* When you learn to fly a radio-control model aircraft, what you're really doing is adding a new and unusual neuromuscular skill to your inventory. Your nervous system will be learning a new way of coordinating your muscular responses. Most pilots who fly both full size aircraft and models agree: flying a model is harder than flying a full size aircraft. One of the notable differences is the speed at which everything happens. With the models, you don't get time to rest and you don't get time to think things through. No sooner are you turning your model back towards you than its flown overhead and down to the other end of the airfield and you're turning it back again. At first, it's difficult to adjust your responses to the aircraft's speed. You end up reacting to its antics instead of taking pro-active control of its flight path. Prepare yourself for this experience.

One way to help prepare yourself, if you have access to a computer, is to use a model aircraft flight simulator. In some respects it will allow you to start training or reprogramming some of the neuromuscular coordination skills you're going to need. If you choose to go down this path, understand that it can only take you some of the way. There is no pause button in real life.

* When you first arrive on our airfield, you'll notice that all our pilots are wearing hats and sunglasses. They're not trying to look fashionable. They're in basic survival mode. In the middle of Summer it may just be possible to fly without a hat but you end up with a cooked brain. Light, loose clothing helps. Loose, but not dangly; it's too easy for dangly things to get caught up in a spinning propeller.