Learning to fly alone

[Phil Winks]

Tell you wot lads (and Lasses) learning by your self may well be possible and in the absence off a club prob essential but the friendship of a club can vastly improve the experience if you find the right club. i can remember my 1st club in yorkshire was populated by many very nice chaps but had a stickler of a secretary who could on occaisions make the fun of a sat afternoon vanish quicker than a fun jet on full chat with a failed rx. I guess he was mostly just doing his job. And as he was re-elected year after year guess it was one no one else wanted! Him aside i have found that half the fun off a successfull flight or particularly good landing seems to be lost if there isn't someone else there to appreciate it. and conversly the embarrasment of the long walk to recover the firewood after a mistake isn't quite as severe with an audience as i 1st thought it would be. also all the little bits of info, and tips that are picked up are invaluable, as is the fact that in the event of a minor prang someone may have just the bit of kit you need to continue flying.

So I'm all for the club and goodbye to the loneliness of the solo flyer

PS spell checker won't work Timbo time to earn the sticky buns mate

[Rick Tee]

[quote] I must disagree with Rick about being in control of a two or three channel model - all that is needed is anticipation - you learn to start a turn earlier to make it happen where you want it to occur, and co-ordinate elevator input to adjust the rate of turn.[/quote]

Malcom, it was only my very first RC model that i felt disconnected with initially, not too long after moving to a full house model i started slope soaring rudder elevator models with no problems. For most beginers though i feel full house is better to get that locked in feeling faster, though as with many things there are some exceptions. You see something for the input earlier which reduces the tendency to over control too.

[Lee Burke]

Spellcheck -  I am useing IE 7 on XP.  But I seem to remember trying it out on Firefox and getting similar results.  I'll have another go later.

[Lee Burke]

In Firefox/2.0.0.14 Here I do not even have the option of spellcheck, nor any of the other gizmos - smilys etc. The advanced editor is active.

[David Ashby - Moderator]

This is a very good thread so I've had a tidy up - will ask our people about the spell checker.....

Keep the experiences and thoughts coming folks... 

[NOEL GRAY]

Hi everyone this is my first letter to the forum

I'm a self taught flyer but not by choice, Due to very self importantant members of local club I was left to teach myself sometimes with success many times in disaster which enabled me to achieve good building skills Well after many crashes I decided to buy a good Sim which proved to be the best investment I've made since that first take home in a box experence, I now have enough confedence to fly in the great outdoors without too many dings, I'm now still using the original Boomerang 40 which has been crashed and repaired a countless number of times and still flys well after being converted to electric, Ive also fond of using my Zagi-LE and several other electric foamies.

The one thing I have learnt is to always fly 3 MISTAKES HIGH it sure saves a lot of heartache I'm hoping to get a larger EP Plane soon still havent made up my mind on what to get as yet, and yes I do believe that if you are prepaired for the pleasure and pain you can learn to fly by yourself

[Malcolm Fisher]

Rick, My apologies -  I hadn't discerned this. As for the Kamco Kadett, it was one of the best trainers I have ever known. I had one with two wing versions - one with and one without ailerons.

 I used both many times to give absolute newcomers a "stir of the sticks".

Some were happier with one version and some with the other.

 My experience was possibly different from many, although fairly common at the time.  I  had to fly alone with my first R/C gear, single channel McGregor outfit on 27 Mhz and a super regen receiver and Elmic Conquest rubber powered escapement, which meant that any other operating transmitter could, and did, interfere causing total loss of control of my model.

