“WE ARE WHAT we repeatedly do.
Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.”
—Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
The purpose of practicing is to create
good habits on the mental and physical
level. These habits will help establish
consistency, which is the Holy Grail among
top fliers. So if you want to improve your
flying, you will have to practice.
Why you practice is every bit as
important as how and what you practice.
Do you remember when you were learning
to fly or, better yet, drive? There were so
many things to remember, but now it is all
habit. While driving, we confidently turn
corners while eating a burger and
answering a ringing cell phone. Driving a
car is now such a refined habit that some
find themselves automatically turning the
usual weekday direction on a Saturday
morning.
Imagine if flying well was that
automatic, leaving you free to concentrate
on what was different that day or during
that particular flight. It would allow your
muscle memory, established during
practice, to take care of all the major details
for you. Much as with repetitive sports
such as bowling, archery, or golf, muscle
memory is required to be consistent.
The start of a contest season and when
breaking in a new model are perfect
opportunities to review what we have been
consistently doing wrong: our bad habits.
We all have them and should be well aware
of them, either through videotapes of our
flights or our coaches’ nagging. These are
the things we should concentrate on during
practice and spend less time excited about
the parts that look so good.
How do we practice to create good
habits? There are three things a person
needs to do to develop a habit quickly:
concentrate, exaggerate, and repeat.
To have a productive, focused practice
session, total concentration is the key. This
means that one needs to decide what he or
she is working on and identify the
individual parts of that particular skill. One
must learn to focus on that single detail
without thinking of anything else. This is
easier said than done and can be quite
difficult at first.
Before each flight, take a moment to
review what you need to do during that
flight. While flying, prepare for each
maneuver during the two level laps
preceding it by concentrating on the
specific problem you are trying to correct.
This will not only prepare you for what you
need to do, but it will force you to forget
about what is in the past and cannot be
changed.
Realize that your mind can only fully
focus on one thing at a time and only a few
points each flight. If you try to practice
everything at once, you will have a much
more difficult time and will not progress as
quickly. The mind and body will only get
portions of the information needed to
develop the proper habits, or muscle
memory.
Exaggerate the motion or mental
154 MODEL AVIATION
CONTROL LINE AEROBATICS
Curt Contrata, 6783 Nightwind Cir., Orlando FL 32818; E-mail: [email protected]
Allen Brickhaus, who was the event director for Beginner Stunt at the 2003 Nationals, is
seen here enjoying a well-deserved break.
Gerry Phelps (right) wipes the bottom of
his beautifully detailed Patriot as Todd
Lee holds on.
Allen Goff with his pretty two-tone green
Lark. With it, Allen finished fifth in Classic
at the 2003 Nationals.
process you are trying to achieve by
thinking yourself through it in slow motion.
I have found it helpful to remind myself by
speaking out loud while flying, saying
“Think round” and reciting the word
“Easy” on every corner I make on a cool
morning.
The problem component is often body
position and where the model is told to go
in relation to the body. I find it helpful to
pretend I am flying while standing in a
place where there are spherical references.
Screened enclosures work great for this, as
do rooms with drop ceilings. Position
yourself so that there is a reference where
you need it for what you need to practice.
I close my eyes and fly the entire
pattern from habit, and then I open my eyes
and see where my hand, feet, and shoulders
are in relation to where I feel the model
should be flying.
For some time I have had a heck of a
time with my Reverse Wingover track.
With muscle memory I was able to recreate
what I was doing at the field and
learned what I had been doing wrong for
quite awhile.
With my wife’s help I practiced in the
kitchen and found that what I thought to be
proper form was not. Over and over I
executed the same footwork that caused the
wrong flight path. It was repeatable and
predictable.
Then I concentrated in slow motion, and
then I exaggerated good form, aligning
myself with a seam in the floor, overhead
lighting tiles, and two vertical references
on opposite sides of the room. For days I
practiced, and that weekend my Wingover
finally had a straight track.
