This is a Slow Stick.... It is an Excellent beginner plane. But it will Not teach you to land a "normal plane". mine normally lands in 6 ft It will teach you orientation. It is like a sim, it can be used as a tool to progress. but unlike a sim you put a brushless motor in it -take it outside and have a blast without costing much. Simulator time and buddy box is your key.

There's a guy that flies where I do, that has been flying for a couple of years and has never landed ANY plane. His son gets him in the air, lets him take over and when he's done takes over and lands. He still has a good time and NOBODY care's if he can land. One of these days he'll get it, but if not he's having fun anyway.-BW

Only 15 props in six months, shoot, I'm sure I did that in the first 2 weeks. lol. i used to buy them 5 at a time. Sometimes they only lasted 3 seconds. I would say to keep at it, get out as often as possible and one day it'll click. After 5 months I am getting pretty good, and rarely crash or break props, but still have a long way to go.

Eta, I'm 41 and enjoy playing video games, and I'll tell you That it took me what I thought was a long time to "master" or even get the hang of flying. Practise and more practise is needed to train your thumbs to do what is needed. It only looks easy.

Yeah, my bad. I was thinking of a regular big stik. I read stick and thats what I think of. But regardless, I still wouldnt recommend learning on that little slow stik either. Thats to play with, not to learn to fly with. At least not here anyway. The small stuff just gets knocked around in the wind to much and can make the learning process harder and longer. Come in on approach and the wind catches that little plane and flips it. Or the gear gets caught up in the grass. Bye-bye prop.

Im now wondering what the "trainer" was. Maybe a Park Zone T-28. JK

My hats off to luker737 for going it the hard way IMO. I now think 6 months isnt bad at all given what he's working with.

Sorry Im biased toward a more traditional 40 sized trainer. Ive been down the small electric route before with beginners.
Cheers.

If this hobby is something you truly love, definitely don't give it up. For me the rewards are far greater than the drawbacks. Six months is not bad in the grand scheme of things to become proficient in RC flying. It took me a year to comfortably take off and land the plane without damage, and many more years before I could do it w/o prop breakage etc (Learned to fly RC in 1983). I remember when I first started flying having 6 or more spare props in my flight box, now I do not have any, they are in the work bench at home..

Keep it up.

Steve

Never stop trying. yes I went from a trainer to the ultra stick 40 and it is easier to land and to take off. Much faster in the air but floats on landings. Keep trying I was on a buddy box for 6 months. Good luck

I want to thank everyone for there replies I think i'm going to keep trying but i think I'm going back to my 40 trainer glow .I can fly it once i get it up just getting it down is the problem that when trouble starts . I have a simulater that i fly about every day and i can land all the plane on it. so maybe I'll try a differant insturtor.

Just remember, don't be in a hurry to get in on the ground. Let it float above the runway until it starts to settle in. Then you can say "by GOD I did it"

Hey there... Back in the late 60's Early 70's... I picked up this crazy hobby, I pretty much taught myself to fly ( 8 - 10 planes later)
The first thing you need to do is get an instructor... hopefully with a BUDDY BOX system. One thing that will help you with orientation when the plane is coming towards you .... ALWAYS remember to "point the stick towards the wing that is down" This way you dont have to think " left or right" IT WORKS !!! Have fun... I know lots of guys who have quit and sold everything they RC they own.... ONLY to come back a few years down the road and fly again..

NEVER STOP TRYING !

Later...

"when to stop trying"

Never "Winners never quit and quitters never win"

Find another instructor.

Foodstick, I totally agree with your post.  I love to build.  And I know my planes dont look so good.  Sure had fun building em tho.   And they do actually fly.  
Its all about having a good time.  Why quit? 

Lots of people go through this, I pretty much taught myself to fly with a slow stick at the schoolyard, it help a LOT with thumb finger orientation..couldnt afford a sim 10 years ago and never got FMS to work with the disc and my radio...so,,I went through several planes myself..a good one thats smaller to learn on is the Ace whizard with an .049, maybe a .07 thunder tiger, just run it out of fuel (small tank) and deadstick it in,,set the prop so that when its on compression it is horizontal...Rog

This have been happening for years...small planes like .40 trainers or electric foamies are not ideal for seniors, as they are too fast/twichy or too light for outdoor conditions.

