Learning From Others’ Mistakes, Part One

As seen in the April 2025 issue of Model Aviation.

I OFTEN WRITE about how easy it is to correct bad habits once the right technique is explained to the pilot. The reality is that doing things the right way requires far less effort than trying to correct the consequences of flying the wrong way. The correct techniques, therefore, prove easy to adopt.

With that said, I would like to share with you some anecdotes from a recent trip out west, where I was invited by a club to help several of its members become better pilots. Despite having an average of five to 10 years’ flying experience, they all struggled with the same bad habits that trip up many pilots.

After correcting several bad habits, the members were able to consistently make smooth landings on the runway centerline. They were no longer at the mercy of the wind and found the transition to higher-performance aircraft or away from using SAFE technology surprisingly easy.

Green field with cartoon bees, speech bubbles say "Pollinating" and "Run! Run! Run!" — In addition to magnifying any landing bounce, approaching the runway too steep with power and too much speed often leads to a long float, promoting pilots to try to force the airplane down before running out of runway.

First Bad Habit

The first area that we corrected was the habit of advancing the throttle too slowly during takeoff. As a result, they regularly had to abort takeoffs or ended up anxiously punching the throttle to get into the air before running off the side of the runway. Slowly accelerating at the start of the takeoff delays getting airflow over the tail, which helps hold the airplane straight and is especially crucial when taking off in a crosswind. Their preoccupation with slowly or incrementally advancing the throttle also divided their attention away from promptly correcting deviations.

Getting the pilots to commit to a smooth yet deliberate advance to the takeoff setting immediately improved control and stability by establishing positive airflow over the tail early in the takeoff roll. This also enabled them to focus their attention on keeping the airplane straight down the runway. Hence, the crosswind we had all week proved to have minimal effect on their takeoffs. Note that if the airplane was overpowered, the throttle was still deliberately advanced but to a lesser amount, such as half throttle.

Second Bad Habit

The next bad habit that we corrected was the tendency to constantly adjust the aileron during turns. Doing so made it virtually impossible for them to consistently keep their turns level. Likely because they held in the aileron too long when they learned to fly, they incorrectly believed that the response to a descending or climbing turn was to shallow or steepen the bank. Fiddling with the ailerons and varying the bank angle, however, was precisely why they struggled because it divided their attention from properly adjusting the elevator to keep turns level. As a consequence, they tended to fly one mistake high and, thus, set up their landings too high as well. The steeper approaches they subsequently had to make caused them to come in too fast!

In the ensuing struggle to get the airplane down, they neglected to recognize deviations off of the centerline until much larger corrections were needed. Of course, trying not to overshoot the runway or go off the side left few brain bytes to execute a good landing flare.

I had the pilots instead direct their attention to setting the preferred bank angle at the start of their turn, and then focus on fine-tuning the elevator to keep the turn perfectly level. If they wanted a tighter or wider turn, rather than fiddling with the ailerons while turning, they would simply apply a larger or smaller "in-out" bank input at the start of the turn. This doesn’t mean that there weren’t times when they needed to vary the bank angle during a turn, but they seldom had to. As a result, their turns immediately became more consistent and less demanding. The resulting confidence enabled them to fly lower landing patterns and allowed for a shallower landing approach, making it easier to judge when to reduce the power to land.

Regarding turns, nearly all of the members had been told to coordinate rudder with aileron at the start of the turn. While it is appropriate to do so with flat-bottom-wing airplanes to prevent adverse yaw, it is not necessary with symmetrical-wing models. Doing so causes an undesirable nose-down skid into the turn. As a general rule, coordinating rudder with aileron (or using an AIL/RUD mixing) is done to keep banks and rolls axial when flying flat-bottom-wing airplanes and is only moderately necessary on semisym-metrical-wing models.

I should mention that a couple of the pilots in the class had been attempting to keep the nose up while turning and using opposite rudder! I explained that the subsequent skids were causing their turns to bleed off airspeed and, thus, aggravating the airplane’s tendency to descend. I also explained that doing so is a recipe for disaster when flying high wing-loading models at slower speeds. They told me that this is why they added throttle during turns! This just might be one of the best examples of trying to make the wrong technique work that you’ll ever hear.

Gratefully, once I got them to prioritize keeping turns level with the elevator, the need for all of that extracurricular stuff went away and we could move on to other things.

Landing approach — A shallower approach and reducing the power to idle when the airplane is within gliding distance to the front of the runway results in a slower approach, significantly reducing the amount of runway used and the tendency to bounce.

Third Bad Habit

The next issue we fixed was the habit of maintaining a little extra power all the way into the landing flare, with the thinking that doing so averted the risk of stalling. As a result, they entered the flare carrying excess airspeed, which caused the airplane to float down the runway. Landings, therefore, became all about forcing the airplane down before running out of runway, instead of making the touchdown smooth.

Furthermore, anything but a perfect touchdown when carrying excess speed tends to produce a major bounce—or worse. Even a good landing when carrying too much speed will tend to bounce the instant the airplane hits a bump on the runway. The struggle to get the airplane down before running out of runway proves to be a huge distraction from keeping it aligned with the centerline. Hence, deviations end up becoming larger, requiring bigger corrections that add to an already challenged landing. They all had been misinterpreting the bounces, plops, control problems, and damaged airplanes as stalling, when the root of the problem was just the opposite.

I encouraged them to set up a lower approach to the runway and fully idle the engine when they estimated that the airplane would glide to the preferred touchdown point. Thanks to no longer being preoccupied with the throttle, they were immediately able to focus their attention to maintaining the centerline and making good elevator adjustments to touch down smoothly.

Reducing their workload also made it easier to identify when the power did need to be adjusted if the landing was going to be short. Even if the flare wasn’t perfect, touching down at idle reduced the tendency to bounce and the rollout distance was substantially shorter. As a result, as though by magic, overshoots and go-arounds all but disappeared.

It is my hope that some of you will benefit from the lessons presented here, so watch for the remainder of them in my next column!

Happy flying!