Gutted!

[Steve]

I feel quite strongly responsible (although not entirely) for breaking someone's plane today on a buddy lead. I was the master, and he was the slave - serves me right for getting a synthesised transmitter!

Of course, when you are the tutor, you are responsible for the model at all times aren't you? And probably I should have never allowed the aircraft to get into a position where I couldn't save it, given my own level of expertise.

The chap who was on the other end of the buddy lead is a retired gentleman who has been RC modelling since before RC was even invented, but he cannot land from his left side, only his right and that's pretty scary at the best of times. Our strip consists of 2 x 100m runways in an X shape, with 2 pits areas, so depending on the wind direction on any particular day, you might have to land right to left, or left to right. Everyone except this chap can happily do it both ways. As a club, we have often debated what we should do to improve his flying up to a more acceptable (and safer) standard, and it has long been decided that he needs a few guiding lessons on a buddy lead. Now that I'm the only person at the club with a synthesised JR transmitter (he has JR), that obligation has fallen on me!

I'd never done this before today, and I did save the model on a couple of occasions before it met its maker. I'm just gutted that a very nice model is broken, and I was contributary to that in that I was not disciplined enough (or experienced enough as a tutor) to save the aircraft.

Fortunately, the model is very repairable, and nothing fancy like radio gear or engine appeared to be damaged. However, I worry that this chap will not want to under-go buddy-boxing again, which leaves us with a very unsafe flyer in our midst. I hope we can convince him that he still needs to do this.

The lesson that I learned today (at his expense unfortunately!) is to control the flight for the student in such a way that they do just what you tell them, and fly just where you tell them, and you demonstrate the manouver or circuit first, rather than just let them get on with it and rely on your own ability to save any problems. I guess this would have been automatic with a new learner, but it was hard (in my mind) to tell this guy what to do because he's been flying longer than I've been alive!

Of course, this happened today with a plane, but it could so easily have been a heli, and the ethics and ethos behind the whole scenario would be very similar.

Any thoughts?

I would particularly appreciate the thoughts and guidance of experienced tutors.

[Raptorite]

As an instructor I like to use my own models for lessons, as I know each one intimately. I therefore know when they are right and when they arent. Flying someone else's models you dont have that luxury so you are always on guard for something going wrong.

That said, the times I do fly other peoples models, which is quite often as I either set them up and test fly them or build them up from kit and test fly them, I always do so without the buddy lead. Once I am happy the model flies nicely I will hand over the transmitter to them and depending on their skill level they will either hover the model, fly it around a bit or stop it, take it back to the pits and put the training undercarriage on.

You dont mention why the model crashed, as I have a disclaimer on my job request sheet saying that if a model is anything other than completely built by me, I take no repsonsiblility for it if it crashes through mechanical failure. Similarly, I take full responsibility for my own models or any models in my care (in other words on loan to me), when I am flying for myself or giving a lesson with me on the end of the buddy box.

I think if I were in your situation, I would say that I would do my best to save the model if it got out of shape, but ultimately the owner of the model is for the most part flying it and should take responsibility for it, so if my best wasnt enough and it did crash it would be at the owners risk.

At the end of the day you were only helping this guy out, he turned up at the field and would have flown the model anyway, so holding yourself responsible for something he could quite easily have done on his own I believe is not your responsibility. Look at it this way, if he was flying on his own without you on the buddy box, could he have saved it himself, if the answer is no then you are not responsible either.

Cheers,
Pete.

[Disc]

Sorry about what happened...

I teach Fixed wing at the Club I am at. I consider myself a decent fixed wing flyer and have taught planes for about 3 years now.

My warning before I fly is no Guarantee that the plane will be okay to cover my own arse.

When teaching to fly new flyers I go high. The rule I use is 3 mistakes high and I live by this rule. The height means 2 mistakes and I get it and return it to height.

Teaching to land is hardest bit and then your loosing the 3 mistake rule this where I point out there is a lot less chance for me to save the plane.

I have saved planes at 10ft - 2ft off the ground from fatal crashs more times than I care to count.

BUT I have also failed to save planes... I have lost 2 planes this year....
One was a landing turn for the approach I just couldnt pull the plane out of the dive.... Crunch it was bad....

2nd one was a student that has been flying with me now for sometime, hes a nice guy but nervous and for some reason I let him get to low and hey presto no save CRUNCH. He had done it a couple of times and saved it himself... I was hoping to get him landing and getting ready for solo....