 Regarding simulators, I have the R/C Planemaster which I thought was good value and includes a Tx style controller. I find this fine for practising some parts of flying, but the lack of all round vision compared with a real flying site makes things difficult for me when it comes to making a typical landing circuit and approach to touch down. I rarely "land" where I want to do but can mostly keep the model intact and the engine running. There are times when I "crash" deliberately just to see how the program spreads the pieces and puts the plane back together ready for the next flight - wish I could rebuild as quickly 

[Donald Leatt 2]

Ok hard to say if I learnt alone. Started with a bullet, this was supposed to be indestructible. Turned out to be just un-flyable (not just me who could not fly it). Then I joined a club BATS and meet one time RCME scribe Chas Gardenier. I was told to go and build a gentle lady. Did this and when it was finished we pt it on the bungee. after it stooge around and was landed I had a think and decided that this style of flying was not what I wanted to do. So a quick talk to Stan Yeo (Phoenix Models) and foam hills and fun started.

So did I start alone Yes and No. Am I member of a club. Yes.

If you want to learn alone I would say go the foam route (air time greater than repair tie) get insurance. Join a club. Yes because while you can learn alone up to a point after that extra advice helps

[Rick Tee]

[quote]Rick, My apologies - I hadn't discerned this. As for the Kamco Kadett, it was one of the best trainers I have ever known. I had one with two wing versions - one with and one without ailerons.[/quote]

Yes it was a nice model, tough too, especially as coming from C/L i opted to cover the wings with nylon. I taught myself to fly with it and even though it got repaired a few times (mainly due to radio failure/interference) sold it on in good working order.

In those days there were a variety of sites around here where you could fly powered models with no legal problems and no club membership required, they are all gone now. Apart from finding a farmer who will allow you to fly in one of his fields the only places left to fly power in this area are the clubs. AFAIK this was all due to 2 ppl complaining about noise from one site on Dartmoor. Ppl still fly on that site thanx to forming a club and getting assistance from the BMFA, but flying is limited to Sunday mornings 9am - 1pm and Wednesdays 9am - 4pm and membership is closed. When the restrictions were first imposed i was told i could not fly there anymore until i obtained and 'A' certificate which was not available as we had no examiners. So i quit power and stuck to gliders until 3 years ago when i found a nice friendly club with no flying restrictions other than adhering to the BMFA rules.

To answer the original question posed by this thread, i'd agree with many of the other posters, it is possible to teach yourself to fly. With the right model and enough information it may not even be too expensive. Be aware though having the land owners permission is only a starting point as there may be other restrictions, commercial airways, recreational flying, local government etc. 

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Malcolm Fisher]

For a long time, I have advocated BMFA membership for anyone who wanted to fly models aircraft and convinced my former club to affiliate. Since its demise I have continued membership of BMFA as a "Country Member" and will continue to press anyone else who shows an interest to support BMFA (or SMAE as I still think of it -perhaps that says more about me than the organisation).

 I do have some opposition to some clubs. One I know of has lost a great number of sites to my knowledge and "took over" the site "my" club used to use - a site which I had had to find following loss of the school playing field (where I used to teach and run an after school model club) as a flying site because of the attitude of one new member to a neighbour of the school. Some of the antisocial behaviour of the incoming club led to restrictions on that site within six months of their tenure and the total loss within a year. "My" club had been using the field (set aside land) for ten years prior to this with no complaints of any sort...

I admit that I do have a prejudiced view towards some model flyers, but this is based on actual experience of some who joined "my" club and others who visited. On that basis, I feel that I will continue the rest of my model flying  career as a "loner", find sites for myself to fly power models and contimue to fly slope soarers on a not too distant moor where I have to have a permit from the Local Authority.

Apologies if this seems to be a total grouse, but I do speak from experience.

[Rick Tee]

Geeze, not good, have visited clubs where the members were erm less then friendly, so can see how someone new to the hobby would be put off by their attitude. Not good for some clubs like ours as we have to pay for our field so need enough members to keep the membership fees within reason. As we turn over approx 20 members per year it's in our interest to welcome new members. Not that that makes much difference to the way our regulars would treat new members anyway, we love the hobby and sharing it with anyone interested. When i want to fly alone i go up on Dartmoor and do some gliding, but if i want good company and a laugh i go to the club field, guess we're lucky.

