RC Airplane World Forum

Note from Pete: these posts have been split from Jeff's Monocoupe thread at viewtopic.php?f=39&t=572&start=30 to start this new thread on flight patterns.
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I am sorry.
I wrote some text hopefully trying to help jkw in his initial flight with his Monocoupe.

I had not seen at the time that Pete has a flight school in his main website.

These postings were not intended to change what I did not know existed at the time of my writing.

Pete,
Please remove this thread.

KILOP

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Well of course we all want to know what you did next. I think you are giving excellent advice for anyone flying a new plane.

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My opinion Kilop is that your posts are very informative. I agree with you on learning to fly specific patterns. When I first learned to fly I flew ovals, and then more ovals. I would switch directions if the wind would allow it easily, so I could make right turns and left turns and get the feel of the plane.

I then progressed to doing figure eights, concentrating on attempting to maintain a specific altitude. When beginning to fly it is easy to inadvertently gain altitude in a turn, I think it a natural tendency to pull back on the right stick when turning, and depending on the angle of the wings this can make the plane gain altitude. So I would try to maintain the same altitude on every lap.

I found, when learning to fly, that the hardest thing for me what to maintain direction on take-off. When I got my first trainer, and watched other people fly planes, I assumed you just had to give it full throttle and the plane would be basically pulled into the air. Imagine my surprise when that was not the case. I remember my first take-off attempt. I gave the plane full throttle and watched as it veered off the runway to the left, into tall grass and flipped over. Over time it becomes second nature to give the plane just a little right rudder to keep it straight, but that is one of those things that makes it a challenge.

I have noticed that when flying a simulator the planes do, for the most part just roll straight down the runway. I think that is a concern that the simulator people need to take into account. In my experience very few planes actually roll straight and true without correction.

Absolutely, Jeff - using rudder on the take off run is more crucial and delicate than the use of the throttle! (if that makes sense...). The bad habits come when flying from a large open space (park) with no defined runway; it's too easy to just whack open the throttle and only vaguely keep the plane in the same direction until it gets airborne.
Flying from a club runway forces better use of the rudder during take off.

Great posts Paul, keep 'em coming I must shamefully admit that I was never one for sticking to a strict circuit, but it should indeed be done. It's how we fly full size, so RC shouldn't be too different I guess!

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