Learning to Fly R/C
Flight Training
Flight instruction at Bayside is free of charge for any member. Bayside has qualified instructors to help you get started, solo, or just improve your overall skill. These folks are the foundation of the club and spend much of their personal time making the club a success. Each instructor has a badge on their hat that clearly identifies them as a club instructor. If you want their assistance just walk up and introduce yourself, and get started the right way. Better yet, give them a call (at a reasonable hour) and arrange to meet at the field.
All Bayside Instructors are appointed by the Chief Flight Instructor or the President.
Ready to train? Go find a flight instructor.
Think you are ready to go? Do a pre-flight check with our checklist.
Required Items
If you are new to R/C flight there are some items that you must have in order to get started. There are also a lot of items that are "nice to have" after you've been flying for a while. Below we'll detail out which things you need right away and what you can wait for. As a note, it generally costs about $180 to $250 for a first time flyer getting started with no existing gear to purchase everything needed (this includes the starter airplane and radio).
Need to Have Items:
- High wing trainer model with tricycle landing gear.
- 4 to 6 Channel radio with "trainer cord" capability.
- 4 standard servos with matching receiver.
- A .40 or .50 sized 2 stroke engine to match your model.
- Fuel tank and Fuel. (Recommend 5% to 15 % Nitro).
- Fuel pump, electric or mechanical, for filling fuel tank.
- Fuel tubing to connect the fuel tank to the engine, and to fuel the airplane.
- Propeller (Plastic or composite recommended). Wood props break easily for newcomers.
- Prop nut wrench.
- Glow plug battery.
- Glow plug wrench.
- Battery voltmeter for checking battery charge state at field.
- Chicken stick or electric starter.
- Small tools that fit the various types of hardware fasteners in the model.
Nice to Have Items:
- Battery charge jack on side of the model.
- Flight timer (so you can estimate remaining flight time and fuel).
- Extra propellers and extra prop nut.
- Extra glow plugs.
- Field box (to put all your gear in).
- Electric panel for field box (for charging, pumps, etc.)
- Propeller reamer.
- Allen wrenches. (Metric and US)
- Sunglasses, hat and sunscreen.
- Pliers, regular and long nose.
- Very small flat blade screwdriver for adjusting carburetor.
- CA and epoxy glues.
- Hobby knife and #11 blades.
- Extra fuel tubing.
- After-run engine oil.
- Straight pins.
- Fast field charger for radio batteries.
- Extra glow batteries.
- Soap spray bottle and towels (to clean off the airplane)
- Band-aids.
- Extra covering material (to repair the plane)
- Covering iron or heat gun.
