Guest Editorial: A Trainer Controversy
Jim Waterman
San Antonio, TX
R/C modeling is a happy sport. If it weren't, I would not have been involved since 1968. It can also be a fairly easy sport with a little luck: I taught myself to fly at a deserted field without so much as one other flier being present. This was possible only because I lucked into an ideal trainer, an old second-hand Smog Hog. My first flying session was pure pleasure with no mishaps except for a couple of broken props because the Smog Hog was a tail-dragger, and learning to flare correctly on landing was the most difficult part.
I then joined a club and soon realized how important this is. Experienced instructors are worth their weight in gold. I had just been very lucky in soloing without one. I attribute it to the right trainer, and as the years have gone by I have watched a hundred beginners come and go — discouraged because their "trainer" had been misrepresented and was not really a basic trainer.
Without a true basic trainer, the odds are that the beginner will quickly drop out of this sport, never to be seen again!
Oh, these pseudo-trainers would fly all right in the hands of an instructor. I came to think the instructors were enjoying it more than the student as they performed a variety of aerobatics that my Smog Hog could not even begin to do, but when they handed the transmitter to the student, he couldn't even circle the field. And that is a crying shame — and entirely unnecessary!
If a student is unusually patient, persevering and adept, and if his instructor has hours, weeks, or months to spend with him, it is possible for him to finally solo with one of these symmetrical-winged "bombs" that is being passed off as a trainer instead of an advanced trainer. But from what I have seen over the years, without a true basic trainer the beginner will quickly drop out of this sport. To me, that has been a heart-rending observation.
With so many ideal trainers on the market and so many fliers more than willing to give advice and help, why do I see so many new arrivals carrying the very type of airplane that should really be their second airplane? I have launched a one-man crusade to get to the bottom of this tragedy.
My friends, I have gotten to the bottom of it, and it is going to be a tougher sin to eliminate than it should be, because it is our very best fliers — our highly adept, "hot-dog" fliers — who are to blame. They are so far removed from where the beginner is that they are not capable of empathy.
The average laid-back Sunday flier knows what the beginner is going through and what he needs, but who likes to stand up to an "expert"? He knows that having an aerobatic airplane is far less important to the beginner than just getting up and down in one piece and enjoying it in the process. If his guts are tied in a nervous knot, then he certainly isn't enjoying it, and this is reflected in the attrition rate.
Yes, I have personally flown these advanced trainers, and I have read and listened to the arguments in their behalf: they save having to buy a second plane when you graduate; they groove and stunt and are so much more fun for advanced pilots; just throttle them back to tame them. Balderdash! An airplane is either inherently stable, or it isn't stable.
The ideal first flight would be with an Old-Timer free flight with R/C assist, or a powered glider (on calm days, of course), but we don't really need to go to that extreme. If the plane is slow and stable and does not over-respond to a push on the stick, then it should suffice. The majority of fliers, R/C journalists, and hobby shop proprietors will recommend:
- a high wing (shoulder wing at the most),
- an undercambered or flat-bottomed airfoil (semi-symmetrical at most),
- lots of dihedral.
Ailerons are an advantage only on advanced trainers. To add them to a trainer subtracts from the purpose or goal we are trying to achieve here, and any savings in weight is also a plus.
I thought everybody knew all of this! But I am still shedding tears regularly when a newcomer opens his car to reveal his first airplane that some hot-dog R/C-er commended — or some hot-dog manufacturer touted in a full-page color ad. Yes, there are manufacturers that operate on the same mental wavelength as my hot-dog friends. They are just as sincere as my expert friends, and are just as far removed from the beginner's limitations and just as much in love with pattern ships. You won't see their ads hawking scale-like aircraft or slow biplanes. They are in another world — which is fine, if they would keep their noses out of the trainer business. That just isn't where they shine.
Every club has a sort of "cattlemen and sheepmen" composition. Just like society in general has its laid-back, relaxed people and its highly competitive drivers (whose airplanes usually move as fast as their business or social life). The pattern or racing pilot will never really be able to synchronize with those of us who keep striving to achieve aeronautical (scale) realism in the air as well as static — especially guys like me who are hung up on World War I types — but who is it that so often the beginner turns to? Not unexpectedly, it is the pattern champ because he is supposed to be the ultimate. Again, that's fine — if he isn't misguided due to that old lack of empathy.
Although I have some 25 airplanes behind me, I have lately started to bring to the flying field a couple of my "laziest" birds: a Proctor Antic biplane and Orline's Sopwith Pup. I love to have a beginner take the transmitter after I get one of these up high. He may get just 20 seconds of verbal instructions, and then he is flying. They move so slowly that no greenhorn has yet failed to love them, and it does wonders for his confidence — a confidence that has often been shattered by trying to learn on one of those advanced trainers. When I see that look of apprehension slowly fade from his face to be replaced by a wide grin, I sometimes can't resist telling him that these bipes are not really trainers, and that there are trainers available that are even easier to fly.
This gives him hope, and it helps me, too, because I want to give this to the sport and not just take from it. I know what it has done for my morale, and I want to see it do the same for others. I cannot always be the first person to get hold of the prospective R/C-er (the hobby shop usually is) before he makes the wrong purchase and thus casts the odds against himself, but now that it is obvious a crusade must be waged, I will certainly tackle it and write and talk and persuade until I'm drained. I hope that this magazine understands my feelings. I will not get all R/C fliers to unanimously agree, and rebuttals will pour in (just like they poured on me at my own club). I don't want to put any manufacturer out of business; they will sell just as many kits if they will own up and label their book "advanced trainer."
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
