RCU Forums - Solo'd my trainer for first time today!

I finally got the hang of take offs with my Tower Hobbies 40 Trainer today and made 3 successful flights! Practiced loads of approaches and made a few successful touch and goes too! A couple of my landings were pretty bouncy, and one was way too steep and I broke the prop... oh well, but the plane is still in one piece!

I think I sussed what I need to do for take off, and I think I can see what I was doing wrong before. I think I was starting too slow on my take offs before and not advancing the throttle fast enough at the start. I think I was spending too much time thinking about keeping it straight on the runway and was already going fast enough to take off, but instead was worrying about it getting squirly on the runway. This time my friend giving me lessons told me to just push the throttle to full, and then nudge the rudder occasionally to keep it straight. I held a tiny bit of up elevator too, and in no time it was taking off by itself! Awesome! This was a major step forward from the last time I went out flying with my friend, because I couldn't believe it seemed so hard to take off!

Still need to practice getting lined up on the approach for my landings (and practice with the rudder), but at least now I feel ok about taking off and landing by myself.

Looking forward to next weekend to go out flying again!!