The thing is with any student you get no matter how often they have flown or where and heres my example.... a guy came to the club from down south, he had been learning and was okay apprently I still TEST flew the plane as I do with all people I teach. The plane sat on its tail in the air.. Tail heavy. Now this was set up at another Club and he had been learning on it. Tail heavy planes are a bitch to learn on. I made it nose heavy and he instantly found it 10x easier to fly. I think that setup had been holding him back and this from a club with more exprienced flyers than me.

He is now solo after we trashed the plane on a landing and he now flys on his left where he to avoid before due to a road!

way I teach is
1. give the plane a good once over check it etc no matter how many times its flown, 1st flight with me it gets my Test flight I want to see the engine and plane perform and no binding etc and all links are good.

2. No matter how much they have flown so even a semi exp begineer I see what they can do by taking off climbing to height then I ask for say a left handed circuit then right then figure 8's over time to see where they are with learning etc.

3. is make sure they know the plane may crash its not your fault. The risk they must accept if they fly with me. I will NOT replace a crashed plane.

But rember I teach at Club level not a pro like Ade and some of the others here.

Helicopters:
I am willing to test fly them and hover about but I am not perfect and still miss little bits on setups.

I stand and explain stuff but will not buddy lead a heli yet.

er typed this late so hope it made a bit of sense

[Ade_Law]

i find teaching planes much riskier than teaching helis in the early stages. Landings involve being close to the ground at low speed with a trainer that doesnt really have much power to get you out of trouble if it does all go tits up.

Few rules for flying other peoples models:

1) If you ask to have a go on it and dumb thumb it, its your responsibility.
2) If you are charging for training and you dont catch it in time its your responsibility
3) mechanical failure is not your problem, it doesnt matter how well you check the model over you cant check everything.
4) if your training for free "you will do your best" to stop it going in but your not getting anything out of it, why should it be your responsibility?

what i suggest for this guy is for him to get a MS composite swift. you can get these flying quite cheap and they are easy to fly and hard to kill anybody with. We have a few guys learning circuits with them.

Ade

[Disc]

Manager:

At our Club until someone is signed off to fly they have to fly with a Club instructor regardless how they feel about it. Although they can request another instructor! If there not signed off they cannot fly Solo its that simple. Basically we get people to fly the BMFA 'A' solo a couple of times proving there capable of flying and then they can go solo.

Also note I will only test certain planes for people as well. Top wing trainer types and low wing trainers, Planes like Cap 232 or Edge 540 I won't touch or scale planes either. I pass that kind of stuff to more experienced Club members to test fly. I can fly them but because I now try to avoid plane flying I don't do it enough if there was an issue I am not the best person for it.


Also this guy your helping out you may want to take the plane up once fixed and throw it about a bit.. get used to it yourself for a tank full then take him up and be firm in what you want him to fly.

Example he hates flying a certain way so get him flying a normal way then get him to fly the way he doesnt like make him get used to it... a Few full tanks can work wonders.... Get him doing big figure 8s that gets people used to doing turns in all directions.

As for cannot land from one direction.... When its one day where there is no choice fly one tank at height then start bring him lower ask for low pass's over the strip starting at 100ft and then come down your looking for a good 12ft pass... then all you do is ask for throttle back let it sink.. then get him to flare it in. no flare = fast landing maybe rough....

[Steve]

Thanks for all your advice chaps.

I've spent 6 hours on the road for work today and have thought a lot about what happened yesterday.

You're right, I had no personal gain in this instance, other than an attempt to make this club member a safer (and by default a more competent) flyer - for me, my club mates, and for himself.

I would never intentionally trash someone elses (or my own!) aircraft and will always do my utmost to save any model. I did fly it around a bit to trim the model, including a couple of practice landing approaches etc and the aircraft was sweet as a nut.

Where I went wrong was not to take control of the flight. Once the model was trimmed and I was happy with it, I simply handed control over to him, and just let him do what he wanted to do, hoping that my expertise would be enough to save the model - it wasn't! What I should have done (and this is where I have failed, or learned as an instructor) is told him what flight pattern I wanted him to fly - i.e. given his level of competence, medium height circuits over the runway at 1/2 - 3/4 throttle in the direction that he doesn't like. What I shouldn't have done, is just let him go straight ahead with attempting a landing approach from his uncomfortable side.

