45 Minutes to Disaster

It's Christmas morning and you have finished opening the presents. Someone has an RTF plane and is just itching to get it down the oval and have a fly.

Timeline - 45 Minutes to disaster:

45 minutes to disaster - You quickly pull the battery and charger out of the box and hook them up. Sorted
43 minutes to disaster - You start flicking throught the instructions - seems straight forward.
40 minutes to disaster - You take your first attempt at attaching the tail. But how do you get that control rod into place.
30 minutes to disaster - You begin the final assembly of the tail.
25 minutes to disaster - You put the main wing on - there that was easy.
20 minutes to disaster - The prop is now on. You fumble around for the batteries for the transmitter. Turn it on - it lights up - looks good.
17 minutes to disaster - You start flicking through the "how to fly" section of the manual - okay this stick left/right bank, up/down here, this one makes it go faster. Don't fly when it's windy. Get someone experienced to help you - peh - who has time for that.
12 minutes to disaster - So for landing, just turn it into the wind and cut the power - how simple is that.
10 minutes to disaster - The battery is charged - you chuck the plane, battery and transmitter into the car and head to the local school yard.
5 minutes to disaster - You arrive at the school yard. It's not windy at all really. You can barely notice the wind, and the odd bits of litter are only flying two or three feet at a time when the wind gets underneath them and lifts them away from the ground.
3 minutes to disaster - You plug in the battery and turn on the Transmitter (in that order).
2 minutes 45 seconds to disaster - You do a radio check - the manual seemed to think that was really important, but you aren't sure what the big deal is.
2 minutes 15 seconds to disaster - You push the turn control - aw - that's how that works - neat. You wonder if it should be in the middle - it seems pretty close - surely that little bit wont matter.
1 minute 40 seconds to disaster - You fiddle with the up/down control. That's easy isn't it - just remember to pull back to make the nose come up. You look carefully at the transmitter while you play with it.
1 minutes 15 second to disaster - You realise the wind is not coming straight to you across the field. Rather than walking 50 metres for a clean take off you figure you can take off into the wind parrallel to that row of trees at the edge of the field.
45 seconds to disaster - You put the motor on full bore - sounds okay. You wiggle the controls again. You're still not sure about that control that doesn't seem to line up, but you figure you'll fix it after the first flight.
11 seconds to disaster - You give the motor full power and throw the plane.
9 seconds to disaster - The plane is banking to the right straight towards that line of trees you didn't want to walk away from.
7 seconds to disaster - For two full seconds you do nothing. Then you push the left right stick to the left. Your plane is getting perilously close to the ground.
5 seconds to disaster - why isn't the plane responding. You look down at the transmitter to try and get your bearings on which control is which.
3 seconds to disaster - You try telling the plane to climb with the up/down thing. The plane seems to be losing altitude, not gaining it, and you are almost at the trees.
2 seconds to disaster - The plane flys between a gap in the trees and is now headed across the street at someones house. You glance desperately at the controls to try and figure out which control you need. You try to use the up/down thing to ditch the plane into the ground, but rather than diving it starts to accelerate.
1 second to disaster - You watch in horror as you realise the plane is headed at someones lounge room window and that you have no idea how to stop it. You don't know what to do. Something deep inside your mind is telling you to drop the transmitter and run like crazy in the opposite direction.
0 seconds to disaster - the wing tip catches on a railing, cartwheeling the plane into the cement balcony and it then collides harmlessly (for the house) with the wall just to the side of and below the window.
5 seconds after disaster - You realise the motor is still running. You look down at the controls and realise the throttle is on full. It dawns on you that when you were trying to tell the plane to climb of dive you were actually playing the with the throttle and the entire time you were trying to tell the plane to turn you were playing with the stick that seems to do nothing.
17 seconds after disaster - The people inside the house have emerged to see what the thud was. You are greatful they've had a couple of drinks, seems like good people, and see the funny side. You collect your wreckage and head for home.

Okay - so a bit of poetic licence there but seriously - many first flights go an awful lot like that one.

I hope if you are reading this on Christmas day, you are doing it just before you go out to fly that new model, not just after.

Now I've written a whole series of notes on how to learn to fly - they are over on the right hand side at the top but I'm not sure you will have that much patience - so I'm going to give you the 30 minute version - you've read this far. What I'm going to ask you to do will take another 30 minutes in preparation and this will increase your chance of a successful flight enormously.

Appropriate Model

Do you have an appropriate model? An electric trainer will be three channels (Rudder, Elevator, Throttle) and will look pretty ugly, but tough (the HZ Supercub is an exception - it looks nice but tough). If the well meaning other half bought you a spitfire/mustang/corsair/F15 etc if you try to fly it today you will end up with bits.

So - only read on if you have an electric trainer. I guess you could read on if you had the other type of model but I'd recommend against flying it.

Trimmed

The control surfaces need to line up almost exactly with the thing they are attached to. Use the trim tabs on the transmitter. If you can't get it to line up even with the tab pushed full over you need to make a mechanical adjustment - don't fly with it like this - you will crash.

Familiarising Yourself with the Controls

Here is the most important thing - when you are flying you should never take your eyes off your model, and things happen too fast to rely on looking at the controller to figure out what to do. Spend 20 minutes, with the battery in the model in the lounge room grooving which stick does what into your brain. Don't look at the transmitter while you do it - look at the plane.

Disconnect the battery from the plane, and now build the throttle into your practice as well. Make sure you can set the throttle at full, half and off without looking at it. If you have someone to help you get them to quiz you for 3 or 4 minutes - nose up, turn right, etc - afterwards check the input you made and make sure it was the the right one (include throttle too, provided the plane isn't "on").

Practice doing small as well as big inputs to the controls.

Go to the big field

Spend the extra 10 minutes in the car to get to the really big sports field (you know - the one with 4 football fields etc).

Use a Ribbon to Test the Wind

If it deflects more than 45 degrees from straight down when you let it hang out of your hand then it is too windy..

Takeoff from the downwind edge of the field

Walk as far as you have to take off directly into the wind out across the centre of your field.

Takeoff at Full Power - be ready to correct the model immediately with a small input

The model will almost certainly not fly out straight and level - even though you trimmed it on the ground subtle misalignments mean you will need to trim it in the air. From the moment it leaves your hand it will start to turn one way or the other - you need to correct this immediately, but with only a small input.

Likewise, as you climb out you want to use a little up elevator - not too much otherwise the model will stall.

Do nothing except keep the plane wings level, nose slightly up for the first 50 metres - you want to put on as much altitude as you can.

Set your throttle at half

After the initial climb out set your throttle at half - this will stop stuff happening so fast.

Always turn left

For your first flight make all your corners left handers, 90 degrees and just try and fly a big box. If you turn both ways you may disorient yourself.

Remember, small smooth inputs building up as you get a feel for how the aircraft responds.

Regain altitude between each corner

When you aren't in a corner try and put on some altitude. You may need more throttle for this.

Landing

Close the throttle. After that you have two jobs - keep the wings level, and put her on the deck before you run out of runway.

You will probably find it easiest to land going away from yourself so you don't get an orientation mistake (where you get your left, and the plane's left confused).


That's it - that's what you can get through in 30 minutes. If you must fly then fly - good luck. Afterwards come back and read the full course notes. Oh, and of course, all the best for the Holidays... 8-)

Oz.