I am wondering if anyone has has some good resources they can point me to for execution of basic maneuvers and how to progressively train. The closest comparison I can think of is piano lessons, where you have a book that keeps inching you along to progressively more challenging things as you improve with repetitive practice. I have tried to internet search pictoral demonstrations of CL maneuvers but have had little to no luck. I also can't find the basic and beginner flight patterns. Whatever you can do to get us moving in the right direction would be appreciated.
I think you have gotten excellent advice so far, and probably one of the better examples of a training plan from the Shoestring plans.
There are two things I would strongly suggest, to make you life perhaps more difficult in the short term, and much better in the longer term. Put high priority on learning to fly inverted and doing outside maneuvers. The longer you fly around just doing inside maneuvers from upright flight, the harder it is going to be when you try to fly inverted. The "too close to the ground, jerk in "up"" reflex is extremely hard to overcome once it is ingrained.
The other part is to *not* follow the usual beginner "safety" tricks - holding your arm rigid, and turning your handle sideways when inverted. The first is intended to keep you from over-controlling, but also prevents you from having sufficient control to do a lot of the more complex maneuvers. The second, I am not sure what it is supposed to do, I think "if you get confused while inverted, stop turning, and the airplane will give itself "down" naturally". I never learned or heard that one but apparently many, many people do, and that one is even harder to overcome. It leads to the tendency to try to do the same thing in maneuvers, upright on inside turns, and horizontal on outsides, so you end up screwing your arm around to try to match the attitude of the airplane, with difficult results. Hold your hand upright, set your neutral so the handle grip is 90 degrees to the lines, and keep your elbow bent. When flying, your hand should be directly in front of your sternum, about 18" out, and then control the airplane with fingers, wrist, and forearm rotation - *not* by moving your entire forearm up and down, or your entire arm up and down. DO NOT set the neutral with the handle tilted "forward".
A third corollary - you are going to crash a lot of airplanes. Some of the tricks above are intended to keep you from crashing, but it only works in the short haul, later, you will keep crashing as you try to unlearn all of these tricks (which you *cannot use* to fly stunt successfully). Do not let a crash end a flying session. Have more than one airplane (preferably, a fleet of them, all the same, but whatever you have will do), ready to go, and when you crash, don't lose any time worrying about it, get the next one, try again. Keep going until you have run out of time or airplanes, DO NOT have one crash or problem, say "I will fix it later at home" and quit for the day. Just jump back on the horse. Fix the carnage between sessions.
The foam combat plane flies really well and works for the flying part. They can sometimes be more difficult to repair in the field, but usually you can do it. A built-up airplane can be repaired indefinitely at the field, as long as you have cyanoacrylate and packing tape. You should see some of the repairs we have done, they looked like a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle, 45 minutes and a lot of Hot Stuff, official flights.
Right now it's not critical, but work towards *stock, current-production engines*. You will make your life much more difficult using older vintage engines, even if you already have them. There are plenty of 20-25FPs and 25LAs around, they run much more reliably and with higher performance (read - easier to deal with) and use regular fuels you can get anywhere.
Finally - you learn by doing, largely. There's a lifetimes worth of knowledge to gain about stunt, that's why we have people doing it from 10 years old until they can't walk to the center of the circle any more. You will never master it, no one ever has. Learning and experiencing is the point of the exercise, so you have to go out and actually do it.
Brett
Topic: New Flyer: Looking for Tutorial on Basic Maneuvers and Progressive Learning (Read 2056 times)
