Hey DH, Why does this not surprise me, If you were as arrogant with the people at that club as you are on this NG then all is as it should have been. Have a happy field DH you DO so much deserve it!
| I did post a few smileys mate.
You posted ONE smiley in that post, mate :) | Sure, most clubs are a bit better. But the fact remains its far more | dangerous to fly at a club than in a field.
Perhaps. With two planes up in the air, the chances of an accident more than double -- there's still the chances of each plane having it's own accident, plus you add the chances of a mid air or other form of conflict. But a club usually has a nice field, with large buffer zones all around. If you're flying at a park, rather than a buffer zone you've probably got a bunch of kids playing soccer or something.
| The only benefit is you MAY get instruction and help.
All the clubs I've visited, formal or informal, have been quite willing to help, even when the help isn't really wanted. :)
As for instruction, it seems to be a matter of asking, though I've heard that some clubs make it hard. Mine didn't.
| In my experience this proved not to be the case, and I DID lose some | stuff from a flight box.
Hmm. Maybe I've been lucky, though I'm more worried about losing stuff at the park then at the club field.
| And I DID crash a plane into a car, when a ESC died on me - | fortunately it was mine, and it was a canvas backed land rover, and | no damage resulted.
That could have happened at the park too ...
| The club president DID take up my new plane and fold the wings for me.
I've heard that some clubs require that the president maiden any new plane. Seems incredible, but was that the case there?
(Of course, a similar rule is what started the war that was described in the movie `Braveheart'. Except that it's the lord rather than the president, and the new bride rather than the plane ...)
Either way though, if he folded the wings, that probably means that you'd fold the wings too eventually. Usually one of the first things I do when I fly a new plane is take it out away from everybody and start doing very violent maneuvers (up high, of course.) If the wing is going to fold, I want to know it now, and I don't want it doing it anywhere near something fragile (like people.) So far, my planes have held up.
| I DID have to wait for many minutes to get a slot, and even if I crashed | immediately, someone else on my freq said 'you switched off?' and | procesed to fly the next twenty.
Must be a busy club. I've rarely had frequency conflicts, and when I did, it was rarely a big problem -- people were nice about it. | And teh club president DID do a fairly impressive low pass in a 60 | powered ultimate.
Well, that's not quite what you described ...
| and worst of all criticism of the 'shouldn't be allowed to fly here' | sort.
Sounds like you just found a bad club. Well, bad for a newbie anyways.
| I got absolutely zero help at all. Training, it turned out was | something that was available one week in two in one evening only, if | anyne turned up to be nice, and, mostly they didn't cos the club | didn't have newbies much (surprise surprise), and if teh wether was | bad that was it for two weeks.
Totally unlike my experience. Training was pretty much forced on a new pilot unless they could demonstrate that they could fly. Most training happened on saturday mornings, but I worked weekends, so I was training with a retired guy who could do it most days of the week. Quite often it was just us two out there, though occasionally he'd be training two students rather than just me. It wasn't hard to get training at all.
And to his credit, there were no crashes during training. And very few afterwards too -- not counting foamies (where being almost indestructable means that I'll try things I know are iffy), I've only had a handful of serious crashes, and all were due to mistakes that happened before the plane even took off (forgot to put the antenna up, CoG too far back, plane too far out of trim to correct for with the sticks.) I'm a pretty mediocre pilot, but I guess I do know my limitations. I'd say he taught me pretty well (the mistakes made before takeoffs are MY fault, not his. And haven't happened in a while -- perhaps I've learned!)
| I felt as though I had wandered into a group of guys who all knew each | other and went there to chat, fly their planes, and they had absolutely | no interest in me whatsoever. | | Which is fine, but be aware that many clubs are just like that.
And be aware that they're not all like that. I've only seen one club as a newbie, but once I got the hang of things I've visited a few, and generally all the people have been very friendly (except for the ASF incident, of course, but even so -- in that case, all but a very few were nice and friendly, and still are, as I fly with several of them on a regular basis.)
OK, after reviewing all the response, I'm not joining any club/ama for now. But I really need a experienced flyer/trainer to help me. Anybody willing to help me at Apollo field with electric plane? Any contact info you can provide me I really appreciated, and how much for training fee?
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