Break down into steps the particular
action you are learning, and exaggerate
each step slowly and individually. This
forces the mind and body to focus more
fully on what is being done and helps build
muscle memory more quickly.
This does not mean that my old bad
habit is gone for good. Remember the third
part of what is required for developing
habits: repeat. Now I have to go back and
continue those exact motions until they are
habit and I no longer have to focus on the
details. Until then, I must concentrate on
correct form.
When you are learning a new technique,
it will take some time for it to sink in and
become automatic. Don’t make the mistake
of thinking that once you correct a problem
on one flight, it is forever corrected; you
must continue to practice good form and
concentrate. When you relax, or you start
thinking about how good your model looks
in the air, your old bad habits will resurface
and you will find yourself practicing the
bad habit.
Your practice routine should be
complete, and you should do everything the
same, every time. This includes how and
when you run out and wipe your lines, how
you fuel the model, and even the way you
set your handle down and arrange your
safety thong. Do all of these things the
April 2004 155
same way each time.
You are practicing your entire routine,
and each step is a part of your program. If
you do as I suggest, you will not wonder if
you ran out your lines or if you fueled your
tank. Before each official flight Randy
Smith tells us to “Go out there and fly your
program.” That means to go out and do
exactly what you have practiced.
It has been written many times that you
should perform each practice flight as if you
were flying for a national championship.
There are several reasons for this, but the
most important is that it will put you in the
proper mind-set when you are in that
situation, flying for a group of judges.
Nothing should change in your program,
whether it is practice or competition.
“Ignore the judges and fly your
program.” This is not difficult if you have
been practicing total concentration on every
flight all year. A winner has to deal with
pressure; you have to train yourself to deal
with it. If you pay attention to these
guidelines, you’ll get more out of your
practice sessions and will improve faster.
Desire, hard work, and talent are
required to succeed in this event. Desire can
work wonders, but it can let you down if it’s
not backed up by hard work. Talent is
something great to have; however, you will
156 MODEL AVIATION
be inconsistent without hard work. Without
desire, there is no will to work hard. Hard
work is time consuming, but it is the only
way to build muscle memory and,
therefore, consistency.
Then there is the phenomenon of
“trying too hard.” This is when
performance falls off because of the
desperate need to succeed. When this
happens, recognize it, calm down, and be
confident. Fly your program.
Earlier in the column I mentioned
videotapes and their usefulness in
revealing bad habits. Bill Rich has done
this for years, and a major part of his
success is attributed to including
videotapes as part of his program. I thought
I understood the whole principle until he
gave me a few helpful hints, including
using dry-erase markers on the television
screen to denote intersections and sizes.
The main position for the camera seems
obvious: from the judges’ point of view.
From that position the video will show you
shapes, angles, intersections, tracking, and
whether sizes are consistent. It sometimes
helps to play it back at different speeds to
see different things, with faster often being
better for seeing shapes.
Other shots can include one from the
side at a 90° angle from the judges. From
this position your lines will clearly show
45° and 90° of elevation. This angle is also
a great way to look at the Overhead Figure
Eights. If they are not flown over your
head, or if they are skewed at all, it really
shows up from this angle.
The camera can also be framed to see
only the model, as a trimming aid. Position
the camera from the side as in the previous
paragraph, but this time place it in line with
the downwind side of the circle. From this
position you can view the model through
level flight and through maneuvers,
revealing wings that are unlevel and a
dropping outboard tip in hard corners.
Other useful training tools are setting
out orange cones for sizes and PVC
(polyvinyl chloride) pipe markers for
heights. Set the cones at 45° intervals
around the circle, with one directly upwind
and one directly downwind. They are great
for getting a feel for the correct sizes, with
45° being much smaller horizontally than
you might think. Now place a few 8-foottall
pieces of white PVC pipe with 24-inch
bright-orange marks indicating level flight,
and you are all set to do some serious
practicing. MA
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/04
Page Numbers: 154,155,156
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/04
Page Numbers: 154,155,156
“WE ARE WHAT we repeatedly do.
Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.”
—Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
The purpose of practicing is to create
good habits on the mental and physical
level. These habits will help establish
consistency, which is the Holy Grail among
top fliers. So if you want to improve your
flying, you will have to practice.
Why you practice is every bit as
important as how and what you practice.
Do you remember when you were learning
to fly or, better yet, drive? There were so
many things to remember, but now it is all
habit. While driving, we confidently turn
corners while eating a burger and
answering a ringing cell phone. Driving a
car is now such a refined habit that some
find themselves automatically turning the
usual weekday direction on a Saturday
morning.
Imagine if flying well was that
automatic, leaving you free to concentrate
on what was different that day or during
that particular flight. It would allow your
muscle memory, established during
practice, to take care of all the major details
for you. Much as with repetitive sports
such as bowling, archery, or golf, muscle
memory is required to be consistent.
The start of a contest season and when
breaking in a new model are perfect
opportunities to review what we have been
consistently doing wrong: our bad habits.
We all have them and should be well aware
of them, either through videotapes of our
flights or our coaches’ nagging. These are
the things we should concentrate on during
practice and spend less time excited about
the parts that look so good.
How do we practice to create good
habits? There are three things a person
needs to do to develop a habit quickly:
concentrate, exaggerate, and repeat.
To have a productive, focused practice
session, total concentration is the key. This
means that one needs to decide what he or
she is working on and identify the
individual parts of that particular skill. One
must learn to focus on that single detail
without thinking of anything else. This is
easier said than done and can be quite
difficult at first.
Before each flight, take a moment to
review what you need to do during that
flight. While flying, prepare for each
maneuver during the two level laps
preceding it by concentrating on the
specific problem you are trying to correct.
This will not only prepare you for what you
need to do, but it will force you to forget
about what is in the past and cannot be
changed.
Realize that your mind can only fully
focus on one thing at a time and only a few
points each flight. If you try to practice
everything at once, you will have a much
more difficult time and will not progress as
quickly. The mind and body will only get
portions of the information needed to
develop the proper habits, or muscle
memory.
Exaggerate the motion or mental
154 MODEL AVIATION
CONTROL LINE AEROBATICS
Curt Contrata, 6783 Nightwind Cir., Orlando FL 32818; E-mail: [email protected]
Allen Brickhaus, who was the event director for Beginner Stunt at the 2003 Nationals, is
seen here enjoying a well-deserved break.
Gerry Phelps (right) wipes the bottom of
his beautifully detailed Patriot as Todd
Lee holds on.
Allen Goff with his pretty two-tone green
Lark. With it, Allen finished fifth in Classic
at the 2003 Nationals.
process you are trying to achieve by
thinking yourself through it in slow motion.
I have found it helpful to remind myself by
speaking out loud while flying, saying
“Think round” and reciting the word
“Easy” on every corner I make on a cool
morning.
The problem component is often body
position and where the model is told to go
in relation to the body. I find it helpful to
pretend I am flying while standing in a
place where there are spherical references.
Screened enclosures work great for this, as
do rooms with drop ceilings. Position
yourself so that there is a reference where
you need it for what you need to practice.
I close my eyes and fly the entire
pattern from habit, and then I open my eyes
and see where my hand, feet, and shoulders
are in relation to where I feel the model
should be flying.
For some time I have had a heck of a
time with my Reverse Wingover track.
With muscle memory I was able to recreate
what I was doing at the field and
learned what I had been doing wrong for
quite awhile.
With my wife’s help I practiced in the
kitchen and found that what I thought to be
proper form was not. Over and over I
executed the same footwork that caused the
wrong flight path. It was repeatable and
predictable.
Then I concentrated in slow motion, and
then I exaggerated good form, aligning
myself with a seam in the floor, overhead
lighting tiles, and two vertical references
on opposite sides of the room. For days I
practiced, and that weekend my Wingover
finally had a straight track.
