So...scale builders out there, how much and how often do you fly? I'll admit that for me it's often less than once a week. And sometimes the will be a gap of a month or even two between flights (work, travel, family, etc.) But then I have bursts of nearly daily flying. On a "long" day of flying, I'll get maybe an hour of air time.

And what do you fly on a regular basis? My standbys at the moment are the Puppeteer and the Legionnaire (when I get the repairs done).

And finally how do you fly when you fly? I don't typically have a "technical routine" I run through but just work on flying in a realistic looking manner for WWI aircraft and also pushing the envelop just a little bit each time I fly.

Right. It's a lovely Tuesday morning and I'm off to the field!

Once the weather gets really good, 2-3 times a week. I do not fly my scale stuff all the time but I like to keep sharp with my Kaos and such. I also enjoy flight instruction and try to make it out on our clubs trainer night.

Usually every weekend at least one day sometimes both with 2-3 flights per day.

I enjoy the outdoors and camaraderie as well, too. Helping solve technical problems, just chatting/sharing, club maintenance, etc.

Today I logged 40 minutes on the Puppeteer over 4 flights (counted as trips back to the pit for fueling) and perhaps 10 landings. This was maybe the first day that I've really felt comfortable with it. The first flight was in a drizzling rain, the second in bright sunshine and high humidity, and the final two in increasingly dark skies.

I worked on nice long scale take-offs and climb outs. I notice that I needed to hold in significant right rudder throughout. I also worked on getting the feel for rudder response on this model. Full over wiggles the tail a bit but doesn't cause much of a roll as it does on some models. The nose drops when I add in rudder so I got used to doing throttle and rudder together. I'm not yet doing any aerobatic with the Puppeteer but I did some increasingly tight turns which will eventually morph into a stall turn.

I was alone at the field as I'm likely to be anytime except Sat. and Sun. mornings. There are however 15 or so dogs that live out there to keep me company!

The Golden Rule of Flying is this: Never fly later when you can fly now!

Second rule is: Always keep your batteries charged!

Not enough... my hours at work and the weather plays a important factor on how much I fly. I told my Boss that I needed Sundays off so I could go to church. Actually, Sundays is when I like to fly with my club members and I want to make sure I have that day off. What the Boss dosen't know won't hurt him.

The weather here in NY isn't the greatest right now with all that cold wind and rain, the ground is still soft and wet... I look forward to those nice days on my days off.

I'm averaging once a month. Its driving me crazy. Like above, work and weather. The real @@@@@@ about it is I have international meetings most every week day 7 to 8 pm on top of the reqular work schedule. Its what one has to do to keep your job. At least I've got the shop for sanity control.
Edwin

I like to try to fly every weekend - if possible. But other committments sometimes pop up. If guess I average about 4-5 days a month over the year.

Almost every day! thank you electrifly WW1 series!!

DJ

Would you say that flying the small electrics improves your flying on the larger scale models, more than say playing with RealFlight would?

I'll add that I do put in several hours of RF each week, since I have it set up where I can do that and watch TV at the same time. Well, almost at the same time. I know the simulations aren't like flying the real thing but it's certainly helped to "wetwire" my basic control responses.

Since I live on my university campus and there's a huge grass field not more than 100 yards away, I really should have at least one park flyer!

I find RF to be more amusing than helpful. To be Frank, I do most of my practice for contest with a Electrifly DVII. I set it up just a little on the "hairy side" and when I get super smooth on that, flying my big stuff is auto pilot even in very windy conditions. The Electrifly stuff can handle winds in the 10-15mph range rather handily.

DJ

This is EXACTLY why, after selling my company to an American organization and working for them under contract for 5 years... I said Scr#w you and went and got me a life.
It's just unbelieverble.

Never enough! I work two jobs and help my wife care for our elderly mothers 82 and 86 years old. My full time job requires a lot of travel and owning a house really eat into my time. I also love to build so sometimes I get my nose buired into a project and there goes all the free time.

