Okay, so i can build a plane that flies, have been building for the past 2 years now, but seems i am stagnating in my flying progression. I know people that started way after me and surpass my skills within months, whilst i still battle to keep a plane in the air whilst avoiding trees yet at the same time making more complex builds. how do i start moving forward in this hobby?

Buy a simulator

On a Simulator i seem to be able to do well, seldom crash.

Dear Namibian,
(Name coined by sanjayrai55, which is probably appropriate)

Scope for progress depends on many things.
1. What are you flying now?
2. What is your skill level?
3. How often do you fly?
4. Do you have anyone to look up to?

I remember Hanno Prettner used to practice 4-8 hours every day

Here in Indore I found that flyers who learnt from Harveer progressed more in 1 year than me in 20 years!
(Eg, flyingdoc, @@ron, etc who rarely post on this forum)

RC Aunt used to complain that i never let her take off or land. After some time on a simulator, she can now handle hand launches and landings on her own. In wind over 20 kmph.

Target:
Before end of this month, you must land and stop within 10 ft of your position.
This may need 20 attempts.
Best of luck.

Post a reply on achieving this. Then next target

Namibian

Fly for fun, dont compete with anyone, this is a Hobby, enjoy you flight (Even if ends up crashes) enjoy the company etc, there are people who became world champions in one year Joe for example

How many times you fly in a week? If you fly just weekends, then it's very difficult to move ahead fast. By the time next weekend arrives, you may have forgotten what you learned last week. It is very important to fly frequently at least during initial few months. The more you fly, the better you'll get.

Absolutely.  

Sometimes, let the fun turn a little aggressive, fly with music, fly high, toss the craft around, kill the throttle; jolt the sticks. fly inverted except for landing and takeoff . drop from very very high at full throttle but dont ram into the ground. Go high and leave the sticks;  blame it on the tree just in case you crash... Stop when you have goosebumps/headaches

Practice not because you have to, but because you want to . Let it be a sport, not an exam . Repeat.

All the best

PS: Goes without saying, safety is paramount.

+1

Not me! The tree did it 

 

"Namibian" is the politically correct name to call me. :-D since i am the only Namibian on this forum i will let it stick, that way i do not need to add numbers to my name. (there are already a couple of Mike's)
Well i have been building for a while now as stated above, but mostly my friend did the flying, he bought the transmitter whilst i bought everything else so it was like a deal, i build he flies, so with building i can build okayish. but as of late after coming second in the BOEING competition i decided to start flying by myself more often, got a Controller(for free by the way, as a gift, SANWA RDS 8000) and i am well sorted on the electronics part, hence the need to start flying only now when i actually got into the hobby a while ago.

my 2 friends and i are the only flyers in Durgapur, I may not go fly at the Field in Kolkata as i am a foreigner and it is a military ground, so having somebody to look up comes up only on YOUTUBE, although this past summer i got the chance to go to HOSKOTE in Bangalore and see how the professionals do it, even though just for one day.

THe idea of flying everyday sounds fun, but then again, coro crashes are not a nice sight to look at, and they are often a pain to fix, what should i be looking towards doing when up in the air? and how do i eventually land up in 3D? ( I love it although i never really tried it ). I started flying because of fun and my passion for airplanes, but now crashing really just gets dissapointing.

Sorry if i showed any sign of despair in this post, It was meant to sound Macho. :-D

Flying is like getting married (one does indeed get married to crafts); Crashing, like an argument with the wife, the first year is disappointment, the next two years is heartaches, then you stop worrying about it.

 similar situation was faced by me. Than I purchased a EPP glider as suggested by my an aeromodelar and learnt flying with in a month. If you are using your hand made model as i did, you always try to keep it balance and most of the time will be spent in repair.
so purchase SIM and a EPP glider.

He He...


I quite disagree. There are people i have seen and wouldnt like to name who flew bad with a EPP glider and eventually quit the hobby. and there are a lot who learnt flying on hand built coro plane(I still dont know how people could say EPP is stronger than Coro) and still never care to buy a ARF as they are quite satisfied with scratch built ones.

I belong to the second category and for me i would eventually get bored with a store bought model where as i can build an fly different coro models every month and fly with interest.

It varies from person to person. In realty i care less with a hand built coro model since its way too cheaper than a ARF by at least 3 times.

Ashok.P

Yeah. 50 years in the hobby, 34 in the marriage. Lucky that wife's name is RC Aunt...

