Jul 22, 2026 · 1 hr 22 min · 13 segments
Matt Stringer joins the Skybound RC Podcast to talk about his journey from flying foamies to competing in the Invitational class at the Tucson Aerobatic Shootout. Matt is an Extreme Flight team…
Matt StringerGuestJuanHostSo you've gone through the whole progression from beginner to, uh, now all the way to, um, invitational, uh, pretty much an, an elite pilot and you've not only done really good on IMAC precision robotics but also, um, have, have done a good job with, um, freestyle.
In your opinion, what separates a good robotic pilot from an elite robotic pilot?
Um, I, I don't think anybody can get to the level that us like professional pilots are at unless you want it.
Like first and foremost, you have to have the passion for it, um, like deeply, genuinely.
You can't just go like, "Ah, I wanna go out and get sponsored." It doesn't work like that.
It was just me being there, doing what I liked, being a fan of the product and just showing up to events and showing that I'm a face and being there.
Um, 'cause if you're not having fun, you're, you're probably not gonna be successful.
Uh, second, deep understanding of your setup, like trimming your plane out properly, knowing your stylistic things.
Now there, there's kind of a difference between the two of trimming out the airplane and taking advantage of your computer radios to mix out all the things that the plane's doing poorly, making sure that you know your mechanical setup, uh, is good, your CG, but also having like preferences and knowing how to find that little last half of a percent in the plane setup.
Uh, and then thirdly, understanding aerodynamics in like a, a general principle, um, and flight dynamics.
You know, you see us do all these crazy types of maneuvers now, um, and yeah, you could do that by just stick banging and experimenting and like crashing planes maybe, but really if you have a deep understanding of like what is this plane gonna do when I throw it into a deep saturated stall condition and how am I gonna come out of this? You know, is there gonna be throttle blips or like little quick inputs to like nudge the plane and try and reattach the airflow to something? So there, there's like a multifaceted aspect to, you know, doing that.
In my opinion, as somebody who used to be like very involved with like the knife edge forums for like RealFlight as a community 'cause I, I like to create planes and do color schemes obviously, um, that was like the main purpose I used RealFlight for.
But I could never feel like doing something in RealFlight, like even practicing a freestyle or IMAC routine ever actually translated back into the real thing because there's just some physics things that happen in real life, wind conditions, bumpy air, crosswinds, that, that visual parallax that you have in reality.
Um, there's things that you can't replicate with that so I, I would say just go out to the field and burn some fuel.
fuel.You mentioned, um, trying to gain a deep understanding of kind of the physics, the aerodynamics.
So you've gone through the whole progression from beginner to, uh, now all the way to, um, invitational, uh, pretty much an, an elite pilot and you've not only done really good on IMAC precision robotics but also, um, have, have done a good job with, um, freestyle.
In your opinion, what separates a good robotic pilot from an elite robotic pilot?
Um, I, I don't think anybody can get to the level that us like professional pilots are at unless you want it.
Like first and foremost, you have to have the passion for it, um, like deeply, genuinely.
You can't just go like, "Ah, I wanna go out and get sponsored." It doesn't work like that.
It was just me being there, doing what I liked, being a fan of the product and just showing up to events and showing that I'm a face and being there.
Um, 'cause if you're not having fun, you're, you're probably not gonna be successful.
Uh, second, deep understanding of your setup, like trimming your plane out properly, knowing your stylistic things.
Now there, there's kind of a difference between the two of trimming out the airplane and taking advantage of your computer radios to mix out all the things that the plane's doing poorly, making sure that you know your mechanical setup, uh, is good, your CG, but also having like preferences and knowing how to find that little last half of a percent in the plane setup.
Uh, and then thirdly, understanding aerodynamics in like a, a general principle, um, and flight dynamics.
You know, you see us do all these crazy types of maneuvers now, um, and yeah, you could do that by just stick banging and experimenting and like crashing planes maybe, but really if you have a deep understanding of like what is this plane gonna do when I throw it into a deep saturated stall condition and how am I gonna come out of this? You know, is there gonna be throttle blips or like little quick inputs to like nudge the plane and try and reattach the airflow to something? So there, there's like a multifaceted aspect to, you know, doing that.
In my opinion, as somebody who used to be like very involved with like the knife edge forums for like RealFlight as a community 'cause I, I like to create planes and do color schemes obviously, um, that was like the main purpose I used RealFlight for.
But I could never feel like doing something in RealFlight, like even practicing a freestyle or IMAC routine ever actually translated back into the real thing because there's just some physics things that happen in real life, wind conditions, bumpy air, crosswinds, that, that visual parallax that you have in reality.
Um, there's things that you can't replicate with that so I, I would say just go out to the field and burn some fuel.
fuel.You mentioned, um, trying to gain a deep understanding of kind of the physics, the aerodynamics.
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