part  2                           part 3

this section will show you how to land, fly a pattern and what to think about when the aircraft is in the air, once you can fly straight and level you are on the way to being in control of the aircraft and the aircraft reacting to what your doing rather than reacting to what the aircraft is doing.

One thing the simulators won't teach you so well is how the plane behaves in the wind and the relationship between air speed and ground speed.

 When you are flying a pattern around a field with a 10 mph breeze you have to be aware of ground speed and air speed.

 If your plane needs a minimum air speed of 15 mph to generate lift then on the up wind section of the pattern you need to be doing a minimum ground speed of 5 mph for the wings to create lift 

(5 mph forward motion + 10 mph wind = 15 mph airspeed) 

conversely on the down wind section your ground speed will need to be a minimum of 25 mph

(25 mph forward motion - 10 mph wind =15 mph airspeed)

So as you can see there is quite a large difference between how fast the plane would look between the up wind section and the down wind section. This is a common beginners mistake and its hard to figure out exactly why your plane just seemed to fall out of the sky.