From the Mid Atlantic Radio Kontrol Society, Snow Hill, Maryland
Learning to 3-D and 3-D Well; Hovering and
Torque Rolling
by Jeremy Chinn
Part 4 of 5
In the past installments,
you got the appropriate virtual and real airplanes
to fly, as well as practiced methods to help speed
your learning. During that time you also built two
of the fundamental building blocks necessary to
learning 3-D aerobatics—the Harrier and High Alpha
Knife Edge.
It is now time to put those skills together to learn
an advance level 3-D skill—the Hover. Why is the
Hover an “advanced” level 3-D skill, and why did you
learn to Harrier and fly Knife Edge first?
When hovering or flying a torque roll, you must use
the tail of the airplane to control the model and
keep it in a state of balance or equilibrium while
hanging from the propeller disk. To do so, you must
be very competent with the rudder and elevator to
steer, or correct, the airplane. Learning to fly the
Harrier and the High Alpha Knife Edge teach those
skills rapidly and effectively.
The other reason is based on safety and airframe
longevity. When an airplane falls out of a Hover or
Torque Roll, it always passes through an attitude
similar to a Harrier or a High Alpha Knife Edge.
Since that attitude also generally requires slower
movement to maintain altitude, it is generally best
to “catch” the airplane as it falls out of a Hover
or Torque Roll when it reaches Harrier or
High-Alpha-Knife-Edge.
Once again this maneuver is much easier to learn on
a simulator first using the “reduced time” method
and then transfer the skills to real life.
The optimum conditions to learn to Hover start on a
day with a mild constant breeze. Start with the
airplane in a low (one to two feet off the ground)
upright Harrier flying into the wind. I like a
distance of about 40 feet away from myself for this
exercise. Chose a spot over the field and gradually
increase the throttle while initially increasing the
elevator back pressure at the same time until the
airplane is totally supported by the propeller disk.
Inevitably, the airplane will begin to wander or
lean left, right, or another direction.
Once the airplane gets out of Hover position, you
have two choices to exit the maneuver:
1. Go to full throttle and climb up and out
of the Hover. This is most pilots’ gut reaction and
is fairly effective; however, if the airplane is
totally out of shape, or in an orientation the pilot
is not comfortable with, going to full throttle in
that position can be scary or even downright
dangerous.
2. The better alternative to the full
throttle exit is to allow the airplane’s nose to
fall until the airplane is either upright or
inverted on the wing. The pilot can then fly out of
the maneuver easily in either an upright or inverted
Harrier, which was mastered earlier. Exiting in this
manner is generally safe and also allows the pilot
to get back into Hover position more quickly.
Some things to avoid for the person learning to
Hover:
• Many people try to enter a Hover by flying in at
high speed and pop the nose up rapidly to enter the
Hover. Unfortunately, in this case, the airplane has
a large amount of energy to bleed off before it can
hit the “sweet spot” and initiate the Hover.
• Don’t waste time trying to learn to Hover two,
three, or even four mistakes high. When at that
altitude, there is no way you can see the airplane
well enough to make the right corrections and keep
in the Hover.
Continue this exercise until you can enter a Hover
at will and enter and exit the Hover safely and
fully under control. For extra practice, try
entering a Hover from a High Alpha Knife Edge or
Inverted Harrier.
Q
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