PC to RC

I bought the GreatPlanes RealFlight G2 - RC Simulator about the first of February,
and practiced on it for about a month.  I also got some instruction online over
the RealFlight simulator from Kevin in Atlanta, Georgia.
I had tried flying RC for about 30 seconds 20 years ago but I was terrified of crashing so I did not pursue it.

I Then bought a Futaba 9CAF Radio, OS .46 AX, and a Goldberg Ex-Treme 330, and they all arrived on the 3rd of March.

I then got allot of criticism from people who could fly because they
did not think I could only practice on a PC and then Fly real RC.  The owner of
the hobby shop in Rochester MN, even told me that I was nuts for even buying the RC Simulator, but he would
be glad to sell me another plane when I crashed mine on my first flight. 
But with encouragement from a few people I got my hopes up.
And with so many people telling me I could not do it, I wanted to prove it could be done, so I went out and tried it myself at this location.
Good thing I didn't know any better.  It was the best runway I could find on short notice and close by.

The Day was 3/12/04. It was 4 degrees at 7:00 a.m., but by 2:00 p.m. it had warmed up to 30 degrees.
It was a little windy, about 4 MPH study with gusts to 8 MPH
and the wind was even a little faster coming around the silo.
So I went on the PC, positioned myself in accordance with the runway, like it would be when I flew outside.
I also added the wind configurations to the RealFlight program, and took off with the wind and landed against the wind.
And I was able to do it on the PC, so I went outside and tried it.
This was the first time I flew for real taking off and landing, and this was also the maiden flight of the Ex-Treme 330.
Here is a video clip of how it went. Video

With my son filming, and not using the Zoom I did several maneuvers that did not show up real well or at all on the video.
He kept asking "Where did it go?"
I did do the following:
Roll
Snap Roll
Loop
inverted loop
flew inverted in a big circle
I even hovered (height up) for a little while.

I switched to high rates for the rudder after the first flight
Switched to high rates on ailerons on the third flight
(High rates was set up to be exponential (70% of movement was minimal - last 30 % yanked the control surface to 45 degrees.

The rest of the story at UffDaRC.com

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