First Time Pilot's
 

Some tips for first time pilots.

After you are done playing with the cheap toy's, ie. 50.00 and under, get a high wing, traditionally designed, simple 3 channel plane, preferably something that's slow with a regular rudder/stabalizer. The idea behind that is to let you make corrections prior to it plummeting to the ground. The first launch should be on a windless day, if there are some gusts, be sure you are down wind of the plane in case it catches it, it will come your direction, it's alot harder to fight against the wind after it's caught hold, don't worry about where it's going as long as it's gently going upwards on the initial launch, get some altitude before you start making turns. When you make a turn, just nudge it in short increments, do NOT bury the stick in any direction at any time, just give it a little tap, letting it auto correct itself to be flat and level before you nudge it again in the direction you want it to go, it will take several nudges before it has made a complete turn, so be sure you are at the largest possible field you can find.

Keep the throttle down to a minimum, only kicking it in full power for it's initial launch, giving it a little more juice should it have to break through a gust, but the idea is to keep it as slow as possible without it stalling. If it starts to get out of control, release the sticks, hopefully you have enough altitude to let it auto correct itself, the most common mistake is over compensating, a well designed trainer plane will know it's own center or gravity and will want to level out on it's own, if you are finding yourself having to make constant adjustments, you should either make sure the plane was assembled correctly, or re-evaulate what you are flying in the first place, it's supposed to be a gentle fly, not white knuckle.

Along landing, most of the time it will be non powered, save a little juice for emergency, the sims do a great job in this area with the gliders, you get a good feel for unpowered landings by just keeping those in the air without stalling, you will be wanting to do the same on your's, where it will be just a few simple nudges to the elevator to keep it level, if you put in too much elevator, it will do the familar, roll a coaster, series of sweeping droops.

When you are 15-20 feet off of the ground, there is no more room for turning, so where it's pointing is where it's going to be landing, if it's going the wrong direction, get some altitude "at least 50 feet" to make corrections and reaproach the landing strip, always make sure the prop is not spinning as you land in order to minimize damage.

As stated above with the plane auto leveling, the plane should fly by itself, with a minimum of input from the controls, as long as you can keep that in mind, you will find it to be much less stressful then originally planned, most of these trainers just like to fly on their own, some be it too well when they get caught up in a thermal, but the idea behind it is that you are trying to gently nudge it around, not force it.

RE: First Time Pilot's
 

Or you could allways try that other way where you Join the AMA, find your local RC Flying club & get hooked up with an instructor that can buddy box you with a real Trainer. As in a four channel Trainer. While I'm sure your intent is well placed, reccomending a self-righting 3 channel Trainer type plane & going out & finding the biggest open field they can & have at it by themselves is not the best advice I've seen in these forums. Besides the safety issues of going it alone, & the fact that starting with a 3 channel just makes it harder for a new pilot to transition to a four channel Trainer. These type of reccomendations have the potenetial to make it harder on the whole flying Rc community. You haven't mentioned the fact that this big open field you're telling them to go find might just be within radio range of an exsisting Rc Club & he could be shooting down other people's airplanes with every nudge of the sticks as you put it. There are plenty people & organizations out there that would like to see Rc Aircraft outlawed all together. Sending a total newb out on his own to do his thing just gives these people more ammo & reason for their crusade to see us all go away. Not to mention if you should nudge the sticks in the wrong way (and you will) you might just cause injury to either yourself, another person or personal property. Without AMA coverage & observing their safety guidelines you will be effectively screwed in that situation.

A more responsible & effective reccomendation to a First Time Pilot, would be as mentioned above. Find a club & an Instructor, Join the AMA (it protects us all) & finally get a Traditional 4 Channell Trainer & learn how to fly the right way. JMO

RE: First Time Pilot's
 

The point being was to get them "real" instruction upon how to actually fly. Yes, if they have some club, AMA is in their back yard, or any means to actually get an outside individual to actually take the time out of their day to help, then by all means, it's beyond cool to actually have a human being there to train, but if you want to learn how to fly, you have to know what to actually do in the first place "regardless of all of this extensive support"....... I'm finding myself turning into a club/instructor of one here in Tacoma Wa. Do a search on how extensive our "CLUBS" are in the area, on the web, there really isn't a whole lot of choices and the fact of the matter is, when I go to the local field, I have plenty of new fliers show up, no instruction, plane in hand and they are off in the air. Why not at least give them the tools to actually go have some fun...... I'm talking, light weight, electric, very slow park fliers, not jet turbines traveling faster then cars........... Toy's R Us wouldn't have the same "be it crude" RC planes on the shelves if the market research proved they were too dangerous for children to play with, put it in perspective man, I'm just getting to the bottom line, this is what is not being said in plain english when it's all said and done, nothing more............

