Welcome to Flight School

[trash]

Today 17th of December is the 100th aniversary of powered flight,
what better day to start learning to fly yourself.

A few of my friends that I fly with have asked me questions on how to fly (and not crash) in reguards to the A40 and other electric planes that they have bought. Now a couple of guys have asked for it in writing, so here it is.
I crash better than anybody else I know. I ve broken both my arms
hang gliding as evidence. Yes it hurts, but crashing an RC plane is not likely to hurt anything more than your wallet. blackeye:

The first thing to learn about flying is what not to do.
Ever seen somebody learn to ride a bike without knowing how to use the brakes first ?

Being too keen to get into the air will be your undoing !
Better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than in the air wishing you were on the ground !

Learn when wind is too strong ! Anything more than a very light breeze, you re going to crash. Pack up, go home and come back tomorrow, it s just not worth crashing the plane when you know the wind is too strong then having a perfect day tomorrow and not being able to fly !

Stalls are going to be your next common error.
A stall is when the wing stops flying and the plane starts falling.
If you picture the plane climbing and then suddenly the nose drops and the plane flying into the ground… That s a stall !!
You can avoid them easily and you ll learn how to control them later.

Find a big area, away from trees which cause turbulance and are just a big magnets for your little plane. Picture yourself climbing that tree to get your plane back ??? Power lines and buildings will just have a magic ability to suck your plane in like flypaper.

Read the instructions on putting your plane together and ballancing it correctly. Sometimes it just helps to have somebody show you how to do it. Buy a roll of fibre tape if you are considering reinforcing the plane.

You re now ready to start flying … time for some short glides.

Edited by – trash on 17 December 2003 23:03:50

[trash]

LEARNING TO FLY MICRO PLANES.

---

Start with a windless day. A light breeze will be too strong for learning to fly micro planes.
Flying in the morning is best as there is often no breeze at all.
Later on you will be able to fly in light winds, but for now avoid them.

Assuming your plane is reasonably ballanced already, it’s time to learn how to launch, land and
fly.

To launch you plane stand facing into the very light breeze (wind), NEVER launch downwind or
cross wind. You won’t need the remote control, the plane should glide by itself.
Give the plane a firm push into the air at an angle slightly down or horizontal, as if you were
throwing a dart or a paper aeroplane. It’s not a baseball, don’t chuck it and it’s not a javlin,
45 degrees will make the plane go up, stall and crash. You’re just trying to prove that the plane will glide straight by itself for 5 metres and not stall or hit the ground hard.

The plane should glide a few metres by itself and land without damaging anything. If it does so, then you’re ready to try long glides.

Find a football oval and stand at one end (facing into the very light breeze).
With the remote control in one hand and the plane in the other, full throttle on and push the plane into the air just like before but angled slightly up at about 10 degrees. The plane will start to climb away in front of you… keep it flying straight with TINY nudges on the rudder, power off after 3 seconds and land in the center of the oval.
After a few runs you should be able to land the plane exactly in the center circle/square/pitch
every time. If you plane is landing anywhere else then you need to keep practising these long glides and get it right.

Once you can land where you want then you can consider turns.
Turning should be gentle and smooth, not hard on the controls. Gentle nudges on the turn control
will bring you plane around with room to spare. Turning too tight can result in one wing stalling and the plane going into a spin.

Launch as usual, but fly down one side of the oval with the power on full throttle to get some
height and then make a gentle turn. Picture it in your mind. If the plane isn’t turning as quick
as you thought it would, turn a little harder. The plane should cruise around and turn back
towards you. At this point you may consider landing back towards yourself or if you have enough room, keep the throttle on and continue to climb, slow turning the same direction keeping a circuit. You should find it easy to continue to fly in a circle gradually widening or tightening the turn as you feel. Be careful to keep the plane over your landing area as a breeze higher up may carry your plane away.

