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 This story is an acknowledgment to all our instructors who spend so much time helping new guys swinging the stick in a fashionable way. We all learned to fly at some stage. Some folks stepped out of the Flight Simulator onto the track and could solo after the second flight. I don't like talking about them. Other guys managed to solo after only a few weekends at the club. Then there are those who make the instructors whish they were getting paid for their effort. I unfortunately, ended up in the last category, but not before I was convinced that there were no other choices.
First Solo Flight
First a bit of a background. When I initially bought my planes, I was living in a far off remote city named Morogoro, in Tanzania (East Africa). As far as I know, there were no flying clubs in Tanzania, and I doubt if there were any other R/C flyers in the entire country. I build my first plane, a Piper Cub when I was a kid, but never had the opportunity to fly it. Now, much later in life, I was determined to get back into the hobby and this time live out my dreams. I bought everything I needed from Tower Hobbies in the US and had the lot shipped to Tanzania. The kit included two planes: a Tower Trainer 60 ARF and a Great Planes Super Skybolt. It didn't take long to assemble the pre-built Tower Trainer, and fit the OS 61 FX engine. After watching the One-hour to Solo video that was included in my order, it was ALL SYSTEMS GO!
Being in semi-tropical mid Africa, it was not easy to find an open piece of land to fly the plane. My obvious choice was the local golf course and I ended up on a piece of fairway about 40m wide and 100m in length. Ample Space... I thought, as I contemplated the steps in the video, while planning my soon-to-be flight path between the trees. All confident, and ready to show the world that the need for instructors are a myth, I opened the throttle and veered the nose down the fairway. The plane lifted slightly of the grass. I was in control - now my dream came true. I pulled back sharp on the stick and felt the G-forces rush through my spine as the plane climbed higher and higher. At an altitude of about 30m, I leveled the plane and pulled back on the throttle - and that was the best part of it. After this it was one nightmarish moment after the other. I suddenly realized that the take-off had consumed all of my fairway space. I did a sharp ninety degrees right turn. The next moment the plane was heading for a row of trees separating the golf course from the rest of the town. I lost altitude in the turn... a sharp pull back on the elevator stick saved the day and saw the plane slide over the trees... the next moment the plane was gone... behind the trees. I threw another sharp turn at the stick and pulled back all the way, trying to visualize the turn. Soon after this remarkable show of faith the plane appeared back in the air flying towards me at an altitude of now about 50m. All I could think about is landing this plane... NOW!
I pushed the nose down but it was to late. The plane sped past me and headed straight for another row of trees on the other side of the fairway. I pulled back on the stick and did a sharp right turn again. By now I was on a flying high from all the adrenalin rushing through my veins, and it was only getting worse... The plane was drifting away fast, and I had to swerve to the right again loosing valuable altitude. It was like deja vu, all over again. Before I had the wings leveled out, the disappearing act followed once more, with a thick bank of trees obstructing my view of the craft. It was now heading sideways down the number 3 fairway at a worrying downward angle, and the then - I lost site of it! Yet again, faith and a lot of imagination got me to where I thought the plane must have been leveled out. I pulled back on the stick and opened the throttle. The trees were really dense, and for a few seconds I could not hear the engine at all. I counted the milliseconds as it passed by, gazing in anticipation at the point where I expected the craft to reappear. It felt like ages... The next moment, as in one of these old World War 2 movies, the plane rocketed up into the sky barely missing the treetops. I was back in the pilot seat again.
Little did I know that at this point in time, I was only about halfway through the duration of the flight. The battle of the skies continued, but to go into the detail of that part will only bore you. It went slightly better as I tried to work my way through the trees and at the same time try to maintain a relatively low altitude in search for a place to execute my desperately needed emergency landing. I finally had the plane lined up on a relatively fast gliding path, flying straight towards the place where I was standing in the center of the fairway. In my quest to get the plane down to earth as soon as possible, I managed to actually end up being in the way, yes, the plane was heading straight towards me. As it came closer I realized that the plane was drifting slightly towards my left. OK it looks like it'll miss me, but it will be a close cut... maybe a bit more to the left and I'll be home free. In a moment of frantic logic seizure, I pushed the aileron control to the (yep you guessed it), to the left instead of the right. My exhilaration turned to horror. In a graceful attempt to displace my position on the fairway and gain control over the monster with the spinning prop, I managed to swoop past my head with a sharp turn, heading it straight towards my lovely wife and the kids as they spectated from under a huge Marula tree. Another sharp right turn and a 6G pull on the elevator saved my Gold, and saw the Tower 60 stirring the lower braches of the tree. By now we were gaining altitude again. My arms were numb, my knees were trembling, and my eyes were burning of sweat pouring down my forehead. My adrenalin glands were empty and the rush not fun anymore... my hope was gone.
I had to let go, I was beaten. I pushed the elevator down and hoped for the best. The plane struck the fairway at a 30 degree angle, bounced back up into the air and touched down again about 10 yard on... Despair... but not for long! To my amazement, at closer inspection, it seemed that my only loss was a broken APC prop and a bent nose gear. What a day. I packed my equipment, waved the crowd of local kids goodbye, and went home to have a cold beer!
