That's a great way of putting it.

When nothing seems to bother you, nor make you nervous, you've mastered the plane...

As an added bonus, toss in medium winds and include cross wind landings.

If you don't even think about them, you've truely mastered the plane.

I disagree.

You're equating maintenance and up keep, with ability. The two are unrelated.

You can indeed "MASTER" anything. Mastery is nothing more than attaining a high level of proficiency.

This has nothing to do with mechanical failure or even auguring into the ground.

"Master" pilots can fail, and still be "master" pilots, race drivers, etc... as long as they survive.

Thats what helicopters are for. And I hate pancakes. Their like a bloated tortilla.

Thanks.

i agree, when you can do "what ever you want" with your plane and your heart rate doesnt increase, you have mastered your plane

Hi,
If Mastering means becoming competent and flying at the limits of the craft then few people really master a trainer. Try some one wheel touch and goes. I also teach my students to do axial rolls and get good at slow and low flying. Inverted under good control is a good measure IMHO also.

I don't mean to sound harsh...please don't take it that way....but from post 21 I don't think you have mastered the trainer......Now of course I haven't seen you fly.....and I am not taking anything away from your skills........nor Am I saying you aren't ready for a second airplane.....What I am saying is that aircraft is capable of more than you have pushed it to......inverted flight as in the whole pattern.....and perhaps some elevator and rudder to help in a slow roll......with a more aerobatic airplane these manuvers are easier to perform....perhaps that is the only way to learn them...then go back and apply what you learned to the trainer.....
I wonder if we ever truely master an airplane......Good flying to you and good luck 

I agree a 100%! I don't belive there is such a thing of mastering a trainer, or any plane. Thats why I asked the question to begin with. I read, master a trainer then go to a low winged trainer, master that and go to an easy flying aerobatic plane etc. I think the wrong message is being sent out. I would word it something like, learn to solo a trainer with confidence and if youfeel like it, move up to something faster andgive it a try. When that scares the poop outa you, go back to the trainer and work on getting better with it. When you gain even more confidence with the trainer, try the second plane again.

One thing I will dissagree with you on is, why try to learn inverted flight on a plane that isn't designed to fly that way? I don't see that helping any since something like a Kadet LT-40 with tons of dehidral flys pretty weird down-upside. Not that I know for sure, but I don't see that helping any. Something I allways argued against with rc car racing. Most guys will preach, practice, practice practice. I think thats bad advise in a way. Practice doesn't make perfect if your doing it wrong to begin with. Practice perfection with the correctequipment and with the mindset of what you want to accomplish.

Practice "mod", race "stock".

That is the point!!!

It is harder to fly inverted and with total control with a Kadet than with an aerobatic bird.

There is no reason for not trying and improving, even if it takes the help of a buddy box.

Then, there will be much more to accomplish with that aerobat than just flying inverted, with which you are already proficient by practicing under more difficult conditions.

Gary-

My 2 cents worth, from someone else pretty new to the sport (and also from Houston)

Get a second plane.  I had been flying for about 6 months, about 8 weeks solo when I got my second plane.  It is an 40 size ultra stik, top wing, and equipped with flaps (haven't used them yet).  I've decreased throw to something pretty minimal, but will say that the plane has taken my level of expertise (lets call it beginner +) much higher much quicker because there is so much more I can do with this plane over my trainer while at the same time, it is easy to fly and to land.

I still get my trainer out pretty regularly. It's just fun to be able to relax and know what the plane is going to do. 
Larry

I must be missing something. What use is it to learn to fly a trainer inverted when the second or 3rd plane is designed for just that? Can't a trainer just be a trainer?

Were thinking the same bro. I see no reason to wring out a trainer to do something it's not designed to do. Sorta like in manufacturing, it's a non value added operation.

You fly Scobee?

That is quite true... people who believe that they have "Mastered" a trainer, quite often have not.
Even an experienced and able pilot can still learn a thing or two from a seemingly whimpy trainer.

( And YES you CAN "Master" a plane, or anything you want. Mastery is nothing more than a high degree of PROFICIENCY. )

We have a few Giant Scale ( 50%!!! ) flyers at our field, who perform some amazing stunts with their big birds.

One of the guys who flies a 50% Yak, pulled out his old trainer and now brings it out to the field with some regularity.

While we all kidded him about reverting back to a trainer, he commented about how it was more difficult for him to do things on this smaller, less acrobatic plane, which made it a bigger challange for him.

He mentioned that he felt that he had mastered his Yak, but he was still working on his trainer.

Because you'll have to work at making a trainer fly aerobatics where a more advance plane you won't. It's called gaining experience and building skills, and that is what a trainer excells at.

Nothing personal, but having 4 weeks of solo, able to shoot touch-n-go's and 3 dead stick landing to me ranks as a beginner who just soloed. At this point you need to work on precision in how you fly. Loops that are round, rolls that are more axial, Immelmann's and Split-S's that start/stop on reciprocal headings and level, perfectly level straight and level inverted flight, landings within a 2 meter spot 9 times out of 10, etc.

