THE RULES:

1- THERE IS NO CRASH-PROOF PLANE. Some are tougher than others, but every plane will break if you hit something fast enough or "wrong".

2- THERE ISN"T A PERFECT BEGINNERS PLANE. There are many good trainers out there in various price ranges. They all have good and bad points, advocates and detractors. Your job is to find the best one for YOU.

3- YOU WILL CRASH LEARNING TO FLY, IT WILL BREAK, AND YOU'LL HAVE TO REPAIR IT. Period. Deal with it.

4- THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES THAT YOU CAN OR WILL LEARN HOW TO FLY A R/C PLANE. It's like learning to ride a bike- without training wheels. Most people can with practice and patience.

5- THIS HOBBY IS NOT CHEAP. Warning: you may throw some (or all) of your money right out out the window.

6- DO YOUR RESEARCH HERE, the best source of knowledge on the net. Get the plane that you think will provide YOU the best chance of success, follow the instructions, and then do the Fly- Crash- Repair routine over and over till you finally "get it".

7- IT'S NOT THE PLANE'S FAULT. Every plane on the market will fly if it's built right, the CG is right, it's trimmed right, and it's not flown into anything.

8- THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A SLOWFLYER THAT WILL HANDLE WIND. Get real.

9- YOU THINK WE GO THROUGH ALL THIS FOR THE FUN OF IT? You're darn right we do!!!

Goofup
(A newbie who has been there and done that)

PS: You think these Rules are tough, you ought to see the ones I made up for helicopters! (Posted below)

PSS: If you really want some help starting out see My Advice To Newbies on my website. I've also added a page about learning to fly and what you should do for those first flights or two.

Another problem facing new fliers is model choice. Most want to fly the fast jet looking planes because of the coolness factor.
Thats where the problem lies. These types of aircraft are difficult to fly for beginners and so are low wing types. But alot make this choice and wind up complaining that the model is poor engineering or whatever. A few hundred smackers down the tubes. I overheard in a hobby shop once two individuals who were newbies talking about how "sissy" the firebird xl was.
Even the firebird is difficult if you have the wing tips way off and not level to each other.

Dave...

Hey Goofup, Great post. It,s long overdue.

Originally posted by romans1015
Hey Goofup, Great post. It,s long overdue.

I totally agree!

Is there any chance of having it given a 'sticky' status to keep it current?

tim

I agree but not quite sure on #7.

"7- IT'S NOT THE PLANE'S FAULT. Every plane on the market will fly if it's built right, the CG is right, it's trimmed right, and it's not flown into anything."

Great post though.

HH

Other than "buy stock in CA producing companies, twist washout in the wing tips, get an instructor (too easy for this rugged individualist) fly on a day with zero wind, practice on FMS (anybody find a skimmer download,) get the cg right, preflight, preflight,and preflight? Did I miss anything?

The purpose of the post wasn't to discourage newbies in any way. However, after reading thousands and thousands of posts, and from my own first hand experience, I felt it was time to put a summary in writing.

We've all been there when we're just starting out. If there's one tree in the middle of 20 acres, we'll hit it. Our first ROG ends up skittering off head-on into the prop-eating curb. We hook up servos wrong. We try to "see how high it will go"- forgetting that the winds aloft are probably doing 30 mph. We want our planes to do stunts- and they end up doing swan dives and cartwheels. And all kinds of weird things can happen when proceeded by "Hey, watch this!"

BUT, it's all worth it when you do your first loop, your first great landing, your first roll, you have to land because the batteries are dying, or your buddies say "Nice recovery!". You'll get great satisfaction out of it and can say to yourself "Yea, man, I FLEW that sucker!".

(Well, I will as soon as I get that recovery thing down....)

Goofup

May I see the one for helis, please? (not that I really need it, I finally took the training gear off of my piccolo, but yea )

~A

Practice and patience...as you said. That is so key. So, many people come up to me and ask things like, "Where can I get one for my 4 year-old?" It does look easy if you have a well balanced and trimmed plane being flown by a good pilot. But, hey golf looks easy too when you watch a pro. I don't think people realize it's darn hard at the start (especially on your own) and you can't expect great results without some blood! Otherwise, the air would be dotted with planes all the time because once you do get over that "hump" you can't stop!

-Jon

I know what you mean. I used to think like that, I figured how hard can it be to fly? well my Avistar lasted about 20 seconds in the air. the sad part was it climed out beautifuly, and flew perfectly strait until my thumbs started moving the sticks. Ten seconds later it was history and left a 6" deep crater in the ground. Some guy was walking his dog and I came about 12" from making dog meat.

1. Dont assume you will be able to fly a plane because your an expert with RC cars.

2.dont fly a 60" trainer in the local park, if you don't know what your doing.

[QUOTE]don't fly a 60" trainer in the local park,
robw you must consider yourself a Very lucky person! If you hit that fellow walking his dog or even the dog, we would be hearing about it on the 6 o'clock news!
Why would you even consider flying a gas model in a public park in the first place? There is so much information out there from books, hobby shops, clubs, forums and the AMA where to learn to fly.
In the early 80's an RC plane(which was being flown from a proper model flying club) somewhere in the US, killed a woman.
The lawsuits that followed affected not only the flyer, but every single manufacturer of every part of that airplane.(prop, motor, wheels, radio, kit etc.)
How do you think you would have faired (or the rest of us flying
"parkflyers") if you had hit someone?

In my defense It was a very large park, and it was just before sunset, and the man w/dog was the only person around. The fact is that R/C aviators come from all over use this park, as they helped inspire my stupidity. I've even seen 1/4 scale gas biplanes fly here. Of corse I can theorize all day on what would have happened if I would have hit him or his dog, the fact is it didn't happen, and I learned a valuable lesson. My disregard for safety did not give the hobby or parkfliers a black eye. As you point out, even flying from a proper flying club can be dangerous, and there are even risks with small electric planes. I tried to learn on my own because I new nobody that flew, I didn't want to pay the extra money to join the AMA, and It was not convenient for me to drive to the airstrip witch was a good distance from my home. I asked several hobby shops if they new a pilot that could train me, but it seems they are more concerned about selling planes, then they are about flying them. All those things against me, and a beautiful new plane waiting to be flown, next thing you know I nearly kill some guys dog and end up wasting more time and money than if I would have joined a club and done it the right way.

Goofup,
Great post. But your item 7 is barely true. There are some planes out there advertised as being for beginners that will just barely fly with a good pilot at the sticks. Aside from that, good stuff!

Robw,
Real glad to hear that you learned a lesson from that experience! Hopefully, others just starting out who think that it'll be easy, will read your post a think again!

Airnut,
Don't be too hard on Rob. Sure it was dumb, he admitted that, but with the ads on TV and in magazines all glossing over the difficulty, how could a newbie be expected to know?
Dennis-

Great thread!

Like others though, I don't agree with #7. The number of planes which don't work without modification my have been reduced but there are still enough around. However, anyone with access to the Ezone should have NO trouble in at least building a plane which will fly well in the hands of an expierienced pilot - even if they themselves need help learning to fly on it.

Anyway, good job!

Matthew

(I changed the title as it kind of confused things with the new 'please read' thread I posted.. ..a)