Well, this is a first for me - never blogged before.

I suppose I should have started this blog when I first began building Nutballs. That would have been a day or two after Christmas, which was only five or six weeks ago.

I'm writing this blog to record my feelings and experiences in learning to fly. In the Nutball thread I have said that I learned to fly - self taught - entirely on Nutballs with no flying experience on anything else. This is almost - but not quite - true. About 25 years ago I did try to learn to fly on a high-wing IC trainer, entirely without success. I also built a small powered (Cox .049) glider, and managed a couple of flights before I lost contact with it (battery problem in the plane, I think) and watched it sail out of sight at about 100 feet. I'm retired (I'm 61) so I thought I'd give it one last go in September 2012. I built a 'Twirl' autogyro - I know, not the obvious plane for a newbie. It did fly, a little, but it was so light the wind had more control than I did and I soon got tired of hunting around downwind for it. All in all, I decided all my previous RC flying experience was essentially negative. By that I mean slightly worse than no RC flying experience at all!!

Around October 2012 I discovered the RCGroups 'Nutball' thread. The more I read the more I felt I'd found a design that suited me, my temperament and my circumstances. I decided to put all my earlier (negative) experiences behind me and learn to fly - all on my...Continue Reading