When your ready to land bring the plane around to the end of the oval that you’re standing at and turn it back into the wind. If the plane is too high, then back off the power and fly another circle over the oval and come back to your end again. When the plane is about 30ft/10m
above the ground at your end, turn back into the wind and power off.
You might need some gentle nudges on the rudder to keep the plane flying straight and the wings
level. Aim for the centre of the oval again. As the plane comes close to the ground, give it about 1/2 throttle about 1m above the ground. The plane will then seem to float along the ground, back to zero throttle and the plane will land gently.

Congrates, you’ve completed a circuit !

[leonli17]

Somehow, after i read this tutorial, i can imagine my self just destroyed my Skywolf. Because before, i didn’t followed most of the things u said and i was lucky enough to keep the plane in 1 piece.
DOn’t get me wrong. It’s a great tutorial. I should read it over again.

[TallduDe]

nice tutorial trash, wish i read that before i started flying, would have saved some heart break plus plane break’s:D

[dgs73]

Some handy info there. Shall heed this advice when I do jump into planes…

[Racer9]

nice!

[peteWah]

I want a plane last week if you know what i mean trash?
it was fun to watch to the point where i want to own one.

GOOD STUFF :D:D:smiley2::p
pcd79

[micro_Amps]

Yep, all good info Trash.
Getting rid of that ‘eagerness to fly’ is the hardest thing af all.
For a new or unfamiliar plane, if the trees are moving AT ALL, turn around and go home.
Gotta love the micro planes.
:)uA

[trash]

I’m just addicted to the A40 and some are most other people who see them fly. I’m going to be doing some tug experiments with mine this weekend to see if it can tow a bit glider.

Work got boring yesterday, so I just started typing. There are heaps of pages 🙂
It’s hard to read something, then transform it into flying skills. Some things are just reflex for me now and I have to think hard about how I actually do things.

[trash]

TURNS & DIVES

Generally, Turns are very gentle, small nudges on the controls will be enough to control most planes.

NEVER change your mind. “I’m going to turn around in front of that tree… oh, I’m not going to
make it, I’ll turn back the other way !” NOooooooooooooooooooo !!!!!!

Remember to commit to a turn. !! I’m going to turn in front of the tree, oh, I’m not going to
make it… POWER ON and HARD TURN the way you are already turning !
The plane may dive into the turn… be ready to nudge the power the other way to level the
plane, but keep the power on. (get ready for a possible stall).

Even if your plane doesn’t make the turn, I often think it is better to ditch your plane into the ground than to have to climb a tree, knock it out and then have it hit the ground and you hit the ground as well on the way down. You’ve put yourself in a bad situation, you have nothing left to loose. Make that turn !!!

If your heavy handed on the controls in normal flight and find the plane rolls and dives then you need to ACT QUICK ! Power on Full and a short hard turn to level the plane. Again, get ready for a stall.

A common mistake in making turns is the natural response to back off the power. Once the plane is banked, it needs power to pull it through the turn. If you back off the power, you’re likely to stall or dive. This will make you even more hesitant to put the power on. Full throttle, will pull you out of a dive quicker. If you think you’re going to hit the ground, you probably will,
so getting there quicker isn’t really going to hurt much more. Power on and take the chance that you’ll pull out… go down fighting !

* There is saftey in height, flying at higher than 10 metres gives you room for errors.
* Full throttle will pull you out of a dive quicker.
* More throttle will pull your through a turn quicker.
* Constant light turns will prevent stalls

More power asserts your control on the plane !

[Racer9]

More niceness!

[trash]

STALLS

The most important thing about learning to fly any aircraft is learning how to identify and
correct a STALL.
A stall happens when the wings no long create lift. (commonly called ‘falling’!) This can happen when the plane is flying too slow, it is climbing too steep or in turbulance.

The key to surviving a stall is HEIGHT, the more you have, the safer you are.

To practice a stall, fly straight and power on full. The plane will climb, keep the power on and
the plane will begin to nose up and fly slower until it stalls. The nose will drop quickly and
the plane will dive fast towards the ground.

