How long should I practice b4 real flight ?

[Chaos]

I have the G2, I have flown and sucessfully landed every plane in the list, some more gracefully than others, nontheless, I feel pretty comfortable. I bought a P-51 Mustang from Hobby-Lobby, its been built and ready to fly for weeks. I in no way consider myself even intermediate but Im not sure how long I should practice before an actual attempt. Should I go for it ?? My mind says heck yeah but my pocketbook is still twitchy...opinions ?

Heres the plane I have

http://www.hobby-lobby.com/p51_marie.htm
Theres even a video to look at .. it sure looks fast eh ?

[Highflyer]

Get lots of real flight time on a trainer or a Duraplane. The p51 is not a plane to learn on.

[Cyg]

aggree with high here.

Tower hobbies has some of the best trainers and markets alot of rc parts and companies.
Tower Hobbies First School

If you can turn up all your realisms. tons of flight failures, cross winds, gusts, failed servos, dead sticks, oh there are tons that can happen to a real rc airplane.

I flew one radio on two planes and forgot to switch one servo off for my electirc glider and flew the thing back wards till I got it back on the ground.

I highly recommend going to a club, and finding an instructor. Fly first with just using the left stick for throttle and taxing. Fly the right stick for turns. Can you fly your plane in a perfect square around the field with out any drop in altitude or look like it? Can you follow the insturctor on the g2, plane for plane?

My first plane was a Balsa Usa Stick 40 plus I changed the center of gravity and made it into a trike. Plus covered up the back end with home made ribs and made a box for the front of the plane as well. I still have that same trainer to this day and what helped was giving it two degrees more dihedral than what was called for and with the flat bottom wing design it was one of the most stable and forgiving planes on the field. I only know how many times I tenderly brought her back to health after some real rough landings.

Goodluck with your endeavors.

[Nicholas15]

when I will Fly my expensive plane will be when I dont crash the whole week!

[Progneto]

PLEASE,,,don't make that mistake. I started building rc airplanes when I was a teenager. I tried to fly them and I did for awhile but ended up crashing all of them.

I recommend anyone new to RC,,,even if you have worked on the sim,,,to get an instructor. It will save you $$$$ and even more frustration. RC is a hobby and sport that I love and so do many others. There should be plenty of experienced RC pilots in your area that can and will want to help you. I grew up in a town of 3,000 and was even able to find a guy there that mentored me.

The sim is great to learn but flying the real thing is still a bit different. Get your instructor to take your plane off, trim it out and let get some flying time and experience until you can make good landing approaches, etc. Then you and the instructor will know when it is time for you to solo!

Progneto

Chaos,
One of the big things not in the simulators is GROUND EFFECT. The pressure of
air near the ground is much different than up 6' in the air. This makes for a big difference in takeoffs and landings. You have to flair and fight the "cushion of air" when you are near the ground.

Second thing, tip stalls. A P-51 and other warbirds will really tip stall (cause the plane to roll over quickly) when you get to lower air speeds. The simulators don't realistically match this phenomenon. You must be prepared to jam the throttle to full, point the nose down, and gain speed to pull out before you hit the ground. Only real flying will give you this "fear factor".

I agree with the others. go to a field, look for an instructor, get on a "buddy box" and take the pressure off yourself for the first couple of flights. After that, all the simulator training will rocket you up the learning curve. But those first 3-5 flights are the "make or break" part of learning how to fly. An instructor and/or the buddy box make the dumb mistakes easier to live with the first few times out.

Besides, half of flying is getting to know and learn from the other people at the field. I would not fly nearly as much as I do if I were a "lone flyer". There is just so much in the camradeire that makes r/c flying a lifetime sport.
Crazy Ted -- a battery junkie

[Slider]

If you do follow through and are able to get someone at the field to help you out.
9 times out of 10 people that help people out with learning how to fly know what their doing. But if your unfortunate enough to get the 1 in 10 people to help you that doesn't know what their doing. You might end up going out to the field with a plastic bag to pic up the remains of your plane. So my suggestion is to go to the RC airfield "without" plane in hand and first "observe" to find a competent trainer.

Adlai

[sykotek]

If you truly are proficient on the sim, I have to be the minority here and say there is a good chance you will fly the real thing pretty well. However, I agree the P51 is a bad choice for a first real plane. It will be ok to fly, but the landings will be tough due to the higher speed and more aerodynamic profile of the P51.

Get yourself a high wing, or even a more docile low wing bird, for the first flight.

I bought realflight G2 in 2002. I got really good at the helis. I bought a 30 size heli, and hovered successfully my first time out without an instructor, using just the skills I got on G2.

[Old Fart]

I'd stick with the advice above - the P51 isn't going to make a good "first" plane. I will say however, that a buddy of mine had ONLY flew G3 before flying another friends E-Flite P-47....and flies the P-47 quite well.

