Maybe this is an over asked question but what is a good measurment to do your first solo? I've had several flights doing circles, figure eights, I need more take off and landing practice I know but is there a rule of thumb? I ask because my flight time is limited due to coordinating "good weather" flight times with an instructor. Once I can solo, my only restriction to flying will be how is the weather and not if there is a trustworthy instructor at the field today.

Also, does anyone have any advice/steps for learning and performing take offs and landings? I know my instructors have plenty of input on these things but I figure there is a wider range of oppinions on this forum. Curious what other people do to help ensure safer and smoother take offs and landings. I'm flying a Great Planes PT-60 Trainer with an OS .61 FX.

You are ready when your instructor says you're ready. That will be when you've got circles, figures eights, turns, and level flight mastered. It will be when every landing is "decent" and your take-offs are straight and gentle. Landings are usually what hold most people back. It takes practice and a good instructor to master them.

My only tip for landing is always flare! Don't fly it to the ground, fly it to just above the ground and then let it settle down on the main wheels. NEVER force it down with down elevator.

Good luck!

Taking off is the easy part, hold her strait, give it full throttle, and gently ease her into the air with a little back pressure, then go into a pattern.

Holding the pattern and landing is what takes practice.

Your instructor should have you practicing lining up with the runway and practicing to hold a pattern, either left or right hand depending on the wind direction. You do this over and over and over, each time reducing your altitude, then, before you know it, your landing and have soloed.

That is where I emphasize the practice, getting your plane lined up on final approach and fly down the center of the runway is harder than it looks, especially with cross-winds and thermals, but can be mastered with practice.

And also remember, altitude is insurance, do not be afraid to stay high when practicing.

One major rule of thumb is to announce your intentions to other flyers since you could be holding up the approach pattern for others to take off or land.

Same goes when you start practicing touch and gos, always announce or have your spotter announce your intentions, it is good flightline courtesy.

If you're getting good at the other stuff, start doing touch-and-goes.

Just burn a few tanks taking off, come around, and land.

Over and over and over.

In other words, practice baby, practice!

I've recently amended my criteria for cutting the cord. My current students must:

1. Hand me the transmitter, plugged in, with antenna extended. (good habit. A former student forgot to extend antenna, because I had been doing it.)
2. Start the engine personally, walk behind the wing, retrieve glow starter, and free the plane from the restraint.
(all the above, every flight, starting with the first, when I help with the details.)
3. Perform takeoffs & landings without me touching the sticks.
4. Complete some stall training at high altitude, with adequate recovery - again without getting me concerned..
5. Remember to pull the throttle back when I get them in trouble and switch control to them.
6. Do some adequate rolls and loops, with the training plane.
7. Cope with crosswind landings - plenty of that this year!

At that point, I'm just standing there watching, so they might as well solo! I don't walk away when I hand them the transmitter, though, I stand there with them. Seems to give 'em confidence.

Good luck,
Dave Olson

I understand exactly where you are coming from, as I had that same trouble when I was starting. Between family commitments, weather, and access to a trainer, I was looking at 3 weeks between lessons. At our field, training days were sunday afternoons, with a pretty tight time margin. When I was starting there was 5 other guys as well, all qued up around poor Bob, who had to deal with all of us newbies.

What I did was explained my situation to Bob, and since I had a fairly good feel for things, we both took an afternoon off, and did what Minn Flyer suggested, four full flights of touch and goes. At the end of the afternoon, Bob said that he felt comfortable that I was safe, and I soled that weekend.

Let me tell you though, that first time all by myself was pretty nerve racking, after I took off and landed successfully I was jumping up and down and yelling with joy!

On the takeoff thing ... think smooth, let the plane get up to speed, be prepared to compensate with rudder, and don't force it off the ground. I love the look of scale takeoffs, and if you keep things straight and have enough speed, a little up elevator and it is in the bag!

For landing, HarryC really helped me out walking me through the theory on the forum. Throttle=altitude, Elevator=speed. Slow that trainer down, if you don't, it will bounce and roll and tumble down the runway. I see so many (not so newby) pilots fly it to the ground and force it down with elevator. Like mentioned before, slow the model down by applying up elevator, and when you get a foot off the ground, use up elevator to try and keep it airborne. The result ... a smooth bounceless landing.

Good luck ... Bo

Thanks! Everyone for the great advice. Everyone says practice but having all the steps memorized in my head before I get to the flight line seems to help me a lot. I think I have taken off and landed about a million times in my head.

bgorham you hit it right on the head as far as my situation goes. The club I usually go to has training on Wednesday nights and getting off work and getting there in time usually leads to little flight time especially with all the other newbs like myself. I found a field about 40 mins away that has far less people there. There is an instructor I met who I enjoy working with. Since that field is less busy I like to go there since he can spend a good part of the afternoon with me. The drive makes weeknights tuff for me after work so I usually have to stick with Saturdays and hope for good weather.

I'm in the same "boat" as you :-) I've had great instruction but with stick time precious it's been a long time training. My instructor tells me all I need is landing practice and I should be good to go. I just need more practice.

I've also been using Great Planes "Real Flight" it's been a big help.