3 or 4 times a year, not counting park fliers. Yikes, that sounds bad.
When I lived in Japan, I flew almost every week the weather would allow. I had little room to build so I spent my time flying.

J

Now that i am no longer working a full time job i fly every day the weather will allow it. Sometimes it is just a foamy at a local small field or hover practice with a heli in my yard. At least it is some stick time. I try to get to our club field (25 mile drive) once per week when the weather is decent with a glow powered Aircoupe, Pawnee, Patty Wagstaff Extra and/or a couple of sport models.

Well, you've just about convinced me! I do think RF is very helpful if you use it in specific ways. For example, I regularly set up the models as tail-heavy, or overweight, and/or set up strong wind conditions. But you're right that it's not the same thing as flying a real model out in the real air.

I fly as much as I can, usually every other week if vehicle condition allows. I had to lay out for a few weeks when the truck threw a rod. My flying field is an hour's drive away so going to the field is a big deal. What I fly depends on what is flyable. My favorite flier was a 1/12 scale Arsenal Vg-33 but I killed it last weekend flying in 35 mph winds. The Bristol M1 gets air time and I really enjoy my BUSA N17 but it is a pain to haul it in and out of the basement. Eddie at Lazerworks cut me a new Arsenal and it is next on the building board.

after a late addition to the family less than 2 yrs ago (i'm now 42) my flying dropped off dramatically, then the wife got laid off in jan so all i do is squeeze in some building once in a while. at least i have a new son and plenty of work to justify the lack of flying. i might fly 5 times this yr.

Given that I have absolutely zero gear for electric, what would be the all-included-cost of going with one of the Electrifly DVIIs? I see that the model itself is about $90 from Tower but what else would I need? I suspect that the initial layout would be well over $300.

Given my particular job, location, and situation, I have a luxury of time that few can understand. Also the flying field is just a 15 minute drive away plus I have a huge grass playing field just in front of the house (on campus). So I really don't have any excuses not to be flying virtually every day that the weather allows. But still I find myself coming up with "reasons" to do something else instead. I really need to force myself not to build during good flying hours. Build at night! Build in the rain! Fly when I can fly.

My biggest problem is probably that I often don't have a model in current flight ready condition! At the moment I have one ready to go. But repairs can take time because there is no LHS to run to for supplies.

There are times, however, when I think that I spend entirely too much time on this "hobby" and really should find something more "serious" to do with my time. Luckily, I don't have too many of those days.

Well, at one time I flew every day. But this last year has seen one injury after another and I think I have had less than ten flying days in the past 6 monthes ! Once I get back on top, I hope to return to flying 2-3 days per week.

Another perfect day, alone, at the field. Put in 3 flights of about 10 minutes each. It was pretty windy, enough that I needed full throttle to make any headway upwind. Fighting the wind also cut down the flight times. And since this was a crosswind (which is the norm at our field) it was making landings a bit tricky (or from another perspective "more fun"). But I have a rule: If the wind's not strong enough to blow my hat off, it's not strong enough to stop me from flying!

The Puppeteer is a relatively heavy model but even so it was being buffeted around quite a bit. It was tough to get it to want to come down and when it did, it floated long and on the slightest bounce wanted to go airborne again. On the last landing a sudden sideways gust took the tire off the wheel. After about a half-dozen landings I decided to go with "the better part of valour" and packed up. Also it looked like my hastily repair tail skid was coming apart from the rough taxiing on our mostly dirt field.

The dogs kept me company. The last photo shows "the field" on the university campus. So far the only thing I've flown there is a kite.

How much do you fly?
As much as I can, considering my commitments and other interests and naturally, this is less then I would like!

I don't want to point out the obvious, but if you prefer to spend time on other interests, then you DO, in fact, fly as much as you like to. On the other hand, I never feel bad about not flying when I'm having fun doing something else. But then I know that my flying skills aren't progressing to where I'd like them to be.