well i'll give it a shot...

step one- as you approach the wall you don't have to slow down. (faster in = faster out) also, i think a tendency is to be too close to the wall. i find that when i feel a little too far i get the best results. when you are too close its harder to time everything because you are in a big ball.

step two- drop your head STRAIGHT DOWN in a summersault. practice this in the middle of the pool to get a feel for where your feet are when you are on your back in the middle of said summersault.

step three- your feet should hit the wall or pass a few inches from it while you are moving your hands out above your head, away from the wall. put your feet on the wall around even with your head. (if you want to angle down off the wall (think olympic swimmers) it might help to have them a little higher, if you aren't swimming like a fish, the main goal is just to get around and out.)

step four- if you have done everything right to here, you should be on your back with your feet on the wall. if you haven't, you are rotated left or right (practice the summersault) or are searching for the wall with your feet and need to work on timing the flip. i usually have started rotating a little bit onto my stomach, but this isn't a good thing.

step five- push off the wall, dolphin kick 20 yards out like phelps, or just flutter kick a few times off the wall and swim away!

hope this helps, anyone can and should critique this if you have an easier way!

on the somersault:
tuck your chin to start it
keep the somersault tight
and "unroll the rug"
[I like to picture the somersault as unrolling a rug because you don't spin all the way around in a tuck. the legs come over your head and reach for the wall. the last part of the rug unrolling is the push off the wall.]

Check out this video. Hope it helps!
http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/cms/article-detail.asp?articleid=1388

Actually I disagree with you here Anton -- I don't think that skipping the push off makes you a better tri swimmer. I think the push-off is needed to get you streamlined and able to really work the stroke you will be using in a tri. In a tri you won't be stopping and restarting ever 25 yards, so the only great way to simulate it is open water swimming.

Personally, I do flip turns. I feel that learning them has made my feel for the water better, and has made me more comfortable in the water. And those things have helped my tri swimming. They let me stay more in my swimming rhythm than open turns were (although open turns done really well did let me keep the rhythm as well).

i do them because they make swimming harder. there is no way to simulate open water swimming in a pool, but i do feel more out of breath after doing a flip turn than an open turn, and if i don't breath before my last stroke into the wall it makes a huge difference. it's not quite having someone swim over you, but it forces you to be comfortable out of breath and swimming.

I am an ex-competitive swimmer, and here is my take.

How far you are away from the wall when you start kinda depends on your speed. Ideally you don't really want to bunch up in a ball when you make your turn. You want your legs to flip over, and compress against the wall with the forward momentum, and then you push off with that built-up potential energy. If you are all bunched up in a ball then when you extend your legs out, you probably aren't against the wall and you are just hitting the wall with your feet, which makes it a lot less fluid and you lose all of your momentum.

The way I would recommend it for beginners is to go into the turn doing the crawl, take your last stroke and both of your arms should be by your side. As you put your head down you throw your arms up above your head (NOT TO THE SIDE!), point them hand over hand as if you were diving in and allow your forward momentum to take you forward. I would recommend doing this away from the wall at first, just practicing the technique of flipping and throwing your arms up, while keeping your legs only slighly bent (maybe 30 degrees). It should be fluid and it should be fast. Once you are confident in this part, I would take it closer to the wall, but don't really try to make sure your feet hit the wall (I speak from experience, you don't want your heels to hit the top of the wall)... just see if you can get your momentum to take you into the wall and then push off. You should be upside down during these practice runs. Once you have a good idea of how far out you need to be to flip then I would proceed and try to get the timing and distance right.

3 feet is a rather shallow pool... if you throw your arms up at a bad time you could get some skin jerky on your knuckles.

So true. My arms look like a windmill when I'm doing one.