The natural response is to back off the throttle. (which you should have done before the stall to stop it happening). Power on Full … the plane dives, but with the power on it will increase speed quickly and pull out. As the plane levels out or starts to climb you should back off the throttle to half power, otherwise the plane will climb and stall again and again in a ever
bigger swooping motion. Each swoop you will loose height until you hit the ground.

(If a stall happens close to the ground you’re as good as dead, you may choose not to power on
to soften the blow. I personally don’t think it makes a difference and I’ll go down fighting with full throttle and my hair on fire !)

Avoid turning in a stall. This will cause you to roll into a dive which will turn into a spin
and your untimely RC death ! Stalling one wing and not the other is to be avoided.
It’s caused by climbing to fast and turning at the same time.

Other things can cause stalls, the most common is matter on the top side of the wing. Any stray bumps like glue or tape can cause a wing to stall and water drops from rain etc will definately cause a stall. Avoid putting tape on top of your wing or the front of the wing.

To avoiding a stall is harder in micro thrusters because you don’t have an elevator control so
you will either just have to ride them out or learn how not to cause them.

If you think you’re going to stall, backing off the power to zero will just cause it sooner.
If you catch it early enough, you can back off to half power and then power on again as the plane levels out. Sometimes it’s just too late.

If your close to the ground already and you stall, you’re doomed ! (Height = Saftey)
Power on and ride it out… as the plane swoops and dives keep the power ON ! It will pull the
plane out of the dive quicker (or hit the ground which you were going to do anyway). Once it starts leveling out, back off the throttle and don’t let it quickly climb again. You can just fly normally by nudging the throttle between half and full keeping the nose level. If the plane picked up too much airspeed and starts to climb again even with the power off, wait for it to slow down in the climb and before it stalls, nudge the power on full and fly away level at half power.

You may also try a variation where as the plane pulls out of the dive and you still have the power on full, start a turn. As long as you keep the power on through the turn, the plane won’t stall and will keep it’s airspeed. You can then use this extra speed to climb out fast.

Stalls happen all the time and with practise, you’ll master them and use them for fast manouvers.
Remember, you control them! Don’t let them control you.

[peedee]

lol, information overload, excellent tutorial trash, good work

[betty.k]

yeah ditto!:shock: but worth it. if i do get a plane i’ll certainly crash less and understand more. love ya work:8ball:

[trash]

you’ll know why you crashed ? heheh

[peedee]

hey trash flew a firebird outlaw today following ur instructions (tutorials) it all went good until the wind picl up this afternoon, i think i might buy a a40 dunno, need money lol

[trash]

Outlaw is a good plane for beginners. I was flying today out at penrith again about midday.
My friend I fly with still flys his outlaw too.
The a40 is much lighter and jumps around a little more on the bumps in the air, but you build the relfexes quickly for it. The outlaw you just cruise through the air 🙂

I was flying my A40 out there and this guy playing kicks with his kids was stunned.
He came over and asked where he could get one,
and how much they cost. Before I could land the plane I was flying and chat to him my friend said
“$100 and he imports them”.
By the time my plane was on the ground he was handing over the cash to my friend and was handing over the plane I had brought out for his friend. What a scammer !

I have a short avi file of my a40 flying this arvo if I can find somewhere to upload it.

[trash]

Ah, I meant to ask if your outlaw swoops a lot PD?

My friends outlaw used to swoop and stall quite badly. I got him to put some blutac in the nose and adjusted his elevators slightly and it has flown well ever since.

[peedee]

yea it stalls a lot, ill try the blu tac trick, u can upload at rcpics.net movies as well itll be good to c the a40 fly b4 i buy lol

[murph]

Wish i had read this yesterday before I took my new Sky Yiper out could have saved me one prop.

Great info Trash…

[trash]

PD.
The centre of gravity on most planes is the highest point on the wing in the centre of the plane. You can usually find the point by how the plane ballances on your finger. You can find it more accurately with a bit of tape and string taped to the back of the wing.

