Conference vmszoo::rc

     Hi,
     I would suggest you get something easier to fly like a Telemaster 40
     They almost fly on there own. Or do like me I started on a Electric
     Mirage 550 . Not much performance but a lot easier to fly if you want 
     to train yourself.
    
      Jacques
    
    PS I did put half a dozen plane in the ground before my flying improve
       to a reasonable point.
    
    

    I would caution you not to assume that joining a club will automatically
    assure that you get "Tution".
    
    Club members will have the same status as you, simply membership. 
    
    while it is true that you will stand a much better chance of getting good 
    help in a club it is not a given!. I have seen many people make the 
    assumption that joining a club "Entitles" them to help. You will have to 
    ask for it, carefully!.
    
    I've been on both sides of this many times so I thought that I would
    throw in this cautionary note.
    
    Regards
    
    Eric H.
           

I agree. Flight training varies widely from club to club. The best thing is 
to ask the local hobby store owner where he recommends and then visit before 
plunking down money. The AMA make sense since it gives you insurance. The 
other fees might make sense if the club is "full" and/or offers some significant 
services. If all it gets you is a chair at the meeting and a donut...

Go to the field and talk to the fliers. Watch someone get instruction and how 
they're treated. Find out about the club. The fees are paid for by not crashing 
that "next" trainer. (read some of the "cost" notes on the true cost of building 
that $50 kit)

>      <<< Note 1481.0 by CSC32::HAGERTY "Veni, Vedi, $Cmkrnli, Rebooti" >>>
>                   -< Where do you find a good instructor? >-
>
>    I argued with myself as whether I should put this in the Colorado
>    notes file or here, and this one won...
>    
>    Here is my dilemma:  I want to stop *having* to buy planes for a while
>    (pronounce this "I want to learn to fly without crashing"), but the
>    local club's dues are, well, pretty hefty.  They want an AMA membership
>    (reasonable), $70 initiation fee and $40 for a year.  This adds up to
>    $150 for the first year.  Admittedly, the amount of propellors and
>    balsa that I have planted over the last several months would pay for
>    it, but that's the past.   Forgetting the whole idea is not an option
>    :-).

Dave, why don't you just move to Massachusetts?  That is sure to save you
a lot of money.  It is always nice and warm and all our clubs have great
paved runways and wide open spaces with very few trees.

On second thought - maybe we could trade jobs!
I was just thinking of spending $800 for a snow blower.
Who do I send my $150 to?

Bye          --+--
Kay R. Fisher  |
---------------O---------------
################################################################################

    Re: .4.
    
    I guess what I heard was true.  Flying R/C makes you a smart aleck :-)
    
    Re: the others
    
    The local hobby shop gave me a pointer to the local field.  I went out
    there, and it seems to be a decent place to be and learn; to wit, most
    people are friendly, one or two "macho muchachos" (an insult, as far as
    I'm concerned) .  At some point in my life, I see myself being a member
    of this club, in fact.  It's not a matter of "if", but rather "when".  
    The "when" may be a while yet, however.  I was hoping for another idea
    for the interim.
    
    Oh, and the argument about the fee paying for the next plane is not
    lost on me, believe me...
    
    						Dave()

    You were looking for another idea in the interim?. 
    
    Barring genetic re-engineering to get you to Chip Hyde's or Hanno Pretner's 
    level, I would suggest a PC flight simulator.
    
    All the people that I know who used them first learnt to fly faster
    and with less grief.
    
    Regards,
    
    Eric H.
                                                      

Seems that all the solutions mentioned are going to cost you that $150...

If you're going to join that club eventually, why not bite the bullet now 
and stop breaking stuff?

Geez Dave, here I come, one of the members of the local club.

I cannot say more than that you *will* get flying instruction there;
we have an instructor program and we solo several flyers each month.
Yes, that initiation fee is high, for Colorado, I suppose, but ask
some of the others what they pay, if they can get into a club at
all--the metropolitan ones are often closed to new members.  We have
two fields, one on Black Forest Road, which is probably the one you
visited, and another out east of Meadowlake Airport on Judge Orr Road.
This latter is our new field and it is one of the best in Colorado, if
not in the surrounding states.  As for the people in the club, they
are mostly nice fellows with one or two exceptions, but I've met far
bigger egos at other fields (it seems that egoism is one frequent
characteristic of RC'ers in general--naw, I'm not thinking of anybody
in particular ;-) ).

Our club meeting is tomorrow nite at 7:00 at the Rustic Hills Mall.
I'll be there, just stand up when they welcome the guests.

