Almost Bought The Farm

As one story goes, when military pilots went out on a sortie but didn’t come back, they were said to have “bought the farm”, as a way to suggest the pilot really left to buy a farm to peacefully live out the remainder of his life.  In those circumstances, one hopes to never buy the farm.

Typically Bill and I go to the field each morning for a few hours at 0800.  Most mornings the same guys are there and there is a range of beginners like me, up to guys who could compete in air shows.  Most of the guys are using a mixture of aircraft like the one I have, or small high wing aircraft that are loosely modeled after a Cessna 172.  Both are tricycle gear aircraft with high wings, but mine has a prop that pushes from behind the wing, while the other is a standard configuration with the engine and prop in front.

My flying has been coming along quite well I think.  After the first few days with the instructor Wayne, I was able to take off and land myself and have slowly progressed since then.  Once I became proficient to fly on my own I would typically fly two flights of about twenty minutes each.  I have two batteries and each last about that much, so I could get forty or so minutes a day to practice various things.  The first flights were basic circuits, approaches to landing, touch and go, and most of the same things you would learn in the same order as in a real aircraft.

Bill snapped a picture of a nice landing

Flying a remote controlled aircraft is the same as a real aircraft, but not.  The basic elements are obviously the same with the functions of the flight controls, but the hard part is getting all that to work remotely.  So taking off is one thing, but landing is another, and flying with the aircraft coming toward you or going away is different again.  For example, you have to retrain your brain to think about what the aircraft is doing when coming toward you.  If you want to turn left you still push the control stick to the left, but what you see is the aircraft turning to your right relative to your position.

Because of this, some of the exercises I had to perform were flying the aircraft in figure eights in front of me as precisely as possible.  In that drill I am doing a simple figure eight but have to get used to all the visual cues and control inputs changing all the time.

Unfortunately I do not have any good video of any of the flying as my camera equipment is just not good enough to capture the small aircraft flying by.  I have tried with my GoPro and show some pictures here.

Most radio controlled aircraft have a feature called Safe-Flight.  This is a feature that limits the control movements to small amounts so you can get used to flying without upsetting the aircraft.  There is a little gyro in the receiver in the aircraft that keeps it quite stable so is a good way to learn.  From there you can flip a switch and go to Intermediate, and again for Advanced.  The main difference in these two modes is the gyro is turned off in the aircraft and the control surfaces move to a greater extent.

The first time I was instructed to try Intermediate I could immediately see the effect, and didnt feel comfortable with it.  It is all about very fine motor controls with your fingers on the joysticks.  Give or take a few days when we were out of town on trips, I have been flying for two weeks, so built up a good feel for the controls and have been doing basic manoeuvres for the last week in Advanced mode.  Flying in that mode means you are flying faster and using the controls more so using more battery power.  This means I am down to only getting about 12-15 minutes of flying in before I get an alarm to say my battery is getting low.  Still, that amount of time to practice and fly around is great and is a lot of fun.

The nice thing about going at 0800 here in the desert is the wind is usually nice and calm.  It slowly starts to build and by 1000 it is breezy enough that I would not be comfortable flying in it.  There have been a few days where we have had that strength of breeze but it is still less than five knots of wind and allows me to see how the aircraft handles in a little breeze.

There Is A Farm Over There

So, to the point of the title of today’s blog.  With my confidence building over the last two weeks, I am now doing all my flying in Advanced mode and I can easily see how someone starting off in that mode could get into trouble very quickly if they hadn’t built the motor skills properly.  Bill and Wayne have encouraged me in the last few days to try loops and rolls.

Flying commercially you would never come close to anything that would resemble a roll or a loop, and in fact, you do everything in the cockpit to maintain as stable a flight as possible.  So doing these types of manoeuvres looks cool from the ground and really cool when a fighter jet does one in an air show with full afterburner, but doing one yourself in a remote controlled aircraft is a little daunting.

I have been able to do loops fairly easily but not with a lot of precision.  I am finding rolls however a little more challenging.  There is a sweet spot in how far away from you and how high you need to be to be able to properly see the aircraft while you are doing these manoeuvres, and with rolls and loops you need more height for a safety margin.  As I am not that precise yet I have been moving a little further away from the central flying area and staying up high, all of which means it is sometimes really really hard to see that little white styrofoam aircraft.

Yesterday, on my second flight of the day I was feeling pretty good about things, and with no-one else up (I am beginning to think they all stay on the ground when I am flying) I took off and got up to altitude.  The wind was blowing a little bit and up high it was noticeable how the wind was moving the aircraft.  I did a few loops and came out at the top of one and decided to try some rolls.  I was rolling while flying away from me and I messed up my up from my down, and the little white speck started doing something unexpected.  I had my aileron control still pegged and now couldn’t tell which way the aircraft was flying.  Centered my stick but the aircraft kept spinning.  Realized my elevator control was full up.  Centered that control.  Ground getting closer.  Realized my throttle control was full speed.  Reduced that.  More elevator, more aileron.  Not getting better.  Out of the haze and confusion that was developing in my head as I was losing sight of the plane were the words “Put it in Safe” coming from somewhere.  Flipped it to safe and let go of the control sticks and the aircraft levelled out. Still couldn’t tell if it was coming or going so stayed level until I could tell.  Whew.  That was too close.  It is amazing how focussed you get and your heart rate increases through all of that, so I did not even realize Bill had moved up right next to me and startled me when he began walking me through the return to the center of the field.  I think it was a really nice farm I was headed toward, but I was not ready to buy.

Thanks for reading.