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Learning To Fly

 

Let me start by saying DON'T HAVE A CRACK AT IT BY YOURSELF, not unless you have a lot of money to spend and a good insurance policy. Learning to fly is not that hard but it's not a piece of cake either. Most decently built models, especially trainers, will take themselves off, from that moment onwards you are flying to the crash site… GUARANTEED. We have a number of Airline and Airforce pilots in the Club with thousands of hours and they had to start at the beginning. You only have to chat to these guys to see why not to go it alone. If you are CONVINCED that you can do it at least try and have a go on someone else's model with them by your side to see what it feels like. If you can't find someone to give you a go we have a member who runs a flying school and he will let you have a go for a few dollars, do it… it'll be a good investment, more on his flying school below.

Our club will teach new members to fly for free. Interested people can fly twice at the Club before they are required to join, that is a stipulation of the National insurance covering the hobby.

There are members who have done instructors tests and others who have been flying for many years. In our Club we do not insist on an instructor to teach you to fly but they must be of a capable standard. Don't commit yourself to fly with anyone until you have had a chat to a few of the other members about who they think are the better teachers, some people are better at it than others.

Once your instructor feels you are ready to go solo he will get one of the Clubs MAAA certified instructors give you a short checkout and then you're on your own. Learning to fly is not just the physical side of actually flying but more importantly knowing the frequency control system, the safety rules of the club, pre flight on your model and radio gear, the procedures on the ground for starting, tuning engines, taxiing and entering/exiting the flying areas etc.

If you hang around the Club long enough someone is likely to offer you a go on their trainer with their instructor, this will let you know what it's like…. It's great.

There are a few methods of teaching someone to fly. The best and by far the safest is the buddy-box system. This is where both the instructor and the student have a transmitter and they are connected by a cable. The instructor has the master radio and the student has the slave. The instructor holds up a switch to give control to the student, if he gets into trouble he just releases the switch and he has control again. The buddy box is the preferred method of training by our club

The other way is for the instructor to get the model into the air and get it all trimmed and up to a safe height and then hand over the transmitter to the student. If the student gets into trouble he takes the transmitter back and gets the model back on track. There is nothing wrong with this system so long as the instructor identifies a problem early enough and gets the transmitter back from the student in enough time to recover.

One of the most important aspects about learning to fly is DON'T RUSH IT. If you do you increase your chances of having a mishap. You might really put in the hours and learn to fly in perfect mild conditions, then one day you go for a fly and there is a howling crosswind or very gusty conditions and you blow your model away. It is difficult to say how long it will take you to go solo, it all depends how much of a natural you are and how much time you put in. You should at least stick with your instructor until you have flown in a variety of conditions and lost engine power a few times etc.

It is highly recommended that you try and get your hands on a flight simulator for a computer. This certainly makes the learning process much quicker and give the student a bit more confidence. Nowadays you can buy flight simulators for around $40 which includes the controller which plugs into the computrer, You do not need a 'you beaut' computer to run the normal simulators, they will run on older machune quite well.

The Club has a set of procedures that are taught to students before they can go solo.

Okay, click on the button below to see what you will be expected to know.