group of pilots you know??

My instructer disconected the ailerons (in perfect trimmed position) and made me fly most of the day with out ailerons. Rudder has been no problem since. Glider flying a little while will teach good rudder skills well.

I like to set up a new students plane so that he can be taught to fly as if the two sticks had a physical link between them. you can do a full roll with just the rudder. An LT 40 will do nice axial rolls with the right rudder and elevator inputs.

I hate to say it but it's common up here in the northeast to leave newbies in the cold after soloing, it's almost like the feeling you get when you pass your driving test and get your license, but all your friends can't go for a cruse with you because your a new driver. As soon as you solo, many instructors walk away and send you to the wolves, the mentallity of he can land is good enough really sucks, I've had many pilots ask me to madien a new plane because I try to teach beyond soloing, I don't 3D, and I'm not a pattern pilot by far, but I help out when I see someone struggling with learning to open up the flight envelope of her/his airplane. Between helping them learn to fly and progress to a more advanced level, and teaching them about basic maintainence and repair, tends to make them better all around pilots than the usual bank and yank rookies that earned thier wings and thier training stopped the same day.

I couldn't agree with this more! I really like all the guys at my club, a lot. But after I soloed, I wanted more. I tried asking questions, and I guess got a few answers, but I really wanted to be challenged. I learned pretty much everything I know on my own and with the help of this site, with the exception of a few good tips. I'm very thankful for RCU, both for the ability to ask and learn in the forums, and for the introduction to pattern flying and pattern pilots, and people in general willing to help me succeed.

Keep asking questions!!!

Funny, because everytime I visit a hobbyshop the owners always swear at RCU, saying that anybody can be an expert and know everything there is about the hobby, so they never go to them to buy stuff or for advise. The funny thing is the people who are giving honest answers and not trying to push a product are on this and many other fourms, just real life joe's looking to help out a fellow flyer in distress, or just enlighten them. I wouldn't pitch someone on the differences of A/e vs R/E and then push them to a certain model, let them make the decission on what to buy, I just lay down the facts or give an opinnion.

Something I find funny is when I try to see how much my plane will roll or drop the nose when I use my rudder, or how much the tail will sag if I don't use rudder, and I see the plane makes a perfect turn! I think, 'hmm, that was odd...' just as I realize I was coordinating the turn without thinking about it!

What I learned is that when exactly to use the rudder, and how much, etc. is pretty much personal preference. I thought there was 'one way' to properly coordinate a turn. Then I found out that many of the experienced pilots, even the best pilots at my field, don't even use rudder unless they're flying 3D or landing. Some people say they initiate the turn with rudder. Some people like to make flat turns. I don't even know if can say exactly what I do - I think most of the time I use A/E and feather the rudder through the turn; sometimes I make flat turns, sometimes I use just rudder and elevator.

Like I said I don't think there is 'one way' to use the rudder or make a turn, the way is just to use the control surfaces effectively to do what you want the plane to do. Again, the exception being take-off and landing. Here it is important to use the ailerons to control the 'levelness' of the plane, and the rudder to steer the plane on and off the runway.

There are definitely all kinds of people with all kinds of experience here on RCU. Some seem like know-it-alls, some really do know it all. I imagine most of us just like to fly planes, talk about flying planes, and help others out so they can share the AMAZING satisfaction that comes out of this hobby.

And there we have it, the answer to this hobby, we all have one thing in common, we all play with model airplanes, essentally were all grownup kids having fun.

I am not sure what level of flying you are at but later on with a good radio you can mix aileron and rudder together so when you turn both parts will become part of the turning motion. Not so important with the smaller planes but some of the bigger ones need a mix to get them round corners. I have a large ESM Beaver that flew like a pig until we got the mixing correct.

With a modern good quality radio you can mix all sorts of things together so if you need or require it you can mix aileron and elevator to help get you around a corner a bit easier. I have a pylon racer with aileron and rudder mixed together and am madly reading the manual to work out how to mix elevator in there as well. When flying at 120 miles an hour on a short circuit need to keep it as simple as possible.

You can do all sorts of things with modern radios just need to read the manual and work out what works best for you.

The OP is still learning on a sim and I believe has not yet flown a real RC aircraft.

I definitely agree to the meat of this statement. However, I think the time when a pilot starts to use mixes is a personal choice. I have a very capable radio, but choose not to fly with mixes. I may use them next summer when flying in pattern meets. I think it's important to know how to fly different planes well, without using the tools in the radio - in case I need to help someone else out, or if something goes wrong or something. It also just seems more fun to actively control the different parts of the plane in real time.

I'm definitely not saying that mixes aren't better, they just have a time and place...

Another thing is that people seem very quick to add mixes in to their plane, when there are other problems that may not be getting addressed. I have some pretty complex trimming charts which help me set up my planes. If a plane is pulling to the canopy in a knife edge, there is usually something else going on (at least for my Venus planes which should knife edge without coupling). If you are just covering up a problem with a mix, you might be making something else worse - inverted flight, vertical flight, etc - when adding in the mix.

The wright Brothers were not only the first to fly, they were also the only ones (For a long time anyway) to realize the importance of banking the wings in a turn (Remember their wing warping?)

A turn is done by banking the wings with the ailerons and controlling pitch with the elevators.

A rudder is used to control the Yaw axis. And while a rudder CAN be used to turn, it is not the accepted method.

Thanks for the response guys. Im gonna focus on turning with ailerons but also learn to use the rudder, hopefully I will find a nice balance with time.

http://www.geistware.com/rcmodeling/...some_pilot.htm

http://www.wild-wings.co.uk/

http://www.masportaviator.com/fh_advancedtraining.asp

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Regards!