For thurster planes, the CofG is back futher than it is on normal planes. It makes them turn quicker, but at the trade off stalling easier.

To see if you have the CoG set correctly, fly it in a straight line, it stalls easy, then a little bit of weight in the nose will help or adjust the elevators to make the plane nose down a bit more.

If you fly the plane and it doesn’t stall, check how easy it is to turn. You may find it very hard to turn. Take some weight out of the nose or move the elevators the other way. Slight changes will make big differences.

Do you have a pic/link of the Sky Viper murph ?

Flying RC stuff, sooner or later you crash.
It’s just a factor you take into account.
Helicopters are the worst, I often think it’s cheaper flying a real chopper. Real choppers are easier to fly too.

[trash]

SPINS

A spin is a violent form of aircraft flight. Lucky though, they are rare. There are a few kinds of spin but the most common for micro RC planes is a ‘spiral dive’. It is often caused by the plane stalling in turbulence, so that one wing drops while the other wing rises quickly. If the pilot doesn’t react instantly, the inside wing will continue to drop and stall. The weight of the plane and the momentum of the outside wing will make it move faster and produce more lift.

The problem is that the wing is producing lift, but the plane is nose down and the lift is actually horizontal, and it’s pulling the plane futher into the spin making the plane spiral faster ! The inside wing is still stalled and not producing lift.
If your plane is less than 100ft then it’s probably all over red rover, but I would not go down without a fight.
Natural response is to try to turn out of the spiral and in most cases this will work fine, if
you do it soon enough. If the plane is already on it’s way to hell with you in it, then trying to turn the stalled wing out will only get you there quicker.
With only a few miliseconds to spare until your grizzly RC death, back off the throttle, hard turn into the spiral and then add full throttle with the turn still on. The plane will roll through the spin and pull out. You then need to keep the throttle on and nudge the plane the other direction quickly to level the wings. There won’t be much space left between you and the ground if you haven’t already hit it. The plane will be flying very fast as it levels out and will climb and stall quickly if you don’t back off the throttle as it starts to climb.
You’ll still be close to the ground, and a stall will bad, so get ready to add some power before
that happens.

A spin is a death sentence for thruster pilots. Recovery is just a matter of luck + height.
The key to recovery is to stop the nose pointing at the ground. This may sound obvious but in
the panic of a spin it may not be so.

Other types of spins are never likely to occur with thrusters and if they do happen, sit back and listen for the tiny pilot’s scream !

Sometimes doing nothing, the plane will recover by itself. Most planes are designed to. It’sa matter of how much height they lose doing it.

The above my seem like a lot to take in especially for something that is all over in a few seconds. If it does happen, hopefully your subconscious will have read this and will move your fingers for you as your brain is busy pulling the face muscles :D.

[murph]

I’ll take a photo of it today, can’t find any info on it from the net. It’s made by Venom http://www.venom-racing.com but they have no infomation on their website. Spares supply looks good as Wings N”Thing have a good range of parts for it.

It’s only a basic plane, looks like a Cessna Skyhawk. 3 CH on/off engine power, plastic covered foam wings.

It’s my first plane, I’ve wanted one since I was a kid, figured a park flyer was good place to start.

[murph]

I’ve posted some pic’s in my gallery

http://members.ausmicro.com/memberview.asp?user=murph

[trash]

It looks pretty good. Any descriptions on how it flys ?

I was down meadowbank today with the boyz.
Damn wind picked up, but I figured I’d be stupid and fly anyway. As expected I hit various things including the ground. Pretty nasty damage to my A40, but nothing that can’t be fixed with 5 minute epoxy ! 🙂
The tailplane snapped on one side, a broken prop (my first) and the main wing has a large tear in it. Easy stuff to fix. The fuselage looks a bit ugly these days, but the epoxy nose seems indestructable. I might give in an give it some nice new parts, but in the mean time I’ll see how much punishment it’ll take.

