One way that helped me get over some of the fear besides the simulator was to go to the field with just another friend when you can and fly as much as you can.A lot of the pressure for me seems to come from not wanting to be embarassed by crashing in front of other pilots.Some nerves will always be there!but hey it wouldnt be near as fun if the adrenaline didnt rise a little each time you take to the air!

My wife once told me the same thing and she told me if I brought another airplane in the house, she would leave me. That was also the last time she said that. I sure miss her sometimes.

Here's my philosophy. Trainers are expendable! They serve only 1 purpose, and that is to teach you flight basics. Once you learn that, move on. If you cant afford to lose a plane occasionaly, financially or emotionaly, this ain't the hobby for you. You need to break the emotional tie to your plane. If you crash, nobody dies. Learn from your mistakes, and move own. As others have said, a Tiger2 or one of the Sig 4 Star series, would be an excellent next plane. Try to get up with a more experienced flyer in your club, or area, and ask for some help. YOU CAN DO IT.
zx32tt

You said all your planes are kits? I currently have 3 planes with another 1/2 built. 2 of those planes are ARFs and 1 (and a half) are kits. When I'm flying the ARFs I don't really give a hoot about them and throw them around the sky but when I'm on the kit built planes I get a bit nervous and take a lot more care. It's probably about the "emotional investment" we get with kit builds. I'd suggest getting a flight sim and get some hours up on that going a bit crazy, and buy yourself a cheap ARF (maybe even one you don't like that much) and throw it around the sky some - get comfortable putting planes you don't care about to a little risk before putting the kits you've worked so hard on back up - it'll give you more confidence in your ability to safely fly the planes you prize.

It's much harder to damage or lose a scratch or kit built plane than an ARF or second hand plane you pick up at a swap or some other way. I am still flying a kit built Goldberg Ultimate that would really be painful to lose...not only is it the last kit built plane that I have flyable, but it's my only bipe! And it flies so SWEET. I recently lost an Excelleron 50 to a bad elevator servo and that one did not hurt much at all. I mean it was a great flyer and my old reliable with an OS 70 Surpass II, but it was just $139 shipped, it was an ARF, and I have other planes that I got after it that fly the same or better. It was sad to lose, but it was the most dispensible in my little air force. So I am getting at what some have said: find a used plane to repair, or a cheap ARF, don't get too attached to it, get lots of stick time on the simulator, and fly the heck out of the plane by concentrating on what you are weak at. Just do take offs and landings for your flying sessions till you start to feel good about yourself. And don't feel bad about taking longer than others. You probably are faster than someone out there, somewhere, and you are still having fun at building. You are going to start remembering what you did to be successful for each maneuver, then you will build on that. Take it easy and just remember you are having fun even when you mess up. We're so fortunate to be playing with these things rather than struggling to make ends meet somewhere. Enjoy yourself! Jon

<span style="font-family: Comic Sans MS"><span style="font-size: medium">so i checked out the clunker i got from the gentleman at the field. it is a sig 4* 40. guess i never really payed much attention to it, but it says right in the tail feathers. tore the covering off the wing around the damage which doesn't look all that bad, but the fuse...wow. looks like he or the pilot before him used this as their first plane to learn on and go through combat training. the nylon bolts are still in the blind nuts (snapped off) firewall is missing a big chunk at the top, and the biggyit looks like the fuse was snapped in half just behind the wing saddle up to the top. there is so much extra bracing and beefup in that area. should the repairs done or repairs needing to be done be a deterant as far as flight safety or should i go golf balls to the wall and wring out the sky with it? not really sure what to do with the LG if i can't get the old stuff tapped out, but the flt controls are at least looking okay. the wing looks like a bit of minor structure damage, but nothing too bad to handle.

a couple of notes off the subject but kind of still on the subject. i know the basics of how wing loading and aircraft weight work with lift and all that other fun stuff. aside from the difference in airfoil, the GP extra 300S .60 actaully has a lighter wing loading than the cub that i have now, and the LT-25 is 12-13 oz./in sq. by far being the lightest. what is going to be biggst concern with the planes of higher wing loading weight other that landing a little hotter? may actually be a good thing. sometimes i think i could line the LT up on my approach and sit back and take a snoozer while i wait for the thing to decide to land. kind of boring in the landing department sometimes. (coffee low light's flickering)</span></span>

<span style="font-size: medium"><span style="font-family: Comic Sans MS">well, i'm back for just a moment to say that i really appreciate the encouragement everyone has given and sound advice. much to my dismay, i will probably heed to it all and try to relax a little. with the beginning of winter apon us and definitely enough time to get another kit under the radar , how much damage is too much damage when it comes to gluing the fuse back together? may as well get that crash ready. it's the only option for as little of time that it has from me. maybe i'll pretty up the LT also. i do like the way that it floats along all lazy like. even with that honkin' .32 strapped to the nose.</span></span>

Well, it's a 4 star, not a warbird or a pylon racer etc so the wing loading's probably pretty light and can handle a little extra weight. I'd make the attempt since (like me) you enjoy building. Don't go overboard making it pretty or anything - just make it fly and call it your thrasher. Down the track a little that'll make it a perfect candidate for sticking a camera on, or taking out the single engine and building twin nacelles into the wings or, or launching gliders from, or some other hack.