Along the range of the radio, it's very, very, limited when it all comes down to it, the more dangerous ones are what you see on the shelves in RTF form radio and all, interference is caused by everybody and his brother, yet these are the "first" airplanes reccomended, personally through direct and very extensive personal experience, I deem as the worse way to go at it. If there is a club flying near by, the noob should be able to see them given it's such a vast wide open space as you painted with the description. Power lines alone defeate any signal from getting through as well as physical obstructions.

I assume the new flier has read the instructions on the box...........

RE: First Time Pilot's
 

Actually, the little aerobirds and such arent so bad to learn on (I learned on a stryker, i will still swear to this day that it is the best trainer ... cause after that it was just a couple fo flights on a real trainer then i was soloed), ive flown 3 or 4 firebird/aerobirds and they are fun little toys...and most things carry over...

As far as the safety thing, its not too big of a deal, as most park flyers are below the freqencies that we fly our glow/bigger electric planes on...and Ive been hit square on with a firebird extreme (i think thats what it was) in a div, no injuries at all, as a matter of fact, the only pain i experienced was in my chest from laughing so hard...my buddy was flying it and lost it in the sun...and i wasn't watching it...

It is better to go to a field and fly with an instructor, but park flyers are designed for just that...putting around a park area...

RE: First Time Pilot's
 

Forgive me if I misunderstood your intent, buy your statement above I assumed you were talking about reat planes, not park flyers. The price limit on TOY planes is hardly $50, In fact that is where they start at. They are all still Toy Junk in IMO. Now putting together a nice little brushless parkflyer is another story.:D

RE: First Time Pilot's
 

Actually, you'll get a kick with getting one of those mini fliers, they are so small and light, yet can do ton's of fun things, it was even doing the brushless style hovers, even in your back yard, 20.00 + shipping and you have a baby RC airplane to tinker in your back yard with, that or give to a kid that has never flown rc before. I liked the fact that since they are so small and light, there is no impact damage when you crash it. I did a yahoo search for it and here is the url it came up with in case you wanted to see more elaboration upon it:

[link=http://www.hobbytron.com/Microflyer-Mini-RC-Airplane.html]http://www.hobbytron.com/Microflyer-Mini-RC-Airplane.html[/link]

RE: First Time Pilot's
 

Which little plane are you talking about? Sounds like the little micro flyer but I haven't seen one for $20 yet, got a link for me? I'll go check it out.

RE: First Time Pilot's
 

Doh! Now I see your link, nevermind.[sm=idea.gif]

RE: First Time Pilot's
 

Wow, That little thing does scoot right along doesn't it?

RE: First Time Pilot's
 

Will That remote work on my TV too?

RE: First Time Pilot's
 

The video is a little mis leading, obviously the guy has it fine tuned to perfection, mine is rather squirly, stepping on the tail didn't help either, I'm going to buy a couple more just for kicks, the wires are the size of a human hair, so not very user friendly service wise. The receiver and rudder electronics are very similar to the micro cars, using a simple copper coil and magnets instead of direct linkage, the prop/motor and gear box are the same ones they sell with those 10.00 airhogs free flight planes "the latter never really flew at all", just in case you are wanting parts for them locally. Overall, I just was grinning the whole time flying this little gem, amazed something so small and cheap can perform so well, it's just plain fun.

"Edit" I picked up a magnifyer headset the other week, thought I'd give it a crack again on the micro flyer, it helped tremendously, but to solder a wire the size of a human hair with only 1/4" from the spot where it's mounted on the plane was still a feat, impossible without the headset. I got it back together, had to Jerry rig the elevator since couldn't find the original, I yanked the fins from a harbor freight free flight and mounted them in their place, the dimensions were not exact, but close enough and since I had to add glue to the tail end, should help make up for that, I can easily build a new set from scratch that's stock dimensions if it's necessary, it's all back together and functioning, I also took a little time to fine tune it a little better, ie. the magnet was not located correctly within the distance of the coil, so it should be more responsive. There are 3 settings on the speed controller, slow, fast or off, that's it, but this is good enough for a toy. Will have kido play on it to practice rudder control, at least It can and likely will be fixed again, hehe. :)