[murph]

Damn forgot about Meadowbank…..

This being my first plane I have nothing to compare it with, yesterday was also the first time I’d flown it.:D

It does seam to fly ok but stalls a bit in turns (more the pilot i’d say):sad:, but it gains altitude quite quickly and does fly straight after a bit of adjustment. Looks like it will take off from the ground although all my flights were hand launched. Will try to get it out during the week for some more test flights.

I basically brought it to learn as I have been considering getting into R/C Aircraft for sometime. I went to Wings N’Things and made the purchase based on their advice with the knowledge that I was looking at getting into bigger RC planes in the future and needed something cheap to get started on.

Edited by – murph on 21 December 2003 20:48:08

[trash]

cool, I hope I get to see it flying sometime soon.
I’ll have to let you know next time I go flying at meadowbank. I might be flying tomorrow at penrith weather depending.

[trash]

SOARING

Soaring or Thermalling has to be the most satisfying part of flying. Knowing that you can fly with your wings and that it is not the engines that keep you up.

Rising air of any kind will help keep your plane up longer than it would normally with just the engines.

We all know that hot air rises and thermals are basically that. You can think of them as a column of rising air that sucks in air from the ground around it. They will often move across a paddock. Thermals are a bit like dust devils, just a lot more gentle.

If your plane is flying along at 100ft and you’re looking for a thermal, you will see the plane tip to one side slightly. Thermals will turn the plane out and away from the center.
If the plane tips right, then you should continue to turn tightly to the right and fly back around to the same point in the sky, but slightly more to the left this time.

When you hit the thermal head on, the nose will tip up, time to turn !!
You can picture in your mind where the core of the thermal is and circle around it trying to keep your wings as flat as posible. The thermal will continue to try tip you out like before. Keep turning into the thermal and your plane with be rising quickly.
You should find that you do not need any throttle at all and only small nudges with the rudder to stay in the core.
Be careful not to let your plane get sucked up out of range or it will fly away. 🙂

A rule of thermaling is turn the same direction as anything else already in the thermal. This rule is to avoid mid air collisions with other planes or birds etc. It’s not of much help to you, but it is a good habit to practise.

Ridge soaring is slightly different. In a steady breeze when air hits a hill or other obstruction like a line of trees, the air is often forced up and over it.
It’s this rising air that is used for extra lift.

Ridge lift will appear above even small obstructions and the higher pressure air will extend up quite high above. A good example is a line of trees. In a light wind about 45 degrees in front and 50 ft above the trees will be an area of steady reliable lift. If you fly in a figure 8 pattern turning into the wind away from the ridge (never turn downwind, towards the trees or the hill), you should be able to stay in the lift band very easily. There is a building on one park I fly at the produces good lift when the breeze blows on it I can almost make my plane hover.

Never ever fly behind the trees, the turbulance is extreem, even above and behind them, the air is being sucked down, and so will your plane ! Flying directly in front of the trees can also have the same effect. The air closer to the tree is moving slower than the air further out. This will cause your plane to be tipped in and fly into the trees. It is called “Wind Gradient”. Even more extreem is if you’re closer to the ground, the air in front of the trees is rotating like a big dust devil on it’s side. If your plane flys into the down draft, you’ll experience wind sheer and \SMACK// into the ground you go !
It gets more fun if you miss the ground because as you do an emergency turn away from the trees you’ll get sudden updraft and you’ll wingover and back into the trees you go !

The rule is, never fly near trees unless your above them and in front and the wind isn’t too strong ! Trees are like flypaper for RC planes.

Flying from the top of a hill, stay in front.
Don’t let the plane drift behind the ridge and always turn into the wind.

