Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

RC Flying on a Simulator

RC Flying on a Simulator

Sometimes we do something smart and when this happens, (In my case not very often) a little celebration is in order. When I decided to learn to RC fly I decided to do it in three phases. Phase 1 was a simulator you load on your PC. The software comes with a controller, a box with two small joy sticks in it. These attach to functions of the model airplane, making it go up and down and left and right and controlling the engine speed. Phase 2 will be learning to fly the model in a conventional mode (as a bystander) and Phase 3 will be learning to fly it in the first person pilot mode.

So yesterday I bought the simulator software and control box. Both were in the same box. This same controler I can use with the model I ordered for the actual flight training that will begin in phase 2. The camera equipment for Phase 3 I am in no hurry to order right now.

I took my Toshiba laptop to the hobby shop and naturally the software didn’t want to load. However, I got to see the owner dealing with the service technician who spent about half an hour over the phone. I came home and loaded it on my old Compac laptop and it was accepted without a hitch. The software allows you to pick the type airplane you intend to fly and mine is little more than a motorized glider. Still, having never flown RC before, I anticipated a learning curve. By the end of last night I could launch and glide the model in to a smooth landing. In the process I crashed a couple of times, however that is not an expensive issue on a computer simulation which is like a video game that kids play all the time. When I finished I tried flying the gas engine models that had more control functions and these were heavy, fast and unforgiving. I crashed numerous times and never really did get the hang of it. However, the disasters became less severe as the evening progressed.

I have no doubt that if I had gone to a real flight school I would have had some serious problems. My brain needs time to digest things and the process can take many months before things become instinctive and I understand intuitively at the subconscious level how complex processes work. Nowhere is this more evident than in my writing where I am trying to learn novel writing and the importance of integrating several functions concurrently rather than one predominate one. For example I see Play Writing as analogous to flying a glider and Novel Writing as more like learning to fly a multifunction gasoline powered model. The stage/screen and actors help the dramatist, however the novelist needs create the stage/screen in words that animate the imagination without the assistance of the physical senses to help out. They are different arts that have many similarities but also much at issue. Going from a playwriting focus to a novel is amazingly similar to what I am experiencing in my new hobby.