[Richard Sharman]

Just a question -- why aren't model flying clubs like Golf clubs?  They have large amounts of land which they control, look after, provide the facilities the members need to pursue their favorite activities.  The only difference I can think of is that Golf clubs like hilly pieces of land, whereas flying clubs would generally want a flat bit of land, but other than that it seems to be the same requirement: a large piece of land dedicated to the activity -- so why not the same solution? 

[Ernie]

Hi Richard, Probably because many golf clubs have very high membership fees, and employ staff to look after them

ernie

[Former Member]

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[Donald Leatt 2]

Eric

Was the LG Perkins won. Even an experienced flyer tried it it looped over my head on launch and he crashed into himself breaking the TX aerial (twice)

Me thinks you will  be talking about clubs like the Beaufort ere in Bristol where it is already £100 to join

[Donald Leatt 2]

Sorru that should be JP Perkins

[Former Member]

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[Alex Hasell]

Plane arriving tommorow not joining a club have Bmfa never flew a thing in my life tell ya how it goes

[Malcolm Fisher]

Alex, You don't say what sort of plane you are getting. I hope for your sake that it isn't something like a Spitfire.

 At present, the only advice I can offer is to read ALL the instructions and set the controls so that there is only a small amount of movement of the control surfaces and that the power source, whatever it is, can be stopped quickly via the transmitter. Most beginners - and that included me - use too much control input which almost always results in a crash as the sicks are moved from end to end of the available travel trying to correct a zoom or dive. Eventually the ground leaps up and rekits the model.

 Properly set up, a trainer will usually "sort itself out" if you just let go of the sticks and reduce power.

 Good luck, and do let us know how you get on.

[Tim Mackey]

I think its a boomerang trainer ?

[Alex Hasell]

Thats right Timbo it is a Boomerang and it came today so i hope to be up and running by the weekend!

Malcome i take on board what you have said but be assured it is not something i have rushed into and i researched it as extensively as i possibly can. I have no concerns on the build it is straight forward enough a friend is going to come over and help me tune my engine for the first time he is a car nut so unfortunately cant help with the actually flying .

In terms of control throws i would have to agree that it seem to be the number one cause of crashes with that in mind and from what other buiders of this model have said i am going to set the throws slighty less then it says in the manual as they are apparently still a bit frisky for a beginner and i am going to dial in plenty of expo on my tx  just to dumb down the centres a bit as well one other thing i was thinking about although havent asked any one if it is a good idea or not yet so it does mean its going to happen but how about setting the throws as per instructions and then instead of setting the dual rates to the aerobatic settings as suggested in the instruction set them to what i would term very docile rates ie less then the originalls that way if i find it to hard to control to lively flick the rates switch and it might well give me the initial control i will need. Any thoghts on that point guys????

P.S Would love a proper scale Spit but not just yet

[Andy Harris]

Alex

An IC trainer is a hell of a responsibility to fly as a complete novice, it weights at lot and has sharp and fast pointy bits.

If the trims are significantly out you'll be having a bit of a struggle.

Expo is generally a good thing, you still have the travel if you need it,  Dual rates are worth setting, but you'll not be able to use them until you can fly circuits.  You'll have enough on your hands without looking down at the TX.

I'd really urge you to try something small light and electric first.

Why not find someone from this group that could help?

Regards

Andy

[Alex Hasell]

Andy

yes i appricate what it is that i have its not a toy. And demands respect from the word go.

every precation i can take i am doing so and when it comes to flying it then every one elses safety is top priority i should tell you i live in country and have roughly 10 acres that i can access so finding a suitable site is not going to be a problem.

There are many reasons i am doing things the way i am not that i have time to tell you them all but one of the mayjor ones is money. Iwould like to try a park flyer or similar if only i could afford it and i dont know anyone who would be giving them away or id be first in line 

The build of the Boomer is going well not much left to do now.

[Former Member]

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