The maiden for the plane (a Slow Stick) and for me as an R/C pilot was on March 18th of this year. On that day I had three fully charged batteries ready, but only got in two hand-launched, 10 sec flights before plane damage terminated the activities. I knew about the need for trim but had no real idea where a good starting point was, and what I should do with the transmitter controls to get it set right once the plane was in the air. (As you might have guessed, this was a boneheaded, no-instructor approach to learning how to fly R/C.)
6th Session: This was the first time I fully drained three batteries flying in simple, large circles, and brought the plane home in a still-flyable condition!
21st Session: Previous flights were at a grassy field and now that I could more-or-less keep it in the air, most flights continued for 8 to 10 min until the battery gave out, and were followed by reasonably gentle dead-stick landings in tall grass. Up until now I had been happy to just watch the plane fly gracefully in a simple, big circle pattern. However, at this point I felt ready for new challenges and moved to another location with a large open fly-over area adjacent to a small-unused asphalt parking lot at a vacant business park. Real wheels-down, rolling landings would be the next challenge!
22nd through 43rd Session: I wouldn’t say I was obsessed, but I did make the trip to the new flying location almost every morning for several months. I’d get up at dawn, drink
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