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Home › Course › Lesson 8: Flying Skills
1. Welcome to the Hobby2. Safety & Rules3. Types of RC Planes4. Buyer's Guide5. Simulators6. LiPo Batteries7. Your Transmitter8. Flying Skills9. Airspace & B4UFLY10. Weather11. Finding a Club12. Maintenance
Lesson 8 of 12

Flying Skills — Time to Actually Fly

Pre-flight checklist, takeoff, turns, landing, and building your skills.

Your Pre-Flight Checklist

Do this before every flight. Print and laminate the full version from the Printable Sheets page.

  • Transmitter charged — turn transmitter ON first
  • Airplane battery fully charged and properly seated
  • Receiver bound and responding
  • All control surfaces move freely and in the correct direction
  • Propeller undamaged and tight
  • All screws and hatches secure
  • Flight mode set (beginner/training)
  • Airspace checked with B4UFLY app
  • TRUST certificate with you
  • Area clear of people and obstacles
  • Range check done — walk 30 paces away, move sticks, confirm all surfaces respond
Transmitter on before airplane. Airplane battery out before transmitter off. Reversing this can cause an accidental throttle surge.

Your First Takeoff

  1. Point the airplane into the wind — reduces ground speed and increases lift.
  2. Confirm beginner/training mode is on.
  3. Smoothly and gradually increase throttle. Don't jam it to full.
  4. As it lifts off, small up elevator to hold the climb.
  5. Climb to at least 50–75 feet before doing anything else. Height is your friend.
First flight tip: If you can have an experienced pilot with you, do it. If your local club offers intro flights with an instructor, take them up on it.

Making Turns

Apply aileron in the direction you want to turn — the plane banks. Add a small amount of back elevator to maintain altitude through the turn. When you've turned the direction you want, neutralize aileron and release back elevator. Drill this on the simulator until it's instinctive.

The Orientation Challenge

The Orientation Challenge FLYING AWAY FROM YOU ↑ Right stick → bank right ✓ Feels natural Controls match what you see FLYING TOWARD YOU ↓ Right stick → appears to go left ⚠ Feels reversed Drill this on the simulator
The Shoulder Rule: turn your body to face the same direction the airplane is flying. Your stick inputs will feel natural again.

When the airplane flies toward you, the aileron controls appear reversed from your perspective. The airplane is banking correctly from its own frame of reference — you're just looking at it from the other direction. This is why figure-eights on the simulator matter so much. The reflex clicks for most pilots around 5–10 hours of practice. Until it does, use the Shoulder Rule: physically turn your body to face the same direction the airplane is flying. When you're facing the same way as the plane, your stick inputs feel natural again. It sounds almost too simple, but it genuinely works and many instructors teach it as their first orientation fix.

Landing

Standard Landing Pattern ↓ Wind direction (always take off and land INTO the wind) RUNWAY CROSSWIND DOWNWIND — reduce throttle here BASE FINAL TAKEOFF
Always fly a rectangular pattern. If the final approach doesn't look right, go around — add power and try again.
  1. Plan your approach from a good distance away.
  2. Reduce throttle gradually — don't cut power all at once.
  3. Fly a rectangular pattern: crosswind, downwind, base, final.
  4. On final approach, point into the wind.
  5. Gradual descent, nose slightly up, throttle reducing as you approach.
  6. At 3–4 feet, reduce to idle and let it settle.
The Go-Around: your most important safety skill. If the approach looks wrong at any point — wrong altitude, wrong angle, coming in too fast, anything feels off — immediately add full throttle, climb back to a safe altitude, and fly the pattern again. A go-around is not a failure. Trying to "save" a bad approach is what breaks airplanes. Every experienced pilot goes around regularly. Train yourself to do it automatically, on the sim and in real life.

Skill Progression

  • Flights 1–10: Straight and level, gentle turns, basic landings. Beginner mode only.
  • Flights 10–25: Intermediate mode. Deliberate patterns, consistent landings.
  • Flights 25–50: Training off. This is where you actually learn to fly.
  • Beyond 50: Advanced maneuvers. Join a club if you haven't already.

What's Next

Lesson 9 covers airspace — how to read it, how to use B4UFLY, and how to always fly somewhere legal.

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