Second Solo Flight
And just when you thought it was all over. This guy must have learnt his lesson by now. Well, defeat is short lived. It didn't take me long to try it again, only this time, I was going to do it right - besides, I had experience now. I won't go into that much detail again, but there are a few things worth mention. I managed to find a bit of a better location this time, but it was still far from ideal. The takeoff and landing site was a very small primary school playground. This time I brought a couple of additional spectators. The flight went amazingly well and I stayed up for at least 10 minutes.
In my first landing attempt I managed to get the "left and right swapped when plane is coming towards you stupid" rule messed up again and ended up landing the plane in a vertical attitude on the right wing tip. This time the damages were slightly more severe, with a broken stabilizer and some other dents to take home. At least my wife managed to get an action shot of the wagon wheel roll down the playground.
Third Solo
This one was probably the most traumatic. Same place as the second attempt. It took quite a couple of attempts to get the plane in the air. It was school holidays and the playground's lawn was not cut for quite a while. The tall grass made it a battle to get the plane in the air and acted like a break on the engine.
The slashing not only kept the speed down, but also produced fine pieces of grass that entered the carburetor. I finally replaced the 12x8 two-blade prop by a smaller 10x6 three-blade prop. It worked better and after the third attempt I managed to get the plane in the air. The trip was short-lived though as the engine struggled during takeoff and then failed moments later. It was a recipe for disaster as my altitude was way to low and the plane was too far away from the safety of the playground. Remember, this happened in tropical Tanzania, with trees and dense vegetation marking the perimeter of the playground. The fateful landing attempt was shredded by the branches of a nearby tree, and broke the aircraft into several pieces. One part of the wing was totally crushed right up to the aileron. The fuselage was broken in half and many other pieces were splintered and badly damaged. I went home totally defeated, and left the pieces as a write-off in a hidden corner of the house. It took quite a few months, and a visit from my folks to awaken my interest in flying again. My dad did most of the fixing, rebuilding part of the wing and patching the badly broken airframe. Incredibly, the Tower 60 came alive again.
Fourth Solo Flight
Like I said, defeat is short lived. And just when you thought it was really over... My Dad and I took the freshly revamped Tower 60 for its new "maiden" flight. This time we decided that the town's dirt airstrip would be the best place in the near vicinity. Much better choice indeed. After taxiing up and down the runway for a few times, it was back in the air again. All went well with the takeoff and the plane climbed at a steady pace until about 50m high. I decreased the throttle to level the plane, and that is where the fun began.
The moment I neutralized the elevator, the plane went into a sudden dive. Came as a bit of a surprise to me, and by the time I figured out what was happening, the plane was in a steep dive. I corrected this by pulling back on the stick and returned to a steep climb. That in turn reduced speed, so more power was required. Opening the throttle again send the plane diving down. With my frantic attempts to keep the plane level, I was actually causing the plane to fly even more unstable, with a continuous nosedive followed by a sharp incline. Remember, the guy flying the plane has never before heard of something like trimming an aircraft in flight.
Sweat was pouring as I battled to keep the Tower 60 in the air. By this time I managed to attract all the locals from miles around the airstrip, and had cheers and hoorays coming my way from all sides. Fearing for the results of a crashing into the crowds, I tried to turn the monster away from them, back towards me.
The plane was now heading down the opposite side of the runway, towards the broken frame of a Cessna 210 (owned by some important guy in town who happened to pay my salary). He took the every landing is a good landing a bit too far a few weeks before. But that wasn't the problem. The monster was also heading straight for our company's brand new $1.6 mil Cessna Caravan. I could just imagine having to explain (or pay for the damages), if I crash my little toy plane into the company plane. Well, I lived to tell the story, and yes, I missed both of the Cessna's and managed to do another emergency landing on the opposite side of the runway. My luck was in and I landed (or rather flew) the Tower 60 into some heavy weed (two meter high kaki-bush), which was growing along the other side of the runway. It took us about 15 minutes to find the plane afterwards. Luckily the dense bush absorbed all the impact of the "landing", and all that was broken was yet another defeated ego.
That ended my flying career in deep dark Africa, and this time my R/C equipment was left to gather dust for the next year. It was only after I relocated to South Africa when I started getting that feeling again. This time I did it the correct way and joined a local club, the White Hills Radio Flyers and began the long and painstaking process of regaining control of my nerves. It took me months and a lot of patience from a great instructor (Andre Killian), to get to the point where I could stop stressing and start enjoying R/C flying again.
Take this from me. Do it the easy way. Get yourself an R/C flight simulator, and learn to fly on that first. Then get a good instructor and life will be easy. If Instructors were getting paid for their efforts, they were earning every penny of it, and I would be getting value for my money. But since they are not, let this be a tribute to those guys willing to spend hours every weekend, sometimes even without flying their own planes, while teaching newcomers to get the thing right. Thanks to you, this story can be concluded in the famous words: "...and the all flew happily ever after".
This story was first written in late 1999
Published on RCBooks.Net on December 9, 2005.
Author: Christi Brown
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