Well, once you learn the pattern, the biggest challenge (it was for me, anyway)
is to focus on what you are doing and not what comes next. I tend to tell folks I coach to stay with the plane.
Focus on where you are, not where you are going. YES! Randy....
I was given that same GOLDEN TIP via a late night phone call to Bob Gialdini that helped at least 10 fold-n-maybe more.
After a lot of flights, the order and moves sort of become ingrained. You don't really need to think about what's next because it's sort of in muscle memory.
Now the challenge is to focus in the moment. Don't think about the next corner, think about where the plane is right now.That being said...another tip from Gialdini that not only helped me fly a better pattern but also made a lot of sense.
Was to try and keep your head AS STILL AS POSSIBLE..(moving only your eyeballs, trace that model onto that blank sky background...just like a kindergarden kid drawing on a sheet of school room SKETCH PAD PAPER with a CRAYON.
The only difference is that your CRAYON is the stunt ship of yours out there on the end of the lines....
while at the same time you are trying like hell in a hand basket to concentrate in keeping that CRAYON (your stunt model) doing the task of trying or attempting to trace that pattern you are flying onto that sky background... (SKETCHPAD PAPER)
Basically in that handbasket...
NEVER PRACTICE WITHOUT A GOAL IN MIND! Everything about stunt flying is about learning and training good habits...and PRAY LIKE HELL...that you are not just practicing BAD HABITS. (Humm? That even makes one feel just how important a good and honest coach with a keen eye could help...HUH?
TEACH YOUR EARS AND HAIRS...and that all important BRAIN of yours THE DIRECTION OF THE WIND until it become a literally like a body funtion like breathing or a heart beat...
LEARN TO KEEP YOUR HEAD STILL while only your demented eye-balls focus tracing that model out there on the end of the lines...to draw that perfectly shaped figure 8 or whatever onto that canvas sky background.
TUNING THOSE ENGINE RUNS...AND TRIMMING THAT MODEL. and last and far from least ITEMS THAT OFTEN IS STILL SADLY OVER LOOKED...is to DO A FINAL GROUND PRE-FLIGHT CHECK
(one that I still haven't mastered?)
SUCH AS:
Tightness of Lugs nuts, props and spinners, mufflers, hatch and cowling hold downs, adjustable leadouts, lines, line clips..HANDLE ADJUSTMENT etc etc etc...
Take all this drivil with that last drip of last night's MAC N JACK...that ol' Crash n' burn Shultzie is perhaps the LAST ONE ON EARTH..that should make anykinds of suggestions.
FACT!
My old Super Chip would still be in one piece...if I had followed my own advice and made those all important pre-flight checks....
Hummm?? Hard to blame this on long term memory loss or even short term...the results still is the same.
better safe than sad n sorry!!!
That probably isn't much help since you are still learning the pattern, but you'll get there.