Flying Techniques
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Pilot’s notes
Continuing our voyage of discovery into the art of aerobatics we’ll take a look at the slow roll this time around, and in relation to this, the side-effects that your model may display through active use of the rudder. These side effects make such manoeuvres more difficult to perfect, so we’ll briefly investigate why this…
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Flying from water?
Treat water like concrete and you'll not go far wrong. Although I’ve been model flying now for over twenty years, it’s only recently that I’ve realised my long-term ambition of flying off water. It’s a desire I’ve harboured ever since building my first trainer and one that probably stems from my earlier interest in model…
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Want a slope arsenal?
The stable light air machine and the only foamie worth considering is Dreamflight's Alula. In a total affront to common sense, I find myself surrounded by Ordnance Survey maps and surfing Google Earth in the initial planning stages of my next road trip. The missus and kids will soon be escorting granny to sunnier climes…
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Flap Happy?
Talk about flaps in R/C aeromodelling circles and there’ll no doubt be a fair amount of puzzlement and head scratching as to their true function and application. There’s no doubt that flaps are becoming more common in the modelling sphere with the pushing of ARTF boundaries to include scale warbirds, bombers and jets. Model turbines…
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Want to fly 3D?
3D flying has come a long way since Paul Heckles took his WOT4 to the limit with countless '3D' machines now available. Many years ago I was shopping for bits in Steve Webb Models of Frodsham when the man himself collared me and, somewhat excitedly, whispered in my ear: Come 'ere mate, and 'ave a…
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Pilot’s notes
We recently looked at setting up a model and introduced the (relatively simple) positive spin into our aerobatic repertoire. There are quite a few types of spin, some harder than others – the inverted, or negative spin, is our focus this time, but first we’ll further explore the crucial area of model set-up. We’ve talked…
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Pilot’s notes
For a number of years at the Sandown show we heard fellow pilots and spectators shout out “Blender!” to Christophe Paysant-Le Roux (perhaps one of the greatest 3D aerobatic pilots of all time) during his demo flights with the likes of the ZN-Line Majestic. The blender is a truly dramatic manoeuvre, especially when performed by…
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Pilot’s notes
A few weeks ago we looked at the roll, and added the refining complexities of using all the controls smoothly to perfect the manoeuvre and achieve consecutive roll executions. Now we’re going to tackle the hesitation roll, where the need to use the ‘full house’ of controls becomes mandatory and not optional. We’re going to…
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What Goes Up – Pt.1
If you found my lift article 'What Goes Up' in the December 2010 issue of RCM&E interesting then here are a few videos you might enjoy. They demonstrate various things to do with the Bernoulli effect which we discussed and many of which you could try yourself at home. Watching them will, I hope, help build a firmer…
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Pilot’s notes
Knife-edge flight is that condition where the model is flying on its side, using one side of the fuselage as a wing; elevator becomes rudder and rudder becomes elevator… confused? Fear not, all will soon become clear. To begin with, however, let’s take a look at the side effects of rudder input as this…
