I recently received a 'phone call from a new modeller who wanted to learn how to fly helis. He had the model nearly finished and the shop that he bought it frorn was going to set it up for him. All well and good, but his Iocal club was fixed wing only and he had no-one to help him.
His query related to a heli flying school which would teach him to fly - for money, of course! I had never heard of the school concerned so could not help him regarding their capabiIity. What really made me sit up was the fact that they were going to charge him around �700 for one week of tuition.
Now, most peopIe reading this will almost certainly have taught themselves to fly, possibly with experienced help. In my own case, I have been learning for some 18 years and am not quite there yet! I doubt whether I have spent a total of �700 on repairs in all that time.
A question: Do any of you out there think that you could learn to fly a heli, with no previous modelling experience, in just one week? Would you pay someone �700 to teach you on the off chance that they might be that good?
My advice to our friend was to spend �100 or so of that �700 on a simulator. Not necessary, he already had one! At this point, it did occur to me to ask what he did for a living, but I didn't.
The final result was that I suggested that he use the simulator to learn the basics of flying, let the shop set up his model for him and rely on his fixed wing clubmates to help him with learning to operate the engine, radio, etc. I had already established that they had no apparent prejudices about helis.
What really gets me about all of this is the modern attitude that everything can be bought, including ability and experience. No one ever taught me to fly any type of model and I would have resented any attempt to interfere in the learnIng process. I built it, and NO-ONE is going to have the enjoyment of crashing it - which I can do better than anybodyl
No, on second thoughts, what really gets me is that he was prepared to pay it!