I'd recommend a GPEscapade ARF. It's 99 bucks, builds fast, and they fly like a dream. I used a Magnum .52 on mine but a .40 or .46 would work well also. You could be flying it instead of your kits, and it's so easy to fly you'll gain confidence quickly. A Stik would be good too.

I have plenty of friends that prefer building over flying. A great many of those same friends experience anxiety before and during their trips to the flying field. Since they favor building, they tend to fly less than is needed to feel comfortable with flying in general. Throw in windy weather flying, or flying before a large number of people and it is easy to understand why one would become anxious.

Some folks are prone to anxiety, for whatever reason. Professional help could liberate anxious individuals and enable them to participate in activities that they have been avoiding due to anxiety.

However, flying on the computer sim and real flying, but perhaps with a gentler aircraft design, could also relieve some of the tension concerning going to the field.


Ed Cregger

<span style="font-family: Comic Sans MS"><span style="font-size: medium">so i went out this weekend despite the crappy washington weather. never happened before, but i guess i'm not the only person that flies at "my" spot. the guy had a tiger 2 all snazzed out set up like a taildragger. i watched him for a few minutes and was asking questions about doing different maneuvers and what not. he was flying pretty damn good, so i started describing my issues with taking off and he wanted to look at my plane. he said everything looked fine except for something someone told him a long time ago. he said it looked like my gear wires were a little pushed out from some of the early beatings i put her through on landing. he also said i should have my gear pressed a little "toe in". so we straightened them out a bit and adjusted them and the wheel collars. my tail wheel was a little slopppy also, so we switched the connector to a diferent hole and set the ole girl on the ground, fired her up and did a couple taxi checks. well one of them igot a little out of control with the speedand before i knew it, she was in the air heading for a guard rail. i asked who the hell put that there as i jerked the stick back and missed it by about 2 feet, (thank God for bigger than necessary motors)got her up high since she was in the air and farted around for a few til she was running low on juice. the guy, bill, said that it looked like everything was going well and asked if i belonged to any clubs anywhere. i said no that i'm not home enough to pay for the club dues and all, that i just enjoyed flying out here where there was noone else. wetalked for another minute or 2then he left and i stayed for about 3 more hours, earning myself as earfull of crap from the ole lady when i got home. but, low and behold, i can take off i would say like a pro, but that would be a little excessive. but she tracks straight and beautifully down the runway with very little correction as if she were new again. oh yeah, a little thing in my radio called exponential does wonders too. maybe i will be joining that club sometime.

one other thing i was going to ask earlier. i heard it was a lot harder learning to fly with a tail dragger than one with tricycle gear. i'm eventually wanting to get into warbirds, but should i switch to a tricycle setup til i get the take off down better? but now i know the answer. never flew one and don't really care to now.

go figure it would be something so simple and i'm not getting worse as the flights go by. making turns with only the rudder is definitely something to put a little challenge into the mix.

IMAC HERE I COME!!!!!- thank you everyone for your suggestions and pushing along. now i want to fly every chance i get and leave the rest on the board for a while.

</span></span>

Well done. That's the value of clubs - a group of experience that'll pick the small issues that make it harder than it needs to be. Re taildraggers vs trikes... trikes are easier to learn take-offs than draggers as you don't also need to learn to "fly the tail" before you rotate the plane, however it sounds like you're well on the way to not needing a trike now so don't bother. I'd stay away from warbirds till you have some more flight time under your belt - they always have a higher wing loading which makes them a lot more "twitchy" and prone to violent stalling at low speeds. I've been flying for three years now and I'm only now building my first warbird (an F4U corsair).

Well Thats great news crash,, And as a builder any damage can be repaired always, it all depends on what time you want to put into it and if your bored of the plane or not. And Yes War planes you wioll definitely want to gain a little more experience before you fly on, most of them need to land a little hotter then normal planes but they do track like they're on rails. I had rebuilt my Red 4* 40 countless times over a 7 or 8 year run with it as I was using to practice all my lets see how close to the ground I can fly at full speed onlly problem being our grounds are rolling hills lol so you can't just hold it on a line. but here is a pic of another rebuild I did. just so you can see they can always come back looking like brand new.