Break down into steps the particular
action you are learning, and exaggerate
each step slowly and individually. This
forces the mind and body to focus more
fully on what is being done and helps build
muscle memory more quickly.
This does not mean that my old bad
habit is gone for good. Remember the third
part of what is required for developing
habits: repeat. Now I have to go back and
continue those exact motions until they are
habit and I no longer have to focus on the
details. Until then, I must concentrate on
correct form.
When you are learning a new technique,
it will take some time for it to sink in and
become automatic. Don’t make the mistake
of thinking that once you correct a problem
on one flight, it is forever corrected; you
must continue to practice good form and
concentrate. When you relax, or you start
thinking about how good your model looks
in the air, your old bad habits will resurface
and you will find yourself practicing the
bad habit.
Your practice routine should be
complete, and you should do everything the
same, every time. This includes how and
when you run out and wipe your lines, how
you fuel the model, and even the way you
set your handle down and arrange your
safety thong. Do all of these things the
April 2004 155
same way each time.
You are practicing your entire routine,
and each step is a part of your program. If
you do as I suggest, you will not wonder if
you ran out your lines or if you fueled your
tank. Before each official flight Randy
Smith tells us to “Go out there and fly your
program.” That means to go out and do
exactly what you have practiced.
It has been written many times that you
should perform each practice flight as if you
were flying for a national championship.
There are several reasons for this, but the
most important is that it will put you in the
proper mind-set when you are in that
situation, flying for a group of judges.
Nothing should change in your program,
whether it is practice or competition.
“Ignore the judges and fly your
program.” This is not difficult if you have
been practicing total concentration on every
flight all year. A winner has to deal with
pressure; you have to train yourself to deal
with it. If you pay attention to these
guidelines, you’ll get more out of your
practice sessions and will improve faster.
Desire, hard work, and talent are
required to succeed in this event. Desire can
work wonders, but it can let you down if it’s
not backed up by hard work. Talent is
something great to have; however, you will
156 MODEL AVIATION
be inconsistent without hard work. Without
desire, there is no will to work hard. Hard
work is time consuming, but it is the only
way to build muscle memory and,
therefore, consistency.
Then there is the phenomenon of
“trying too hard.” This is when
performance falls off because of the
desperate need to succeed. When this
happens, recognize it, calm down, and be
confident. Fly your program.
Earlier in the column I mentioned
videotapes and their usefulness in
revealing bad habits. Bill Rich has done
this for years, and a major part of his
success is attributed to including
videotapes as part of his program. I thought
I understood the whole principle until he
gave me a few helpful hints, including
using dry-erase markers on the television
screen to denote intersections and sizes.
The main position for the camera seems
obvious: from the judges’ point of view.
From that position the video will show you
shapes, angles, intersections, tracking, and
whether sizes are consistent. It sometimes
helps to play it back at different speeds to
see different things, with faster often being
better for seeing shapes.
Other shots can include one from the
side at a 90° angle from the judges. From
this position your lines will clearly show
45° and 90° of elevation. This angle is also
a great way to look at the Overhead Figure
Eights. If they are not flown over your
head, or if they are skewed at all, it really
shows up from this angle.
The camera can also be framed to see
only the model, as a trimming aid. Position
the camera from the side as in the previous
paragraph, but this time place it in line with
the downwind side of the circle. From this
position you can view the model through
level flight and through maneuvers,
revealing wings that are unlevel and a
dropping outboard tip in hard corners.
Other useful training tools are setting
out orange cones for sizes and PVC
(polyvinyl chloride) pipe markers for
heights. Set the cones at 45° intervals
around the circle, with one directly upwind
and one directly downwind. They are great
for getting a feel for the correct sizes, with
45° being much smaller horizontally than
you might think. Now place a few 8-foottall
pieces of white PVC pipe with 24-inch
bright-orange marks indicating level flight,
and you are all set to do some serious
practicing. MA
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/04
Page Numbers: 154,155,156
“WE ARE WHAT we repeatedly do.
Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.”
—Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
The purpose of practicing is to create
good habits on the mental and physical
level. These habits will help establish
consistency, which is the Holy Grail among
top fliers. So if you want to improve your
flying, you will have to practice.
Why you practice is every bit as
important as how and what you practice.
Do you remember when you were learning
to fly or, better yet, drive? There were so
many things to remember, but now it is all
habit. While driving, we confidently turn
corners while eating a burger and
answering a ringing cell phone. Driving a
car is now such a refined habit that some
find themselves automatically turning the
usual weekday direction on a Saturday
morning.
Imagine if flying well was that
automatic, leaving you free to concentrate
on what was different that day or during
that particular flight. It would allow your
muscle memory, established during
practice, to take care of all the major details
for you. Much as with repetitive sports
such as bowling, archery, or golf, muscle
memory is required to be consistent.
The start of a contest season and when
breaking in a new model are perfect
opportunities to review what we have been
consistently doing wrong: our bad habits.
We all have them and should be well aware
of them, either through videotapes of our
flights or our coaches’ nagging. These are
the things we should concentrate on during
practice and spend less time excited about
the parts that look so good.
How do we practice to create good
habits? There are three things a person
needs to do to develop a habit quickly:
concentrate, exaggerate, and repeat.
To have a productive, focused practice
session, total concentration is the key. This
means that one needs to decide what he or
she is working on and identify the
individual parts of that particular skill. One
must learn to focus on that single detail
without thinking of anything else. This is
easier said than done and can be quite
difficult at first.
Before each flight, take a moment to
review what you need to do during that
flight. While flying, prepare for each
maneuver during the two level laps
preceding it by concentrating on the
specific problem you are trying to correct.
This will not only prepare you for what you
need to do, but it will force you to forget
about what is in the past and cannot be
changed.
Realize that your mind can only fully
focus on one thing at a time and only a few
points each flight. If you try to practice
everything at once, you will have a much
more difficult time and will not progress as
quickly. The mind and body will only get
portions of the information needed to
develop the proper habits, or muscle
memory.
Exaggerate the motion or mental
154 MODEL AVIATION
CONTROL LINE AEROBATICS
Curt Contrata, 6783 Nightwind Cir., Orlando FL 32818; E-mail: [email protected]
Allen Brickhaus, who was the event director for Beginner Stunt at the 2003 Nationals, is
seen here enjoying a well-deserved break.
Gerry Phelps (right) wipes the bottom of
his beautifully detailed Patriot as Todd
Lee holds on.
Allen Goff with his pretty two-tone green
Lark. With it, Allen finished fifth in Classic
at the 2003 Nationals.
process you are trying to achieve by
thinking yourself through it in slow motion.
I have found it helpful to remind myself by
speaking out loud while flying, saying
“Think round” and reciting the word
“Easy” on every corner I make on a cool
morning.
The problem component is often body
position and where the model is told to go
in relation to the body. I find it helpful to
pretend I am flying while standing in a
place where there are spherical references.
Screened enclosures work great for this, as
do rooms with drop ceilings. Position
yourself so that there is a reference where
you need it for what you need to practice.
I close my eyes and fly the entire
pattern from habit, and then I open my eyes
and see where my hand, feet, and shoulders
are in relation to where I feel the model
should be flying.
For some time I have had a heck of a
time with my Reverse Wingover track.
With muscle memory I was able to recreate
what I was doing at the field and
learned what I had been doing wrong for
quite awhile.
With my wife’s help I practiced in the
kitchen and found that what I thought to be
proper form was not. Over and over I
executed the same footwork that caused the
wrong flight path. It was repeatable and
predictable.
Then I concentrated in slow motion, and
then I exaggerated good form, aligning
myself with a seam in the floor, overhead
lighting tiles, and two vertical references
on opposite sides of the room. For days I
practiced, and that weekend my Wingover
finally had a straight track.