I think out of all this, I've learnt that any student's flight has to have a flight plan clearly laid out by the tutor before take off, and agreed by both people.

It's a clear example of '**** poor planning!'

[Disc]

Thanks for all your advice chaps.



Where I went wrong was not to take control of the flight. Once the model was trimmed and I was happy with it, I simply handed control over to him, and just let him do what he wanted to do, hoping that my expertise would be enough to save the model - it wasn't! What I should have done (and this is where I have failed, or learned as an instructor) is told him what flight pattern I wanted him to fly - i.e. given his level of competence, medium height circuits over the runway at 1/2 - 3/4 throttle in the direction that he doesn't like. What I shouldn't have done, is just let him go straight ahead with attempting a landing approach from his uncomfortable side.

I think out of all this, I've learnt that any student's flight has to have a flight plan clearly laid out by the tutor before take off, and agreed by both people.

It's a clear example of '**** poor planning!'

One thing that can be a bit hard is when to Take control of the plane....
if the plane flys over the pits or pilots box I always take it, They get given the chance as I ask them to alter the planes course But I will take it if they don't then they get the lecture on why not to do it

As they get more experience it gets harder and harder to know when to take it from them as they can correct 90-99% of their errors.

This week I have 2 guys booked for training Friday so I probably won't get any heli flying in.

Just get it in your head roughly what you want them to do or improve then set that as an aim. I normally get them for the 1st tank to fly around and settle in then next tank full get them doing what they need to practice...

recently we had a group of walkers come by the site and I gave 6 kids a go each... Chaos but they had fun, one grasped it quickly and could become a good flyer you could see he had it.

[Raptorite]

I agree, as a student progresses more with their skills, it certainly does become harder to know when to take control of the model and when not to. As Disc says, the student can very often get out of a tricky situation themselves, and not letting them try is not allowing them to progress their skills which is what they are having lessons for in the first place.

However, there has to be a judgement on what circumstances to take control of the model no matter what, in my view these are based on not only the safety angle, but also on a judgement of when the student is drastically outside their comfort zone.

A simple example is if a student flies a circuit, and is too heavy handed with the aileron, causing the model to go knife edge, I take it, if they are still heavy handed with the aileron but not so much so that the model doesnt go right over to knife edge, I allow them a few extra seconds to try and recover it themselves, if within 2 or 3 seconds (depending on altitude of course) they have made no attempt to correct it, I take control.

Cheers,
Pete.

[Steve]

I think your attitude is bang on Raptorite.

But like I said in the original post, this particular student has been flying for about a zillion years longer than I have (and that's 24 years on and off), so there was always the assumption in my mind that he could quite easily get out of a sticky situation.

Obviously, I was wrong.

So it's back to the drawing board now with his flying training, and time to teach him to fly all over again I think.

[Raptorite]

The most important thing in all of this, is for you yourself to put this incident down to experience, don't dwell on it, or beat yourself up over it and learn from the mistake (if one was made, and I'm still not entirely convinced one was) and move on. Dont let it dent your confidence in taking people on the buddy box system, and carry on doing the sterling job you are obviously doing

Dont forget that flying on your own is one thing, but flying a buddy box system as an instructor is quite different. You not only need to maintain orientation on the model yourself, but to a large degree you need to be able to predict what the student is going to do next, and if you can be one step ahead of them the whole time, so much the better. I'm not sure if this is something you do already, but I personally find it really useful to watch what the model is doing and move the sticks in the same fashion, rather than just keep them central and being ready to catch the model. This also dramatically speeds up reaction times so you can recover the model that much quicker if you need to.

I tend not to make assumptions, and take every new student from their ability, rather than what or how many models they have and how long they have been flying. With any brand new student I take them through the basics briefly, this gives both me a chance to see what level they are really at, and to identify any weaknesses they may have in the basics. We either spend the lesson working on those weaknesses, or move on to something more like what they were after getting out of the lesson during the chat before we took to the air. They can then work on their weaknesses in their own time at some point later on.

Keep going, get out there and do some more training

Cheers,
Pete.

[Steve]

I did fly the sticks throughout his control, just left it too late to let go of the trainer switch.

Thanks for the encouragment.

I'm prepared to carry it on, I just hope that he is. He has a Nova trainer that he flies sometimes, so hopefully we can do some fruitfull work with that.