hang glider

[SmAsH]

how is a simulator going to help much? unless its an rc simulator of coarse...
jumbos weigh 1000x what your tiny aircraft will... i think yours may experience a little more turbulence

[wil.hamilton]

aerodynamics don't always scale.  there are lots of RC aircraft designs that wouldn't be workable for a larger aircraft and vica versa.  Having experience flying real aircraft doesn't mean much when you try to scale it down.  My dad for example was a pilot for years (small single engine planes) and he can't fly an RC aircraft.

[jamort]

your wrong... you need a different certification to fly jumbos.... the average pilot spends 2000 hours flying ultralight aircraft before making a transformation to jets. Jumbos are a lot harder to fly becase the bigger they get the longer the delayed reaction becomes though they do have more stable flight... I've heard a hard thing can be getting off the groundin a glider and staying behind the tow and not breaking the tow cable

[Joker94]

of course i know you need a different qualification to fly a jumbo. But the majority of the learning happens in a class room not in a simulator

[wil.hamilton]

while most of the learning may appear to happen in a classroom nothing beats experience.

[Soeren]

Hi,

I'm 98% certain I saw a remote controlled hang glider before, you could look at how they did it (or even buy it and modify it).

Perhaps this: http://www.rokemodell.de/x-int/gb/products/gr/gr4433gb.htm?

I vaquely recall another one (from Graupner as well), but it was years, if not decades back in time.

MangoBot <- driving an R/C-car is definitely extremely different from driving a real car (I don't think anyone will disagree on that), so a Jumbo Jet pilot might not even be able to get an R/C-plane off the ground (or land it) without some training.

[Razor Concepts]

http://www.blac.net/

Hanglider with standard rudder/elevator controls

[wil.hamilton]

either one of those should be easy enough to modify.  no doubt they use servos for control which means it would be very simple to interface a controller to.  you could start w/ just having the controller try to fly it straight and have some sort of kill switch to "force" a landing (make it fall out of the sky).  or even, at first leave throttle control up to you (leave it connected via rc) and have the robot steer. that seems like it would be a good way to go about it

[parallax]

Hate to admit it but I've crashed an R/C plane or two in my time 

Flying one is without a doubt not easy to master. The controls can be finicky. Not to mention the factors that are out of your control entirely: The smallest gust of wind can ruin your day with these light models, especially if there is a body of water nearby... *ahem* Not saying I did that 

Seriously, you can pick up some really cheap ones at Radioshack to play around with and you won't feel it in your wallet when you crash it the first time. I've never heard of an enthusiast who doesn't have at least one nasty crash story.

Doing so will give you a greater feel for what you're up against, especially when trying to consider scenarios like the gust of wind I spoke of earlier. Think of it like this: It's like taking your drivers test for your license- much easier to do if you've actually driven before and not just read about it or played Grand Turismo a few times.