With one or two of this you will have no problems learning to fly:

http://www.hobby-lobby.com/srtele_arf_6882_prd1.htm


Good luck, Enrique

No, I'm gonna have to disagree with that whole line of thinking....if the guy has a radio. serovs, and a .40-.46 engine all he needs is another $70 trainer....you want him to get a whole new plane/battery/charger, set up thats gonna run into $ thousands by the time he's done, and then gonna have to buy a trailer to put it in!!!!And a slow stick is not twitchy ....its slow....I personally got back into it with a pico stick, yeah its light, and yeah you gotta get some batts but if you shop around nowadays that stuff is pretty cheap....Rog

im 17 and instructing a friend that is well into his 70's. i hope one day he will be able to takeoff and land on his own, weither that will happen it doesnt matter, he has a great time hanging around the field telling stories about his free flight models from when he was a kid. i enjoy listening to his stories and talking with him while i teach him. His wife has alzheimers and if i can help him in anyway i will. i can tell it is really affecting him, he really loves his wife. if i can take his mind off of everything for a few min's, i will spend a hour of my time to do so.

stop flying when you arnt having fun, my friend is really enjoying himself when he gets out to the field and thats whats important, if i have to buddybox forever i wouldnt mind.
if one day he said im not into it anymore i would be fine with that too because i could understand the fustration of trying and failing more than actually flying. i trashed my first model at least 10 times (gws estarter) and bought a gws slowstick to replace it. thats when it clicked, my first flight w/ the slowstick made all the sense in the world, put the biggest smile on my face for the rest of the week, i was so happy it worked because that was really the last chance i was going to give for flying. now 15+ models later im having a blast, but i realize how close i came to quitting.

stick with it, once it becomes a chore drop it, as simple as that. if you arnt having fun whats the point of anything?
life is to short to not have fun.

my advice is take the slowstick, fly it as slow as you can (about jogging speed) and fly it ten feet or less above the ground, if you get in trouble just cut throttle and let it hit the ground. it wont have enough speed/mass to damage anything, then pick it up and try again.
just make sure its a big field with nothing to avoid. also dont fly it above 8-10 mph winds uintil you get the hang of it

Really good advise. I started at about 65 also. My first instructor kind of gave up on me after about five months and three totaled planes and a number of rebuilds. A good day was when I only broke three props. Ifound a guy on Ebay that had 12x6 Zingler for about $0.50 each in a bulk purchase, so I bought about three dozzen from him. I used a lot of them. Still have a few left though.

My second instructor was a susprise. Icould take off OKat the point, so when I got it up, he didn't say anything. What do I don now?? His answer was fly the plane as you want. Wow, no script, no preasure to do it exactly right. I flew with this guy a few times, and a few flights with a couple other guys. Each had a little different approach, and by the time I was on my last instructor, it was about three days on the buddy box and then I soloed. I was flying a 4*60 at this time. Ibroke it in half on my first solo landing. I patched it back and got myCP sticker two days later. I've crashed a lot since, but they are getting a little further apart. As stated, crashes are part of the learning experience. Another thing to keep in mind, that you will not have the eyes and reaction time that the 20 yr olds do, but don't worry about it. It's all about having fun. Even the crashes. I have destroyed beyond repair eight planes. I've come up with some interesting mixes of new and old parts in the process, actually my best flying plane.

If you can strap a trainer wing, one with a reasonable amount of dihedral on a stick type fuselage, you end up with a very good trainer. When I got a bit better on it, I changed the wing to a 4*60 airfoil with a flatter dihedral and really enjoyed the plane. It was about square, IE length and WS were close to the same number. The long moments gave it a nice easy flying style until you cranked up the volume.

Hang in there and enjoy what you enjoy and don't get to cranked up about still being on the buddy box and still crashing. There is only one guy at the field that I have seen crash, including all my instructors. On the other hand, this guy as been a club member for a few decades, and no one has seen him crash, or fly for that matter. I've not seen his hanger, but I understand it is full of the lates and greatest, but he buys, builds, and then retires the planes. He enjoys it and the friendship at the field. More power to him.