[jamiekulhanek]

I had a firebird XL, i was flying it near my house and the wind was calm, then suddenly the wind picked up…..so i packed it up and took it home…..in pieces :angry:

[TallduDe]

dont let that stop ya dude!

i heared that the XL can take a beating so glue it back up, or buy another wing so the thing can fly again.

when your done fixing it modify it so you can do a sonic boom with it!

[trash]

wings are cheap, and even then they’re easy to fix.

Golden rule with fixing wings……
the top surface must be as smooth and as perfect as possible after gluing it back together.

Almost as important is the leading edge, it should also be as smooth as possible.

The under side and trailing edge aren’t that important, but you should try and keep them smooth just to help reduce drag.

5 minute epoxy and fibre tape are your friends !!

[jamiekulhanek]

The main problem with the XL, is that when it lands, often the wing tips touch the ground, cause the landing gear is fucken flimsy, the wing is obstructed it gets pushed back into the prop and does a fuckload of damage.

I did a massive stall and lost all airspeed at low altitude, and it landed vertically and smashed the tailplane.

I think it needs more power just doesnt have the grunt i ask of it….might modify:clown:

[TallduDe]

maybe you should upgrade your landing gear of that of a aerobird, nearly all the parts are interchangable with the XL.

plus hobbyco sells tailplane’s.

does the XL have a cut out feature? if not just shut the engine down before landing, prevents any damage of a fast moving blade on a wing.

also they sell a 7 cell batt which gives more power, maybe that will give you the extra grunt u need.

[trash]

Zzzzzzzzzzzt.
“I did a massive stall and lost all airspeed at low altitude, and it landed vertically”

couple of points here….

low airspeed = stall
stall = bad
stall + low altitude = very bad !
landed vertically = CRASH !!!

You might like to practise landing and flying in ground effect.

[leonli17]

Crash=repaires
repaires=money
money=work
work=energy
energy=eat and drink
eat and drink=getting fat
getting fat=…………..

Well…at least it’s easy to repaire. I think.

[jamiekulhanek]

Trash, i was coming in for a landing as the wind was becoming gusty, and it made my plane stall and go backwards and down.
That composite boom is damn strong……

I havent looked at my plane untill today, and the damage is extensive.

Firstly i checked the trailing edge of the wing…….nothing a piece of white tape won’t fix.

Then i checked the tailplane, which was dangling by the cables. Again fixable…..

I noticed the canopy had broken off and was just held by a rubber band…….plastic hinge will fix this.

Then the worst part of all……
I was looking at the prop, when i noticed that the motor was extremely crookard……and the plastic mount was deformed and totally stuffed!!!! The motor had got so hot it melted it out of its mounting!!!!! I quickly checked the battery pack which was still plugged in (STUPID ME:dead::dead: which had melted its heatshrink meaning huge cell temperature…..the mini connector had also partly melted.

Damn…….

This surely meant the fet had cooked itself too…

I stripped the electronics out of the plane, (damn light fuselage!!) and examined the FET, which looked ok. Interestingly the servo, including gears, esc, reciever are all on one board.

First off i put the battery pack on life support, or “format/regeneration” at 200mAh for a few discharge/charge cycles. And i am happy to say the battery pack is now back in perfect working order. Also, while scrounging through my big bucket of batteries, i found Nicad batteries in 7.2v stick packs that are exactly the same size!!! So 8.4v here i come!!!

Once charged, i plugged in the battery, and tested the motor to see if it was o.k……worked perfectly and still had full thrust.

So all i need to do is repair the crash damage and its all cool.

[trash]

Wish I had that much luck with batteries 🙂

Sounds like your landing was through rotor (turbulence). The air rolls like a barrel across the ground you could say. It happens to passanger planes occasionally, the results are pretty much the same. On a big scale they are called microbursts. Usually caused by cold air falling.

As you come in to land you get a sudden upsurge,
so you power down and nose down. (this is fatal)
as you move forward you fly into fast sinking air,
already with the power backed off and nose down,
you get smacked into the ground.

In your case it sounded like you got the strong front, which pushed your nose up to a stall.
Your response I’m guessing was power off, when it should have been full power and try fly through it.

