Learning to Fly a Radio Control Plane

Flying radio control planes has become a massive hobby right across the United Sates and in many other countries. There are lots of different types of RC plane a person can eventually learn to fly.

These include, gliders, aerobatic planes, scale, 3D, and Parkflyers.

Getting started can be a little complicated and if you don't do your research it can also end up being very expensive.
Read on and you will find out that getting into this hobby doesn't need to be expensive and can actually be a whole lot of fun.

What Plane Should You Buy? This is an important question and it doesn't really matter what type of flying you ultimately wish to do. At the beginning the type of plane you should get will be the same. When I first attempted to get into the hobby about 15 years ago, it was a very different story to what we find today.

Back then I had to fork out around $700 for a complete setup which included a kit plane, radio, motor and many accessories required to get in the air.
After making my purchase I had to spend several weeks constructing the aircraft and getting the motor to run properly. Just getting the plane ready for it's maiden flight was a major achievement but little did I know at the time it was actually the easy part.
The problem back then was that a plane built by an inexperienced pilot was probably of such low quality that it would be lucky to fly even in the most experienced hands.
I Without knowing it, I was already doomed before I even headed to the field.

Of course it goes to say that my first attempt was a failure and my plane ended up as a pile of balsa wood. I spent another couple of weeks rebuilding, headed back to the field and slammed it into the ground again. I repeated this several times before giving up. These days things are very different.

Now you can get everything you need to start flying for under $100 and this will include a fully ready to built plane.

Now all you need to do is charge the battery! The planes are also made of foam rather than balsa wood.

This may sound strange but the quality of foam used is very good and it will be very likely to withstand a crash.
You should start with a trainer style aircraft such as the HobbyZone champ or Super Cup.

These planes essentially share one aerodynamic similarity. That is, they have an overhead dihedral wing design.

In other words the main wing is located above the fuselage and is of a slight V shape rather than flat.
This creates a lot of stability in the air and will give the plane a self righting flight characteristic.
If you stick with this type of plane you are almost guaranteed success.
Particularly if you go with small planes like the HobbyZone Champ which are easy to fly safe and loads of fun. They alsoo won't get damaged after a crash because of their extreme lightweight. This light weight gives them a very high strength to weight ratio and if flown over tall grass will just hit the ground with little or no damage.

Learning to Fly This is certainly the fun part but be warned it is also very hard.
The best thing to do is get yourself a computer based simulator which hooks up to your actual RC controls or to a dedicated simulator control which is very similar to the real thing. The best two currently available are Phoenix flight simulator and Realflight. These will help prepare you for real flight and will drastically reduce the process of learning.
When you finally do get your first successful flight from take off to landing you will feel on top of the world! As mentioned above, the new foam technology today will give you a tough plane that is very easy to fix if it is damaged. My advice is to buy one of the ultra micro planes and fly it over tall grass.
You will be hardpressed to do much damage in those conditions. If you want to find out more about learning to fly RC aircraft I highly recommend you checkout this article which will cover most aspects you need to get started.