A New Experience - Rather scary!

[Hoss Cain]

I don't really fly much CL anymore however I want to do so. Planning some more Stunt flying next year. Now I was able to cut some trees and trim a half dozen more so that I can fly 65 ft.  lines in my back yard. On the south side is my house garage and pool some additional 30 ft.+ from my circle. East side has a fence and several trees from 20 ft outside the circle plus a 20% of open space. North side is my open wire fence some 15 ft away with trees and another house 30 ft. + and back.  Coming around to west side there are several trees lining the circle by 10-20 Ft. plus my 60 ft. long metal barn.

I have flown 1/2 a to .19 on up to 45' lines out there with no problems, but now, on 61' lines, things changed. The continuous and changing back-drop makes the airplane very difficult to focus on. I was truly taken by surprise on my first flights just yesterday, 10-30-'11. It contributed greatly to getting that dizzy feeling like when one first starts flying larger CL models. Scary.    In addition my corrected to 20-20 vision was having trouble in defining the airplane with such a rapidly changing and many different colors of  background.

I had to quit flying a pattern and just do inverted, lazy and vertical 8s, and such to keep oriented. Trying to do loops and such, it was totally calm, all I was doing was wobbling in my own turbulence.

This was a totally new learning experience. Right now I'm wondering just how it is going to be when I take a real stunter up out there. This trial was of course a Ringmaster and Fox 35 which I was running a tad rich, but it was still scary item. Oh well like getting dizzy a couple years ago after some 30+ years of no real CL, and I did so. It took a few days to again get rid of that old-time experience. I just kind of worry about how long I will need to get a hold on this background thing.    

[Robert Redmon]

Hoss,

You will eventually come to terms with it, more or less. My circle is in my (15 acre) backyard, too....and is situated at the base of a 25' escarpment, so I have a dramatic variety of backgrounds to contend with as well. Add to that the fact that the circle slopes away from the escarpment about a foot from one side to the other, and even flying level laps at 4-6' becomes problematic. Anyway, the trick is to keep at it until you are able to ignore the changing background. I haven't conquered that completely yet (And I have flown from this circle for 5 years now.), but practicing on my circle makes flying at most contests a piece of cake.

Bob

[john e. holliday]

I don't know how to tell you how to over come this except to just fly.   Some say concentrate on the plane and in my case it didn't work.  Where I am flying now I have a road that is about 5 foot above the surface of the circle I will be flying on.  That is on the south side, the east and west side have drop offs with no back ground close.  North side has a Hedge Apple tree that is just barely clear of 65 foot lines.  It had been about 6 years since I had flown there and I got dizzy.   But the second flight it all went away.  So stay with it and when the dizzies hit start doing lazy 8's and loops.   

[Wynn Robins]

we flew a competition in the weekend that was a couple hundred feet from an active RC meet - pretty distracting seeing and hearing another model in you flight/sight line when you are flying a pattern......especially the turbine jets!!!

mind you  - the 2m wingspan biplane that flew into the ground in th circle during the comp was a distraction also......luckily nobody was hit and that no one was in the air at the time......

[Peter Nevai]

The Human Brain is a wondrous thing. Right now your brain is revisiting stimuli that is new again. Eventually the mind will mask the background from your conciousness, and it will end up so much background noise. One trick is to make sure your plane is a high contrast to the background, preferably all one color. All Red is good, All White Not so Much. All Bright yellow and Orange works well also. Just so long as it is a solid color bright color. This way plane does not blend with the colors, highlights and shadows in the background. It helps prevent the eyes from getting confused. What ever you do do not use chrome monokote. Chrome reflects all of the surroundings and can make the plane dang near invisible.

[Brian Massey]

Our club flys on a practice soccer field on a busy 4 lane with shopping centers on both sides. You get use to the traffic and noise and pretty soon you just fly. We've had some visitors say they can't contend with all the distractions. Oh well, it's our only place to fly and not have to worry someone is going to call the police.

I wish I had my own yard that was big enough, that would be cool.

Brian

[Rollin Keszler]

Understand how you felt.  Ty Marcucci and I have been flying for some time (an understatement in his case!) and when we tried a new site surrounded by tall trees, we both felt very dizzy with that background so close.  I'm sure it can be overcome but it will take time and patience so don't get discouraged.

[Peter Nevai]

Once you get used to all that near in clutter, Just wait till you then go back to a wide open area. You then miss all those visual reference points that help make your pattern just so much nicer. once that branch or roofline which help you define your shapes are gone you tend to feel lost. The " Well what do I do now? " Moment.

[Brian Massey]

Once you get used to all that near in clutter, Just wait till you then go back to a wide open area. You then miss all those visual reference points that help make your pattern just so much nicer. once that branch or roofline which help you define your shapes are gone you tend to feel lost. The " Well what do I do now? " Moment.

I think you're right. Flying on a busy street we have lots of reference points . . . a church steeple, soccer backstops, trees, corner of a pizza joint across the street yadda yadda yadda. I went to the Meet 'n Meat last month and that's in a big open field . . . I had to hunt for something to use, and if the wind was blowing the other direction . . .

I believe you do adjust to the surroundings quicker than you might think.

Brian

[larry borden]

I fly in my back yard also and have the same problem with the changing background. I focus on something else for a split second and then go back to the plane and that seems to help. My circle is 70 feet.

[John Stiles]

I paint the whole aft section of most my planes white.....I've learned to focus on the plane and nothing else! I have a lotta background like you're talking about, plus a constant stream of log trucks and other traffic, out at about 100ft. Any time I lose focus, I look down and then right back up at the plane....p/s....I've had 33 chemo shots to my right eyeball, and it's colorblind, but corrected to near 20/20. Try tying on a streamer.

[Hoss Cain]

WOW!  Guess I'm not alone but for almost 76 years old, I'm not sure my reflexes and quick changes will do it. However I'll be working on it. 

Peter Nevai, you do scare me. I planned on building a couple stunters to follow my very best design from the early '70s. I called it a "Mig", and they were silver grey. Not the best for colors so I'll come up with something. That design had a unique wing that I have not yet seen duplicated in this 40 years. I also wonder why modern stunters do not employ some very different control systems so readily available. I'll show this all to you in around next March if I survive this back yard demon. 

Thanks MUCH Guys. You are very helpful to an old timer that wants to hold a handle again rather than a transmitter.