Orientation Awareness By James Goss      I know this must sound like orientation 101 when you first started college any you will probably go to sleep at the beginning of class, but it has nothing to do with college and everything to do with R/C flying. I have often wondered what would be a good way to improve one's flying ability. Of course practice flying in the discipline you have chosen, be it fun fly, pattern flying, military scale planes, combat, pylon racing, or whatever, will allow you to become proficient in that area. Once we reach the point of being as adept as you are going to become, what do we do then? More practice may not be the answer in all cases, even though they say, “Practice makes perfect”. Sometimes practice makes boredom and boredom makes you want to get out of the hobby. I know because this has happened to me in years past and I have known numerous flyers that has gone through this same scenario, practice for three or four years, get bored and quit the hobby. When you begin to see no improvement in your skills it is time to make a change. Now don't get me wrong, you will still need to practice your chosen and most liked R/C event, but you may need to change your style of flying also.      We are lucky because in the R/C hobby there are numerous ways to make the change. Simply try flying other types of planes from time to time and some that will challenge you in a different way. The reason I am so sure this method will improve your flying skills is because I have seen it work and it has worked for me as well. We all know that keeping up with the orientation of your plane is the biggest problem we face when flying our planes. Sometimes you may see the plane turning left when actually it is turning to the right. You give it the wrong input and you are really in trouble now, with luck you get it back under control. The more distant you are from the plane the more likely this is to happen. I have found that contrary to what you might think, we should practice getting our planes into these troubled situations so when we accidentally get our plane in a disorientated maneuver we will know instantly what to do for a rapid recovery. I call this orientation awareness and I really believe it will help you become a better R/C pilot no matter how long you have been flying and no matter what type flying you participate in.      For orientation awareness to be a successful venture for you I would recommend that you do not use your favorite planes, but instead pick you up a cheap fun fly plane. You are going to be flying very close to the field and very close to the ground so you can see your plane from a vantage viewpoint. This is the key to always knowing the orientation of your plane. With this cheap little plane you can purposely stall it at a low altitude and let if fall out on its own. Not knowing how the plane will react will give you a surprise every time and you have to make a quick decision for the correct inputs. If flying inverted gives you trouble then this will cure that in a hurry. With these planes you can do inverted flat spins or inverted tail touching, either will cure the fear of flying inverted. If you crash you haven't lost that much and just get another fun fly and start over. With these planes you can throw the sticks to the corners and if you are going to get disoriented this will do it, what will they do next? I don't know, but when you are 30 feet above the ground you have got to figure it out in a hurry. This is where orientation awareness comes to play, you will learn how to recover from these weird positions that your plane encounter and not even realize you have been to college.      I think I have learned more in the last year about orientation recovery than in my entire R/C career combined. As most of you know I have developed a small fun fly plane called the “Postage Stamp” and have been having a lot of fun with it. I fly it very close to the ground and that requires a fast response at times. This is the best fun fly plane I have ever flown and I have flown quite a few. It is ideal for orientation awareness training and I would recommend it to all pilots regardless of what they primarily fly. It will give you quick reflexes and more confidence in your flying than any other plane could possibly achieve. So why don't you give it a try and see for yourself how orientation training can pay off for you. It is not going to teach you beautiful pattern maneuvers, but I can guarantee it will improve your recovery time when you are in trouble.