Some of the planes fly remarkedly close to G3 in the "real world". The GP Slinger and Electrostreak are just about exact (although the Slinger doesn't run as fast on a brushed 400 in reality). I can't modify the G3 Tigermoth to fly at all like my brushless TM400 (but that's probably me).

Add wind to G3 and see what it does to you. I really wish the wind was variable - would match the real world - BUT, how would you tell without wind on your face and telltales like you have at the field.

Personally, I'd learn on something foam and high wing before I put that nice P-51 into the air

And just because I'm a heretic - I'd pick something with ailerons, as IMHO most of what you learn with rudder/elevator you immediately UNlearn once you go to ailerons.

If you _have_ to toss the P51 up - either buddy box it or have an experienced flier take off and trim the bird before they hand you the TX. Fly a bit then have them land it.

[Rob-99]

I got my self a nearly indestructable GWS Slow Stick. Someone took it up for me, trimmed it and past me the TX. I flew LH circuits and then landed. The instructor took it up again for me and handed me the TX and I did some LH & RH circuits.

Thereafter I flew it myself. I'll admit its not an elegant plane but its only $35 and V robust. It is very sensitive to wind and you spend most of the time doing course corrections because of the breeze.

At that time I didn't have G3 but got it soon after. I found G3 harder that the real thing due to the limited vision & the number of trees on the PC flying field. Now I practise on G3 and its making me a better pilot.

Providing on a 3 channel you put the rudder where the alieron should be you'll have no trouble moving up to a 4 channel.
At the end of my first summer I switched to a GWS TM400 with ailerons - No problem at all.

So where is the Tiger Moth in G3???

[Old Fart]

Tiger moth in G3 is on Add-On disk #5 IIRC. It's the nitro version - But - once you have it loaded you can load in Jay McMullen's electric version from here:
http://www.utahwest.com/rc/G2.htm

Jay's version is however, really s...l..o..w in the air

[Rob-99]

Hi,

Thanks for that link, there sure are some nice looking planes on that site!

Also I note that there are two TigerMoths, the latter being an EP Tiger Moth, plus I don't see any comments about needing an additional disk for this one. I will give it a go tonight.

Thanks again

[dee_jay_01]

All the Above advise is correct, the only thing I will add is, On the Sim, add more wind and gusts then try dead stick landings, when you can successfully land a dead stick from about 200ft, thats when you should be successfull to fly real RC, but not the mustang.

[khagan]

Hmmm. interesting advice...but I guess I am going to stubborn and try to teach myself ...my thoughts are that someone had to learn to fly before they taught other people to fly...I fully expect to crash (I have a Piper Cub) but luckily I loved building it so I will probably love rebuilding it...hopefully I won't completely write it off

[torch511]

I have found 2 schools of thought on learning to fly. The train forever, and noever train.

It seems there are some that feel that you should spend hundreds of hours on a trainer learning to fly, and work your way up.

There are others that subscribe that if you learn to fly a trainer, then all you will learn to fly is a trainer. An old fogey who owns an RC shop out my way who I love flying with for years preached the trainer method until his grandson picked up a sport plane at the age of 8 and flew it, having never flown another plane.

I learned to fly about 6-7 years ago. I had purchashed the original version of Realflight and taught myself on that while I built my first plane, which was a Goldberg Ultimate Biplane, a plane I still have and still fly to this day. It is also my favorite plane, which is why I have two of them, the newer of the two I use for competition.

I had never touched an RC plane before, never built one, and everyone and their brother told me that it was not the plane I wanted to learn on.

I had a guy at the local flying club where I lived in Alaska fly it for it's first flight. The guy, Charlie, was a former TOC pilot. He took off, trimmed it before he made a single turn, flipped it around, gunned the throttle and snap-rolled it. His comment was, "Nice job building it, your plane is good".

The president of the club buddy boxed me later that night (It was summer in Alaska, you can still fly at 2 AM) and about 5 minutes into the flight he pulled the plug and told me I did not need him. I was paranoid about the landing, and he gave talked me through it in such a simple way the instructions run through my mind every time I go to land still to this day. "Every plane want's to land. Cut power, keep the wings level and the plane will get there... eventually" As sarcastic as it was, he had a point.

I say go for it. I would say buddy boxing is still a good idea, most clubs require it. At my club you have to buddy box and demonstrate to one of the officers that you can fly before you are given a permanent membership and can solo. Some clubs even have nights for beginners or have instructional nights. But do not let the naysayers bring you down. Flying an RC plane is not all that difficult.

2 last bits of advice:

1.) When in doubt, throttle up smoothly and go up... planes rarely get damaged by air.
2.) Always fly 10 mistakes high and only make 9.