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How much should you have to practice? If you are
serious about learning how to hover or torque roll,
work on the simulator 30 minutes to an hour each
night for a month. Evaluate your progress after
this amount of time. Chances are you will have
become bored with the simulator and are ready
to tackle the real airplane with confidence, but do
not be surprised or discouraged if it takes three
months of dedicated practice. Remember that there
is nothing super-human about hovering. Anyone
who is willing to put in the practice time can learn
to do this maneuver. Of course you can be a purest
and learn to hover solely with the real airplane, but
it will take longer because you physically cannot
get the practice time with a model that you can
on the simulator. Keep in mind that your simulator
practice must be supplemented with actual flying
because you need to learn how to react when the
consequence of a mistake is a crash. The good
thing about the Tensor is you can typically pick
it up after a mishap and fly again immediately.
Nerves can play a big part in hovering success,
but you will find the better you get at the simulator,
the more confidence you will have with the real
airplane and the nerves will eventually subside,
thus freeing your mind to concentrate on flying the
model. It often helps to have someone show you
that your airplane can hover. For some reason
this is a huge psychological boost that makes you
realize it is not the airplane limiting you. One
common mistake people make is hovering too
far away from them. The closer you are to the
airplane, the better you will be able to control it
because you can see it so much better. This is,
of course, a double-edged sword because you
will also be closer to the ground. Once again the
Tensor can handle the abuse thus making it good
for training. Eventually you will find that the closer
the airplane is to the ground, the less chance it has
of getting damaged in a crash because it has less
potential energy. This is especially useful if for some
reason you have a battery die or the BEC cuts off.