Now, for the other shoe.  There is a group of flyers, if you're not
already aware of it, that fly out at the foot of Carefree.  They obey
few rules, though I have seen an attempt at frequency control in the
last year, and there are some flyers there that will instruct.  Go on
out and watch them on any weedend morning and judge for yourself.  I
started out feeling that they were a bunch of bozos, but now I feel
that they are just like us clubbies, only they don't want to join. I
also feel that what they're doing there is wrong and dangerous, but
I'm a bit of a Worrysome Willy about safety anyway.

If you have questions send mail to my node or call at DTN 523-2245 and
I'll talk your ear off.  If you look back at some of my old
instruction notes you will find quite a bit of venom deployed at club
instructors in general; learning to fly isn't easy!  

There are two trainers that are popular up here.  The Eagle 2 is
the most popular in our club.  It does have the nice characteristic of
being easy to fly and at the same time it is capable of the beginning
fancy stuff after you solo.  The other one is the PT40, which I used.
I cannot say much bad about it, after all, it took almost 3 years to
crash it bad enough to need major repairs.  I'll be rebuilding it soon
to teach my little one to fly.  The most popular engine is the OS40FP,
and I recommend it as the best bet.  After some nasty teething
troubles during break-in it runs strong and dependable.

Finally, let me add that I really don't care if you join the club or
not; I am not here to give a sales pitch and in fact I can be
downright nasty in talking about the club.  But I do care that your
experience with RC is as happy and rewarding as it can possibly be,
and I mean that.

    Re: most of the prev: Like I said about smart alecks...
    
    Yeah, you guys are right, of course.  I was hoping that I had
    overlooked the obvious, but I guess I haven't.  The club meeting
    tomorrow night sounds pretty promising, especially if I can get
    one of those donuts :-) 
    
    						Dave()

>>    Re: most of the prev: Like I said about smart alecks...

>>    tomorrow night sounds pretty promising, especially if I can get
>>    one of those donuts :-) 

See what you've learned about the hobby already! 8^) 8^)

Jim

    There speaks the  voice of doughnut experience if I ever heard it! 
    :-)
    
    EVL-1

Dave,
(John, correct me if I'm wrong) I was a guest at the meeting where the 
club in question imposed the initiation fee. It's been a while but as I recall
the dues have to be paid up front but the initiation fee could be spread out
over the year. This was done to ease the blow to newcomers. You might want to
check with John and see it this is still available.

With your AMA card in hand, there's another option you might try. There is/was
a small group of people who flew (with the base commander's written permission)
on the soccer fields at the Air Force Academy. Check with Jack at Custom Hobbies
about this. The group was mostly Heli fliers but a fixed wing or two were flown 
while I was there. While this would be free it has some limitations. You'd have 
to find someone in the group willing to instruct you and you can only fly there
during the weekends when the fields are not in use. There may be other limits
also. 

    My personal experience and observations for learning to fly R/C
    are varied.  I exclusively fly gliders and electric gliders
    and learned to fly with my father's help in solitary fields.
    My first ship was an Oly 650 that I built from a kit.
    
    If I had it to do over again I would try to buy a "beater"
    from someone or at an auction.  This gets you in the air faster
    and by the time your kit is built, you may actually get to
    fly it for more than 5 seconds!
    
    I don't think you first ship matters too much as long as it is
    stable.  The biggest problem I had and have observed with other
    beginners is sorting out the left from right phenomena when the
    plane is coming at you or going away.  This condition is the same
    whether you have a polyhedral 3 channel ship(rudder,elevator,throttle)
    or an aileron trainer.  I think a beginner stands a better chance
    of learning left from right and up and down elevator with an IC engine
    powered polyhedral glider.  This seems to have worked well with 
    the new flyers I have seen.
    
    On clubs and instructors: of course a competent instructor can 
    shorten the learning curve.  Clubs can often be intimidating
    with the other planes buzzing around and the large egos that
    often are present.  I have seen the learning curve actually
    lengthened by beginners showing up with a plane that is too
    "nice" to learn on.  The beginner is all too willing to hand
    the transmitter to the instructor or the instructor doesn't
    want to see a nice plane crashed so he takes the transmitter
    too often(takeoffs, landings, etc).
    
    In the end beginners all have crashes, hard landings, orientation
    problems etc.  Get a junker and fly as much as you can, chances are
    after a pint of CA glue and many repairs you'll be flying.  There
    aren't many short cuts.  Accept help when it is available but don't
    be to timid.  It is a very rewarding Hobby!
    
