Newcomers
Last month I introduced the new Education Coordinator, Mike Stokes, and the fact that "Newcomers" was going to split and an education column would evolve, resulting in this column focusing more on "gluing stick A to stick B." That was an oversimplification. I will focus more on the newcomer and leave the specific education programs to Mike, but some overlap will occur from time to time.
This month features a letter I received in response to the January column that articulates beautifully the concerns addressed and offers constructive thoughts concerning how the subject might be dealt with.
Editor's note
Please see "Now You're Talking" in this issue for a related discussion.
The conclusion of this column contains some basic information. Those who were newcomers three years ago may recognize some of the material that will follow in the months to come. I'll try to create a fresh approach, but many thousands of new members have never been exposed to the information, and thousands more benefit from reminders. Here's the letter.
Letter from Bob Paddock (AMA 5096)
Your "Newcomers" column in the January 1998 Model Aviation forces me to respond with thoughts on the subject that has been troubling me for some time.
The implication by Mr. Berggren that 40,000 people learn to fly RC (Radio Control) each year and then drop out is incorrect. As you point out, many of the dropouts are not involved in RC in the first place. More importantly, many of those that are involved in RC that drop out never learn to fly. This brings us to the heart of the problem: instruction.
I know very little about the overall quality of instruction offered by so-called "Professional RC Flight Instructors" such as Mr. Berggren. My experience with them is limited to one of our club members who took advantage of one of these programs. He spent a week at the facility, "learned to fly," and came back to our field. He was never able to come anywhere close to meeting solo qualifications (finding the runway, for example), and the following year he became one of the 40,000 dropouts. The glowing reports of what he said he learned and was able to do at the school, and what he demonstrated at home were in sharp contrast.
One thing is for sure with the paid instructors: they will be available and probably, if you work with only one instructor during the course, the curriculum will be standardized. You will not have one instructor telling you how to do something one way today and another telling you just the opposite way tomorrow. I know that in our club the availability of instructors is a problem for some of the students, especially those that can only fly on weekends, when the demand on instructors is greatest.
As the secretary of the Westlake RC Club for the past ten years, I have collected complete, extensive records of new members joining the club and those who eventually drop out. If our club is typical, and I suspect it is, volunteer club training is terrible.
At last check in our club, only slightly over 20% of those who join follow through to achieve solo status. The rest become part of the 40,000 dropouts. It may take a year, it may take three years, but eventually we lose them. Yes, a very small minority leave the club because they move, but remain active in their new home. On the other hand, the 20% is slightly inflated because a few of those joining come from other areas and already know how to fly and solo with little, if any, training.
A formal training program in our club is nonexistent! Our training consists of getting the student's plane airborne, making sure it is trimmed out, and then handing the transmitter to the student and giving him verbal commands of what to do: "turn right now, turn left," etc. When the plane's nose drops as he starts a right-hand turn, the instructor tells him to "give it some up." He is probably never told why the nose dropped when he turned.
For the most part the student is left to fly around, going where he wants and doing what he wants. The airplane is flying him; no attempt is made to fly a predefined pattern, and this causes problems when he gets to landing approaches and landings. The bottom line is our training program consists of keeping the student from crashing until he teaches himself to fly. And about 80% never accomplish this goal.
Several years ago one of the senior members of the club asked me to develop a formal training program. He asked me because I was not only a veteran RC flier, but also a licensed pilot and flight instructor in full-scale aircraft.
I developed an extensive flight training program tailored after a training curriculum in full-scale flying. There were eight lessons starting with aircraft checkout and orientation and simple shallow turns; to flying predetermined patterns; to takeoffs, landing patterns, and landings. It even had a lesson devoted to stalls and flying at minimum controllable airspeed (slow flight).
The lesson plan for each session followed full-scale flight training procedures and consisted of:
- Objectives to be achieved and their importance.
- How these objectives would be met.
- A set of standards to determine when the student had achieved the objectives and was ready to move on to the next lesson.
In full-scale instruction, each lesson starts with a detailed preflight briefing about what will happen during the flight. The instructor uses drawings, small models, etc., to supplement the verbal description of what is to be accomplished and how. During the flight each maneuver is first demonstrated by the instructor, so that the student knows what it looks like. Then the student practices. The instructor steps in as needed with corrective comments, or perhaps even to take over and demonstrate the problem area again to the student.
During a post-flight critique, the instructor goes over what the student did well, where he was weak and ways to correct it, and, always, if possible, offers some compliment on the student's performance to help keep him motivated.