Break down into steps the particular
action you are learning, and exaggerate
each step slowly and individually. This
forces the mind and body to focus more
fully on what is being done and helps build
muscle memory more quickly.
This does not mean that my old bad
habit is gone for good. Remember the third
part of what is required for developing
habits: repeat. Now I have to go back and
continue those exact motions until they are
habit and I no longer have to focus on the
details. Until then, I must concentrate on
correct form.
When you are learning a new technique,
it will take some time for it to sink in and
become automatic. Don’t make the mistake
of thinking that once you correct a problem
on one flight, it is forever corrected; you
must continue to practice good form and
concentrate. When you relax, or you start
thinking about how good your model looks
in the air, your old bad habits will resurface
and you will find yourself practicing the
bad habit.
Your practice routine should be
complete, and you should do everything the
same, every time. This includes how and
when you run out and wipe your lines, how
you fuel the model, and even the way you
set your handle down and arrange your
safety thong. Do all of these things the
April 2004 155
same way each time.
You are practicing your entire routine,
and each step is a part of your program. If
you do as I suggest, you will not wonder if
you ran out your lines or if you fueled your
tank. Before each official flight Randy
Smith tells us to “Go out there and fly your
program.” That means to go out and do
exactly what you have practiced.
It has been written many times that you
should perform each practice flight as if you
were flying for a national championship.
There are several reasons for this, but the
most important is that it will put you in the
proper mind-set when you are in that
situation, flying for a group of judges.
Nothing should change in your program,
whether it is practice or competition.
“Ignore the judges and fly your
program.” This is not difficult if you have
been practicing total concentration on every
flight all year. A winner has to deal with
pressure; you have to train yourself to deal
with it. If you pay attention to these
guidelines, you’ll get more out of your
practice sessions and will improve faster.
Desire, hard work, and talent are
required to succeed in this event. Desire can
work wonders, but it can let you down if it’s
not backed up by hard work. Talent is
something great to have; however, you will
156 MODEL AVIATION
be inconsistent without hard work. Without
desire, there is no will to work hard. Hard
work is time consuming, but it is the only
way to build muscle memory and,
therefore, consistency.
Then there is the phenomenon of
“trying too hard.” This is when
performance falls off because of the
desperate need to succeed. When this
happens, recognize it, calm down, and be
confident. Fly your program.
Earlier in the column I mentioned
videotapes and their usefulness in
revealing bad habits. Bill Rich has done
this for years, and a major part of his
success is attributed to including
videotapes as part of his program. I thought
I understood the whole principle until he
gave me a few helpful hints, including
using dry-erase markers on the television
screen to denote intersections and sizes.
The main position for the camera seems
obvious: from the judges’ point of view.
From that position the video will show you
shapes, angles, intersections, tracking, and
whether sizes are consistent. It sometimes
helps to play it back at different speeds to
see different things, with faster often being
better for seeing shapes.
Other shots can include one from the
side at a 90° angle from the judges. From
this position your lines will clearly show
45° and 90° of elevation. This angle is also
a great way to look at the Overhead Figure
Eights. If they are not flown over your
head, or if they are skewed at all, it really
shows up from this angle.
The camera can also be framed to see
only the model, as a trimming aid. Position
the camera from the side as in the previous
paragraph, but this time place it in line with
the downwind side of the circle. From this
position you can view the model through
level flight and through maneuvers,
revealing wings that are unlevel and a
dropping outboard tip in hard corners.
Other useful training tools are setting
out orange cones for sizes and PVC
(polyvinyl chloride) pipe markers for
heights. Set the cones at 45° intervals
around the circle, with one directly upwind
and one directly downwind. They are great
for getting a feel for the correct sizes, with
45° being much smaller horizontally than
you might think. Now place a few 8-foottall
pieces of white PVC pipe with 24-inch
bright-orange marks indicating level flight,
and you are all set to do some serious
practicing. MA