@teamnamibia
If you really want go to a pro aerobatics level in a very short period, you should contact Harveer on this forum. Except for me and wife, he seems to have trained almost all the local flyers. Not cheap though, as he provides the model and fuel too...

Happiness in this hobby can even come from a one minute flight of a chuck glider...

the seniors i was in contact at early time was not in contact me right now i also fly alone

but the biggest friend could be Internet we can get all the new information and can move on

frd yesterday my trainer got crashed i was flying inverted , right now i am charging my batteries and i will  fly it few hours from now.
 
see others get inspired  do not give up  

Just built myself a simple Avispad, stayed awake the whole night to get it done, and now i have promised myself to fly it as much as i can whenever i can, before i build something else.
Since i am not having much luck finding a wife, I could marry flying for now. would be a pretty mutually beneficial relationship for me i guess. :-D
Will check up Harveer, and by the way, could anybody please link me up to that thread where it shows how to make your own sim cable, cant seem to find it via search.

will go flying now, keep your fingers crossed for this one.

@wingmanbunty, lets see how we do again this time around.

Just flew now, something went totally wrong in the 2nd flight, will upload videos within the next hour, just came to change my prop and i am going back to fly some more. This surely is the good life.
here is the pic of the trainer i built over night with the help of my apprentice. 

How was the first flight?

Awesome, went back 3 times, running in between my room and the field to go collect props and rubber bands.

here is the Video link to the first flight, and the plane has lived to see another day, started raining though so will take it up again tomorrow morning, also i have realised that the transmitter batteries do not last very long, although i have bitten the shape out of them.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YssXX14KX1g&feature=youtu.be

Congrats on first flight. Well done sir
Don't worry about progress, it is automatic.
Just enjoy the flying!

Congratulations on the maiden. Now concentrate hard....on having fun

Do you study at nit durgapur?
Great first flight.  Being a beginner i know how flustered first timers can get behind sticks   You were quite calm flying the plane.

Yep, I am a Scholarship Holder here at NIT DGP, in my 3rd year of Mech now.
Wasnt the first time, been flying for around 2 years, was just the first time i went up in like 3 months,

btw, how do i link the video the way Sanjayrai55 did?

get rid of the 's' at the end of https in the url.

Congratulations on the maiden

TOok my plane out again as usual, knowing very well in the back of my mind that i had lost control of it twice(where it just goes haywire for a while or the throttle slows down no matter how much i give), this time i was not very lucky, after flying 2 rounds, the plane started coming down, i tried straightening it but it plummeted. which would be okay in another circumstance, but upon further inspection i found the plane In Knee deep water in a swamp close to the field(concealed by grass), the whole plane is wet, just brought it to my room now, too demoralised to even check if everything is working.  New Turnigy battery (barely 6 flights) and a new Sanwa RDS 8000 reciever and servo's. what should i do now? let them dry?

Take all the electronics, let them air dry, then put them in rice. Leave them for a day then take them out and test. My flying wing thought it had floats and decided to land on a lake. Did the above process and all the electronics survived. 

 

Please do not attempt to put them in a freezer or a/c wanting to speed up the moisture elimination... Condensation can be terrible for electronic stuff. just let them dry on their own

Use a vacuum cleaner to remove as much moisture as possible the put it in rice as ashimda suggested

I flew my nutball into a gutter.. It got taken away by flowing water... Managed to retrieve it, but the electronics were wet.. I wrapped them in tissue paper and left it for a few days in rice... They work fine now!
Hope this helps!
Aniket

Guess that means i should find something to keep me occupied for the next few days as i wait for them to dry up in rice. Just got myself a plate full of cooked rice from the mess. :-D somebody is going to miss out on lunch because of RCindia. 

Wow!
Dunking electronics in cooked rice.
Avoid eating it later 

Dont dunk it in cooked rice , what purpose will that serve?

Rice and RC electronics curry
is what you will end up with as a meal for dinner.

Common sense brother a little goes a long way,

Use uncooked rice, fill a plastic bag with uncooked rice, dry the electronics as much as possible and put it inside the bag of uncooked rice being sure to engulf the electronics from all sides by uncooked rice

I knew the idea of cooked rice sounded horrible(dry cooked rice should still have some absorption power). Hehe, RC electronics curry would be an awesome combination. Well i just burnt my ESC now(caught fire during testing), luckily my reciever, battery and servo's still work fine though so i am lucky i guess. have a spare reciever in my posession so that should be about enough to last me till i get a new one again, provided I waterproof the plane or stay away from water.