Most flyers want to move on to a secondary trainer way to fast. Take this time and spend the summer working on the fundamentals - there is plenty of time in the future to fly the higher performance aircraft, and you'll better appreciate them when you do move up from a trainer. I have one student who decided he was ready for more advanced planes and wasn't. So far he's crashed probably close to 30 in the past year, and his landing skills are basically non-existent.

I love taking a trainer and putting it through it paces to the limits of what one can do, and there isn't much a trainer can't do that a more advance aerobatic plane can (excluding 3D).

Hogflyer

Ahhhh......If you can fly the pattern with an LT-40 inverted...you can fly anything inverted......I praticed and praticed catching my LT-40 inverted.....finally got where I could do it at will.....as I was doing this, worked on turning inverted.....until I could fly the whole pattern inverted.....why do it with a trainer? Because it is hard....what is a trainer but an airplane you learn with.....
Did it help me who knows but my second airplane was a 4 Star 60....one fine day I was inverted at the departure end of the runway at around 25 ft altitude...no warning dead stick...no problem got the airplane down and stopped it at my feet...no I didn't fly the complete pattern...and had light winds.......but being inverted dead stick while it got my attention wasn't that big a deal.....
To answer your orginal question. No you haven't mastered your trainer.......Good luck and Good flying

You started this thread bringing up an excellent question, which made me believe you wanted to master your trainer, that machine that has been designed to be stable enough as to learn the basics of RC flying with it.

But basic skills are much more than soloing, and they are to be mastered with this type of forgiving model.

A second or third plane may be easier to roll and keep inverted, but it is not easier to fly.

With these models, there are complications of control and flight to pay attention to; hence, that will be the wrong moment to be distracted by improving basic skills.

You are missing nothing; we just have different approaches on what to squeeze out from different models.

I have seen too many fast and capable models smashed by pilots that thought they had graduated from a trainer.

So many good answers to this question, but it begs the question-what is mastering any airplane by definition. Maybe it's as simple as performing the perfect scale takeoff, approach and landing. A trainer is designed to teach you just that. Then move up to aircraft designed for other things.

By the way, perfect takeoffs, approaches and landing are not easy. Just because it landed in one peice doesn't mean total success. I've seen guys that can perform very difficult stuff but can land worth a crap, at least where it looks like a scale type landing. Work on perfecting or should I say replicating scale flight.

A perfect line down the runway, no waivering and take off at correct speed with no tail dragging. A perfect two wheel touch down and slight run out. All these SOCALLEDsimple manuvers are not so simple with any plane-Work on that??

Good luck

I did snap rolls and loops and rolls and even corrected rolls with my trainers.  However, what really told me I had mastered my trainer was I could land the trainer in a box 10ft long and 3ft wide (1ft for the trainer, and a foot on either side).  I could do that both under power and dead-stick.  I could also do touch and goes with just 1 wheel touching.

why not just try the next step up from a trainer with a buddy box to see if your comfortable with it. i've been flying 30 yrs. ON and OFF, sometimes years in between. always nervous when coming back. flying my friends trainer recently, and my son's a few years back, i think i do worse! they aren't fly where you point them. a couple of popscicle sticks under the trailing edge of your trainer will make it more exciting too. (as Mentioned earlier). have a go, just don't go OVERBOARD!!! After a few years off i started back with my first pattern plane. like riding a bike.
just my $.02 worth. BUDDYBOX til your comfortable.

PS. Trainer will make a great floatplane also!!!

Great posts! I am going to just take the trainer out and see what i can do with it this weekend, Sounds like it could be somewhat of a chalenge to try some of these things that is suggested with a trainer. I do not think I chalenge myself enough with the trainer! looking forward to trying some new stuff with it!  Bob



Dont want to crash? land higher!

Want a real challenge?  Most trainers can be flown with just the throttle and rudder, never touching the elevator or ailerons.  Trim the airplane to fly level at half throttle and then go for it.

On my Alpha trainer, the right tire is nearly bald from running one wheel on the ground instead of landing. Ithought I was the only luney tunes doing this. The reason the right tire is the one bald is because the prevailing wind comes from the one end of the runway, and if you screw up the "hold" on the ailerons and rudder, it will run right at you, if you are not on the outside tire, not a safe thing...

Mastering an aircraft, and being ready to move up to a more nimble plane are two VERY different things. 

One can spend YEARS flying the same aircraft, and never really MASTER it.  I do feel, when you can safely, and consistantly perform basic rolls, loops, patterns, and grease darn near every landing it's time to move up to something a little hotter.  Years back, I knew it was time to move up when I was bored out of my mind flying my trainer.  I could fly that ting in my sleep, however I Still own my old Royal Air 40T that I learned to fly on...and to this day I don't think I have "mastered" it. 

LOL, just for giggles I'm gonna take it out at some point this week </p>

I like to do one better - take the plane up, intentionally dead stick and trim it out for a nice glide.

After landing, restart it and take-off. Set the throttle for a slight climb and don't touch it using only the rudder for control. Fly it until the fuel runs out and dead stick it back to the runway using only the rudder (not touching the elevator).

While flying under power, try gaining momentum and do a loop or rudder roll. Lots of fun to be had flying a trainer as a single channel. And for the newer flyers out there, they used to fly single channel aerobatics in competition.

Hogflyer