Don

The type of plane that will practically fly itself and land itself, time after time is .......any of the free flight designs that are converted to RC. The larger models with big balloon tires will weather vane right in and land perfectly if the pilot doesn't interfere too awful much. They'll handle landing in tall grass as well.
I taught both of my younger sisters how to fly RC with a similar model without the landing gear so they could skid it in on the grass after the engine quit. They learned to fly the "move the stick to the low wing" method and were pretty much on their own within just a handful of flights. The key to quick, pain free learning is to start with a very lightly loaded plane...which none of your industrial standard so-called trainers are any more.

You know, sometimes it is not about spending $70 or $7.000. The price of frustration when we grew older and less patient is much higher.

I´ve flown once a slowstick and yes, it was slow but it was more like battling the wind and turbulence with something that resembles more a butterfly than a real airplane.. harder to fly than a jet in the same wind!

Perfect answer! enjoy your new found freinds and it will come with time!

Hello,

I know this might sound a little crazy, but when I was just first learning, one of my instructors told me to sit down, put my plane in front of me, pointed away, and just work the controls, imagining it flying, I.E. Right aileron, up elevator, then a bit of left to "Roll Out".  making smooth inputs, Imaginary flying, on the ground. just watching the surfaces, watching how small inputs will make the plane do what I (You) want  it to do, etc. It helpped me, it might just help you! 

Seajay!

never crash emall

erbroens

You hit the nail on the head. He needs enough plane to fly. We have a fellow at the field that fly's everything from small eletric foamies to gas and does IMAC. Guess what? Only lands those little guys 1 out of 50 properly. mid size and up nitro and gas lands them all day long so go figure. Stay with it and the telemaster suggested is also avalable for nitro engines great trainer bet you would land it in a few hours flight time.
Best Ron

My take on this is a little different. Concentrate less on the instructor and more on the sim. Buy Realflight and practice practice. Learn to fly and land every plane in the sim .Switch up planes and learn the differences. Practice slow fight. ONLY when you can fly and land all of the planes in the sim go out with your instructor. By that time if you can get over the butterflys you will probably not even need a instructor. I taught myself to fly on Realflight without any instruction. My first plane was a Art-Tech P-51 which I tossed into the air at home in a field one night without any one else around. Ive got dozens of flights on it now with only a couple of busted props. My next plane was a GP Giant big stick with a dle30 on it. Which I love to fly.

Regards
Sbdwag

I am the same age as you. I can tell you that our thumbs don't work as fast as they use to. I had a hard time with the trainers that had lots of dihedral, seems like I had to put a lot of input on the sticks to make something happen. I then went to a big stick and everything changed for me. Not saying go to something like that, just relating what seemed to work for me. I do have FSOne that I use quite often. When I want to learn a new maneuver, I practice on the FSOne first. Kinds get that memory built in before I go to the field. What also helps me, is I try to figure out what I want to do first, then follow a pattern. Helps keep me focused. I also keep the plane fairly close in, like my thumbs, my eyes are not what they used to be either.

I started this hobby at the age of 50 just under 2 years ago. Like you, I found it quite hard and frustrating to learn to fly at times. Our club has several different trainers and I learned something different from each one. At times some of them gave quite conflicting opinions. I found the flight simulators helpful but FMS was not worth the time or effort as it gave me a false sense of capability. Along the way I had a few crashes and completely destroyed my first trainer before getting my wings. The day after I got my wings I totally destroyed my second plane. I've totally destroyed 4 planes now, each crash certainly sucks and hits your confidence levels but I learned something from all but one of the crashes.

Now that I've got my wings, the frustration and effort has been totally worth it. There are days where I go to the flying field and walk off after hours of time there with a grin from ear to ear. While learning, the frustrating / down days definitely outnumbered the good days. Now it is by far the other way around. Getting as much stick time as possible is the first bit of advice I've give. Hang in there is the second.