                                                    Good luck,
    
                                                    Jim

    Well, all's well that ends well.  I am an AMA member, a PPRC member,
    and my plane is still in one piece even though I've been getting quite
    a bit of stick time lately.  In fact, last weekend, I soloed (kinda).
    
    I wish to give my public condolences to John Csencsits for having put
    up with me for this long.  Remember how he used to be?  Decent kinda
    guy, golden thumbs?  Well, that's all changed.  He now walks around
    with a decided tilt and mutters to himself about taking up coin
    collecting.  DEC had to issue him knuckle guards so he wouldn't hurt
    himself.  Thanks, John.
    
    My (kinda) solo consisted of coming in for final, deciding that I was
    coming in short, and trying to "extend the glide" by giving a bit of
    throttle.  To make a long story short, I ended up a couple of feet to
    the left of the runway, but with the wheels down.  Quite a feeling.
    John commented that perhaps my next goal should be for the wheels to
    land on the runway.  Smart ass.
    
    I've come to a couple of conclusions:
    
    	a) Having an instructor is important.  Having an instructor who
           remembers "how it was" is vital.  During the intervening time,
           I met a lot of friendly, helpful people, but you still always
           feel funny when you approach somebody just to get some stick
           time when your regular instructor isn't available.  It's worse
           when you "blow it" in some way and wonder what this guy is
           thinking.  Hearing somebody say "Boy, do I remember that"
           really helps.
    
    	b) the best instructor is not necessarily the one who can do Cuban
    	   eights in a mirror.
    
    	c) what you're really learning is confidence.  All the other stuff
           is really just safety and technique.
    
    Yeah, I'm long winded, aren't I?
    
    						Dave()
                        

Congrats Dave!

One word of warning...

Don't get too close to a hobby store with your wallet/checkbook. Soon 
they'll learn to jump out of your pocket and self-open 8^)

    Thanks.
    
    Actually, I've been thinking about getting one of those things that
    you use to stop smoking - you know, those timers that only let you
    have a cigarette every x minutes and x is an ever-increasing value?
    
    My idea is to connect it to my AmEx card, activated within 2 blocks
    of the hobby store.  When activated, it delivers a severe shock
    to the recipient (a mild shock wouldn't be enough of a deterrent).
    
    						Dave()

Y'know, a couple of days ago I stopped by Phlyin' Phil's joint and
there he was, picking his teeth with a silver toothpick and grinning
at the new Cadillac out front.  Is there a connection here?

Not to rain on your parade Dave, but is John a club instructor?  If
not, you should fly with one of the regulars, to get a better base of
experience, and you should also take on some field traffic ASAP.  

>Not to rain on your parade Dave, but is John a club instructor?  If
>not, you should fly with one of the regulars, to get a better base of
>experience, and you should also take on some field traffic ASAP.  
                                              
    True.  I joined just recently (you remember :-) )
    and since I'm about ready to take off for vacation, I didn't want
    to get into anything formal since I would only have to interrupt
    it right in the middle.  On the other hand, I didn't want to do
    nothing (double negative intended), so I comprimised by grabbing
    instructors on Saturday mornings and John at odd hours since he
    works such a bizarre schedule.  It seems to have worked out for
    the best.
    
    Phil worries me sometimes.  He crashed (or at least bent) a bipe at the
    field last weekend.  Maybe he traded it in :-)
    
    					Dave()

re -.1

Actually the Liberty Sport is fine. He (Phil) took a radio hit (in the same 
spot I did), but was able to get down without incident. My Sport Air on the
other hand will need some work, sigh. 

Randy

Who did you bribe to keep out of the Crash Award running this month?

Nada. If they want to give it to me in-absentia thats fine.

    I'm not sure that the PPRC requires that you are instructed only by one
    of the club instructors.  The various club rules have been explained in
    detail.  I personally don't have much faith in some of our trainers. 
    Secondary to that is that if anyone wants to be trained during the week
    trainer are difficult at best to find.
    
    Dave was being modest about his landing.  His total flight was very
    successful.  He did the takeoff beautifully with a decent cross wind.
    He flew nicely formed traffic patterns and did some stall recovery. 
    When it came time for a landing, he did the lineup with very little
    coaching (if any).  The wind blew him west of the runway (5').  He got
    caught by a updraft that brought him close to stall but he throttled up
    and recovered and finished with a smooth flaired landing in the grass.
    Just like Paul Harvey--- Now you know the rest of the story....
    
    John 

Yeah, they do, and Dave should have a check flight before he gets his
solo wings.  I also understand the situation during the week.  Dave,
talk to Phil about this, it'll be easy to fix.

Please excuse me lads, I have to wear my club safety officer hat.