When I finished my first remote-controlled airplane (which I had dubbed “Jenny”, named for the college girlfriend I wound up marrying many years later), I was so excited to get out and fly the thing that I never bothered actually learning how to fly it. It was a (supposedly) simple to fly, high wing trainer airplane that I built from a kit over the course of about a month in my college dorm room. With a sloppy green-on-white finish along with the custom strobe and nav lights purchased from radio shack (and the 9-volt battery that powered them), I was off to the local R/C airport.

The first lesson I learned was that an old toothbrush is a much, much better tool for turning a prop than my finger. I had been trying to get it going for a while, and I was surprised when the prop spun to life. The index finger on my right hand was interestingly sliced open, but it was so cold out (I was in North Dakota, after all), the bleeding was pretty minimal.

Lesson number two came after several failed takeoff attempts and going through my “just-in-case” collection of propellers. One of my friends explained it best: “You don’t fly a real airplane with full deflection of the flight controls, do you?” Of course not . . . so why was I trying to take off with this airplane by using full deflection of the elevator? Fortunately, the damage was minor each time.

My first trainer was destroyed when I learned my third (and most expensive) lesson. I had finally gotten the airplane into the air and was enjoying the challenge of straight-and-level flight and thinking about the upcoming landing. Right over the top of the landing strip at about 500′ AGL, the engine quit. Best glide speed was too hard for this novice to figure out, and within seconds the airplane was in a spin. The wreckage consisted of balsa wood and various engine fragments scattered within 20 feet of the impact site. The ensuing investigation revealed that I ran out of gas. That makes sense, since I had only filled the tanks once, but attempted flight several times during the preceding couple of days. Whoops.

If you’re new to the sport, don’t feel bad if it takes a little while to get the hang of it. The moral of the story is to relax and don’t rush into it. Slow down and enjoy the project and learning how to fly. That is, unless you really like building R/C airplanes.