Here's a link to a web article that makes sense to me, check it out.
http://www.mentorrc.com/HowTo/How%20To%20Land.html

BotleRocketWar is correct. when you instructor says,"Kid you going to be flying by yourself today." Then your gonna solo.

Air Jockey,
I think you have a lot of decent input, but I also think your real question is when will YOU solo?

So, from what you've told us, I'd say a couple more outings should do it. (Of course I'm saying this without seeing you fly.)

I'd ask your instructor how long HE thinks before you can solo. Ask what he thinks you need to work on most, then ask him to help you with that.

I like my students to tell me about their concerns, what they think their strengths (and weaknesses) are. When I take a student up, I'm usually planning that session to work on what I perceive their weakness to be, but my perceptions may not coincide with his.

Hang in there, it's worth it in the long run. I learned a great deal from my instructor. Things it would have taken me MUCH longer to learn on my own.
Dennis-

I agree 100% with DBCherry. Try hard and fly right!

LOL... After the first landing I made by myself my instructor said OK... you're on your own from here on. That was the end of my instruction. In hindsight he was right I guess but it seemed crazy at the time.

Let your instructor tell you when you will be ready to solo. After about 2-3 months of off and on flying between bad weather and work schedules, I was doing all the take offs and landings, snap rolls, spins, etc. and my poor instructor was standing there holding the trans. with his finger on the trainer switch getting very bored. well he had me land the plane pulled the umbilical cord out handed me the trans and said fly the damn plane. next thing I knew I had soloed. I didn't think I was ready but he knew I was. So LISTEN to your instructor I haven't meet one yet that didn't want their student to be ready and throughly enjoy the hobby

airjockey, im gonna give you the best advice i know and in my opinion i think it is very very good

1.) when it comes to landing, never over control it, many people think it requires precise accurate control but as long as you have a good approach, shut down the engine when its coming in, keep the wings level and just land it as its coming on the stall, you'll know when it is as the elevator will almost lose its ability to control pitch. Never force the plane down, let it lose speed first to get a good landing and a safe one

2.) When you do solo, practise as many approaches and as many touc-and-go's as you can, it gets you more precise with the controls and gets you familiar with landing and taking off more

the above advice has worked great with me, sometimes i now catch the model instead of landing it

remember, though, you shouldn't ever try this unless you have a slow model, the engine has been shut off and you can control the plane very well for landing

I soloed when I had my first plane together. And the next, then the next. Single most expensive and frustrating thing I ever did. Muddled through it. Three or four ARF trainers then I got it one day. No club around here. Finally put it on skis. You can land it anywhere in the snow. On a sunny day in the snow you can see the shadow come up to meet the plane. That helps alot in landing. Good luck

Well, being that I just soloed yesterday, I can shed some light on it. I, being someone who gets to the field if they are lucky once in two weeks, knew I was going to take a long time to solo. However, with the help of Real flight and a few really good instructors, I soloed with about a dozen flights under my belt. The day was calm, and wind was not too bad.

I did have a problem though, after everything was over in my solo flight, the instrcuctor wanted me to dead stick it in. Well, about 2 seconds after he cut the power my right aileron came off and fluttered to the ground, someone in the "peanut gallery" called it. My beautiful Sig Senior Kadet started to head toward the forest nose first. I yelled, "I GOT NO AILERONS!!!", but I was able to save it, I got the nose up, gave her some throttle and got her somewhat stablized. I then gave one of my qualifiers the sticks to bring it home. I probably should have brought it in with just the rudder, but I don't think I could have. I was really shaken up. Anyway, even though I did not dead stick, my qualifiers said my recvovery was beautiful and that I pass.

I still do not feel I am ready, it's a scary thing...At any moment a nice day could turn ugly.. But, it's all in the sport of the hobby..

I soloed after the 5th flight of my trainer, but I practiced on the simulator very very much. I'd spend hours and hours until I could do 5 consecutive takeoffs and landings perfectly. Then I modified the fuel tank size so that I had only one ounce capacity, and I would try for as many takeoffs and landings with the eventual deadstick when the tank ran dry. Good thing to practice, because you are going to have a deadstick eventually. I know it helped me, when I had the first deadstick, no problem, brought it in for a nice landing, just like I practiced. Takeoffs and landings, thats all I would do. On the 5th flight with the experienced flier he held the training switch the whole flight. I couldn't believe I had done it all by myself, but he said that I had. Next time out at the field I was the only one out there and successfully completed 5 flights by myself.

You can takeoff and keep it in the pattern, that's a very good start. When it comes to landing, I always practice approaches. Going around a few times seems to get me into a rhythm and when I have a good one, I set her down nicely.

My trainer plane was (and I still have her intact flyable) a Sig Kadet Senior that I built. Equipped with a TT GP42, it's very docile, best flown on light wind days. Actually a fun 3 channel.

I credit my success with the 40 years of previous model flying in Controline and Indoor Freeflight. Building my plane was easy, understanding the aeronautics was also good, actually flying scared the crap out of me considering all the work I had invested in the plane. So make sure your plane is airworthy, if you're not sure, ask an experienced person to look at it. Study all that is available to you. Books, simulators, and there's even a few videos out there. I still use my simulator.

The more homework you have done, the greater your chances of success. If I would have had an experienced flier work with me more, I would have gladly had him fly with me.

Good luck, and have fun.

Tom