Instruction is communication—communicating to the student verbally and by demonstration that vast knowledge the instructor has. Being a good instructor is much more than being able to get the airplane out of a vertical spiral dive before hitting the ground and then saying "next time don't turn so sharp" or "next time keep the nose up." The best RC flier in the world may be a very poor instructor if he doesn't communicate well.
Unfortunately, this is true most of the time. I can rarely recall seeing an instructor take time to point out to a student before a flight what will happen during the flight, and what they will be doing. Rarely have I seen an instructor discuss what the student is to do after getting airborne. Rarely have I seen an instructor tie the lesson together in a final critique. He seldom spends time demonstrating maneuvers in the pit area, or asks the student to explain what he is going to do. He seldom tries to stimulate the student's thinking or ask the student to verbalize what he is doing or to tell him at all about anything.
The bottom line of our experiment? The same person who asked me to develop the program, now the club's chief flight instructor, decided to abandon it because he felt it was the reason we were having trouble getting our instructors to instruct; of 15 or 20 on the roster, only about four or five were ever actually available to instruct on a regular basis.
My feelings are that most do not want to instruct on a regular basis anyhow. The "instructor" status next to their name is an ego trip, or they simply want to instruct their son or a close friend.
He concluded that the flight training course was not being used by most of the instructors, and therefore it was back to the old way of "every man for himself" as to how to instruct. An interesting thing is that the one instructor who was more-or-less following the training guide was doing about 80% of all the instruction given, and most of the successful solos were trained by him.
Let's face it: true instruction is hard work. It is more than standing out there next to the student and saving his airplane from crashing, while he teaches himself. And it is voluntary; you can't fire an instructor for not following the game plan, as I would have been fired from the flight training facility where I worked part-time.
I do not know the solution, but I am convinced that the lack of good training is a big part of the dropout problem.
Another part seldom mentioned is overpromotion by the AMA, and especially by the industry and the clubs. Eager to expand their income, the industry gives a big sales pitch, and the clubs often recruit with false advertising. You will hear, "Oh yeah, it's a great hobby; it's really easy to learn; anyone can do it," etc. Usually the cost of getting into the hobby is realistically discussed, but seldom addressed is the time involved.
Most people with the means to shell out $500 to get into the hobby are involved with many other leisure-time activities: golf league on Wednesday evening, Little League or soccer for the kids a couple of times a week, etc. Even with the best of intentions, many go into the hobby without an honest idea for budgeting the necessary time to learn. Or do they even have an idea of how much time will be required?
Example: a new adult member who joined with his son wanted to get some flight instruction. He related to one of our instructors his busy schedule for each evening of the coming week, and oh yeah, he also had something to do on Saturday. However, he was free from noon to 2 p.m. on Sunday. Could he come out and learn to fly then?
This individual had no idea of what he was getting into when he bought his RC equipment. I have seen it over and over where a new member joins and never flies. He stays in the club a year or two but never shows up at the field. Or he shows up once or twice and finds out how hard it is, realizes it is not going to be a two-hour session on Sunday afternoon, and drops out.
We try to encourage prospective members to take a flight or two on the club trainer so they know what it's like before going out and spending $500 on equipment. Most, however, have purchased that equipment before we get our hands on them.
I sent you a copy of the flight training manual, discussed above, when you were still in the AMA in Washington. You mentioned it in one of your "Technical Director" columns as being your preference of all those that had been sent to you.
Hope my thoughts on the dropout problem are of some interest to you, and I would enjoy hearing your response.
Bob Paddock AMA 5096
Safety and the AMA Code
I strongly urge you to study page three of your 1998 Membership Manual. The left-hand column contains the 1998 Official AMA National Model Aircraft Safety Code. It is the document upon which your liability protection is predicated!
While that statement is at the top of the document, the code is written in nontechnical or nondefinitive terms in some places; item two of the Radio Control section contains the words "spectators," "qualified," and "experienced," which may have varying interpretations at club fields. Most clubs have their own site rules posted, which supplement the Code, and they automatically become a part of the general AMA Code.
The right-hand column contains general safety recommendations that should be studied carefully and be made a part of your flying site routine. Many club rules incorporate a number of them.
One recommendation that probably should be added, in italics, is to avoid flying alone! Numerous accidents have occurred throughout the years that might have resulted in serious consequences had someone else not been present at the site. The nature of our activity is to fly in remote areas; having a telephone available is valuable.
Next month I will deal with hanging control surfaces and pushrod mechanisms. 'Til then, remember that for every takeoff there is at least one landing!
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
