Remote control airplanes aren’t something you just jump into. If you do, you’ll just smash your plane on the first flight and feel discouraged. Don’t worry–just follow these steps and you’ll be flying in 10 days:

1. Day 1: Get started with a simulator.
2. Day 2: Find a location.
3. Day 3: Check out the forums.
4. Day 4: Become consistent with the simulator.
5. Day 5: Buy your airplane.
6. Day 6: More simulator practice.
7. Day 7: Assemble your plane.
8. Day 8: Fly your remote control plane.
9. Day 9: Repair your plane.
10. Day 10: Fly your plane (and land it this time!).

Sure, that seems like a lot of work just to have fun–but it’s worth it.

Start practicing with FMS (Flying Model Simulator), the free RC (remote control) airplane simulator. Yeah, it’s a little wierd that you need to use a simulator to practice a hobby, but flying with FMS will teach you how to orient the plane (hint: it’s backwards when it’s flying towards how), how to be gentle on the controls (pulse the controls instead of holding them down), and how to land (cut the throttle almost all the way back, and tip the nose up just before you touch down).

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Scope out where you’re going to fly. Local parks are a good place to start–you’ll need a field that’s at least as big as a soccer field or a couple of baseball diamonds. Bigger is MUCH better, especially as a beginner. If it’s a little far away, that’s okay, because you’ll probably discover closer places as you get more into the hobby. If you don’t immediately think of a place, stop by your local hobby shop and ask for good places to fly. If it’s Winter and you live someplace where lakes freeze and are safe to walk on, frozen lakes are a good place to learn. You can use Microsoft Virtual Earth to scope out locations–just input your address, and zoom and pan around. Take a drive to the location to check it out. Trees are your enemy, because they eat airplanes. People are also bad, because they’ll distract you, and you might fly into them, so try and pick a private place. Don’t forget to spend some time with FMS.

RC aircraft folks are some of the friendliest you’re likely to find on the Web. They’re smashing planes every day, and you can learn from their mistakes. There are three main forums for beginners:

• WattFlyer. My favorite forum. There are lots of forums at this site for different types of flying and skill levels. For now, just stick with the beginner forum.
• RCGroups.com. Another good beginner forum.
• RCUniverse.com. Yet another forum, if you just can’t get enough of this.

You won’t understand most of what people are saying at first. In a couple of weeks, though, most of it will make sense.

Today, when you practice FMS, focus on being consistent. Apply full throttle until the airplane moves forward for three seconds. Then, pull back slowly. Fly forward until you can barely see the plane, and take a gradual turn left 180 degrees, until the plane is facing you. Level the plane out, and fly back to the runway. As you approach, decrease throttle and glide in. Pull back just before your wheels touch, and let the plane stop. Then, press “I” to restart with the plane, and do the same thing over until you can do it consistently.

If you have a local hobby shop, ask the geek behind the counter what plane he would recommend for the location you chose to fly. If you don’t have a hobby shop nearby, order a plane online. There are hundreds of planes to choose from. To make life easy, I’ll give you two choices:

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Now that you’ve chosen your airplane, install your specific model in FMS. The Slow Stick can be found here (mute your computer before opening that link)–it’s the red plane near the bottom of the page. The EasyStar FMS model can be found here, which is a link off of this page with some barely-safe-for-work pictures of the plane. Unzip the file, and save the contents to your C:\Program Files\FMS\Models\ folder. You can pick the new plane from the Model menu in FMS.

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Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for assembling your plane. Connect the battery to a charger so it’ll be ready when you fly.

If the weather report shows winds of less than 3 mph, pack up your plane and go to your flying field. If you have a charger for your car, bring that along just in case your plane is still flyable by the time you burn through the first battery. Eh, that’s being too optimistic. Just bring some spare propellers and some packing tape so you can fix some simple repairs at the field. Don’t connect the battery to the plane yet.

Once you arrive, look at the treetops. If they’re moving from the wind, put your plane back and go home. Sure, you can fly today, but the wind is going to control your plane, not you. Better to go home disappointed then to leave your plane 50 feet up in a tree.

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If you have the EasyStar, use 5-minute epoxy to repair any damage to the fuselage. Just mix the two components together, smear a small amount on the plane with a popsicle stick or something, and then hold the plane together for five minutes while the epoxy hardens. Don’t use regular glue on the foam, because it won’t bond well, and it might melt the foam. If you crack or break the wing, use packing tape to repair it.

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Today, you’re going to do exactly what you did on day 8. Today, however, you’re going to land that plane without crashing it. If not, well, no big deal. Just repair it and try again on the next calm day. As you get better, you can try flying in a little more wind, but don’t go crazy. If there’s too much wind, you might not be able to fly the plane back to yourself. Worst case, it’ll get blown away where you can’t see it (like onto a roof, in a tall tree, or into someone’s yard) and it’ll be a total loss.

Now that you’ve learned to fly, you can try more advanced maneuvers, like loops. Many people do aerial photography by putting a light-weight video or still camera on their plane. And, of course, there are hundreds of other planes to choose from capable of flying much faster and doing much more advanced maneuvers.