You’ll live to fly another day 🙂

[jamiekulhanek]

Quote:

Wish I had that much luck with batteries 🙂

Sounds like your landing was through rotor (turbulence). The air rolls like a barrel across the ground you could say. It happens to passanger planes occasionally, the results are pretty much the same. On a big scale they are called microbursts. Usually caused by cold air falling.

As you come in to land you get a sudden upsurge,
so you power down and nose down. (this is fatal)
as you move forward you fly into fast sinking air,
already with the power backed off and nose down,
you get smacked into the ground.

In your case it sounded like you got the strong front, which pushed your nose up to a stall.
Your response I’m guessing was power off, when it should have been full power and try fly through it.

You’ll live to fly another day 🙂

Nup im not that much of a flight dummie, as soon as i lost airspeed i applied full thrttle, but at 400 grams and a little 380 motor, not much happened, i guess it saved more extensive damage….

The charger i use is my dad’s orbit micro lader pro, which runs off a 12v car battery.

It can charge absoulutely any type of battery, inc. lithium ion, lithium tadiran, nimh, nicad, pb lead batts, etc.
It can charge a pack containing 1-32 cells at 8 Amps due to it having a transformer inside, it also has an RS232 serial connection which logs data, graphs of charge, discharge etc.

The 7.2v nimh pack in my XL measured 0.6 volts, or 0.1v per cell, i thought it was well and truly done, but after putting it on the regeneration/format charge cycle it was back to full capacity!!!!

[trash]

It’s been a while since I read this thread. I’ve been teaching a few friends to fly A40’s. One had a lot of trouble at first, one of the engines was slightly lower speed causing the plane to bank and dive.
Once that was sorted, we got to the business of flying straight.
It still amuses me that all my friends were just so stunned with being able to fly a plane first go, that they had no idea where they were flying.
Cricket pitch keeps them focused on the task at hand.
Fly straight and get that plane onto the deck. You miss, then it’s power off and into the grass… your punishment for failure is walk over and pick your plane up and walk back and do it again.

Next was a 90 degree turn and landing… fly across the park and land
Then a 180 degree turn and land. Finally they could do a full lap of the park and put the plane down on the pitch without much effort.

After about an hour of practise they were flying in control, with no planes in trees or nose diving into the ground. Flying combat is a hell of a lot of fun.
I feel like the red baron chasing friends trying to bring them down, while they try to avoid me and stay in the air. The learning curve becomes expotential. They quickly learnt how not to over react and how to recover from trouble even at low altitudes.

I wish I had a video of a lucky attack. I dived and swooped in from above my friend’s plane. He didn’t try to avoid me because it looked like I was going to fly underneath him. But I pulled the plane up into a loop rolling towards him and flew straight through his right wing from the underside and stalled out of it into almost level flight, while his plane ended upside down and spiral diving into the ground. I can still hear the “awwgh !” from those watching.

[TallduDe]

You ripe ole basstard Trash hahahahahahha.

good to see your still up and about.

im flying a slow-v in albury. no off shore winds to worry about, still tryin to catch a termal might need a better batt to get more power to climb higher.

any advice on how to spot a termal and when are the best times to catch one???

[trash]

was thinking of some other things for undercarriage an wingtip damage.

If you find yourself rolling into landing so that a wingtip touches and turns your nice controlled landing into a flat spinning nightmare. Well a little tiny amount of trim normally does the trick. Short of that you can get sneaky and put some landing gear on the wingtips. I’ve not done this, so I’m not sure how well it would work. But a small light piece of stuff wire bent back underneath the wing so that it would act like wing tip wheels (think harrier jump jet type wingtips, just without the wheels). It’ll stop the wing dragging on the ground and reduce the drag enough to allow the fuselage to grab the ground before the wing does.

Ideally, you want to try get the tail to touch the ground first. this is the trick to flying into and landing in ground effect.

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