How To’s

One important but often overlooked aspect of flying precision aerobatics is setting up your aircraft—“trimming” it. This isn’t trimming in the general sense of adjusting flight controls to hold level flight, but rather the small adjustments you make to your airframe and radio setup to help your model fly as precisely as possible. While this may seem to be a bit of overkill for a new aerobatic pilot, I find that a nicely balanced and precisely set up model makes learning precision aerobatics much easier, and it really isn’t all that hard to accomplish. In this article, we’ll discuss the “why” of aerobatic trimming.

If you are anything like me, when you near the end of a new RC project, nothing seems more important than getting to the field for that first flight. I have been known to cut many corners late at night while looking forward to calm winds the next morning, and cosmetics are often high on the optional list. If that flight gets delayed though, adding some pinstripes is an easy way to dress up a new model a bit more and make those first flight photos even more special.

If there’s one maneuver that’s feared more than any other in the full-scale competition aerobatic world, it’s the rolling circle. I’ve actually been happy with scores of 4 out of 10 in competitions because that was better than the zero I expected! In my opinion, the rolling circle is the hardest precision aerobatic maneuver to fly consistently.

Even in today’s world of ARFs, modelers still enjoy creating their own aircraft. Many of these projects require a little creativity to enclose the powerplant. It may seem old-fashioned to build a cowl out of balsa, but there are several very compelling reasons to do so.

Opinions vary regarding the “best” transmitter handling techniques, but if you could compare them all based on the results obtained within a oneweek time period, you would quickly discover that certain techniques promote faster and better rates of learning than others. This article features the transmitter handling techniques that have proven during 1st U.S. RC Flight School’s four- and five-day primary solo and aerobatic courses to produce flying consistency and proficiency in the shortest amount of time.

“Scaling Out”? What is that? It offers a new category of RC model maybe, and certainly a super way to increase your modeling skills without taking the deep plunge into scarycomplex building from traditional kits or even plans. I’m not sure who invented the term, but “Scaling Out” has come to mean choosing an RC scale ARF (Almost-Readyto- Fly) airplane, stripping it down to bare balsa, modifying and adding details here and there to bring it closer to an accurate scale appearance, and then re-covering it, often with a more realistic painted finish in place of the original plastic film.

At one time, there were perhaps a half dozen or more procedures associated with building model aircraft that were considered difficult, unusual and sometimes downright intimidating. These included applying fiberglass cloth and resin to a wood structure, sheeting foam wing cores, building washout into wing panels, applying heatshrink covering material, and installing a set of retractable landing gear. Since we are knee-deep into the wonderful world of ARFs, most of those mysterious procedures will never have to be explained again. All except one, that is. And that one is the dreaded “Retract Gear Installation,” or RGI, as we like to call it.

Flying Styro Kits (FSK) makes a series of fantastic electric single-motor and multi-motor small scale warbird models. They’re highly prefabricated, but I do not consider them to be ARFs. I classify them as “limited-work flying model kits.” All the major and minor foam and plastic parts come painted, but it is not unusual to have to fit and trim many of the parts. I have reviewed many of these models in this magazine over the years, and they have all flown exceptionally well. My goal in this article is to show you how to rework the canopy to enhance the scale look of these exquisite models and/or make it a little easier for you to have a good-looking canopy.

One of the most challenging individual maneuvers to fly cleanly is the snap roll. It also happens to be one of the most misunderstood of the different aerobatic elements. Also known as a “flick” roll in European aerobatic circles, the snap roll shares more with the traditional spin than the conventional aileron roll. Snap and spin maneuvers share an autorotation about the roll and yaw axis caused by a stalled wing and a yaw input. Both aileron and snap rolls rotate the aircraft through 360 degrees, but that is where the similarities end. The important difference is that conventional rolls are primarily an aileron maneuver flown at a relatively low angle of attack, while snap rolls are a rudder/elevator maneuver at a very high angle of attack.

Setting up a new model involves many unique steps, each one with variations based on the individual project. One of the most common variations is when installing the servos. Some models are designed so no extension leads are necessary, while others may need several leads of different lengths. Your project may be delayed if your local hobby shop doesn’t have the right lengths in stock, and using leads that are longer than necessary adds unwanted clutter and weight to your model. Fortunately, there is another option: you can make your own custom extensions.

Like many modelers, I am always on the lookout for opportunities to add a little personal touch to help make a new project my own. Even with the latest ARF, there is usually a chance to finesse a little something here or there to satisfy this itch and exercise a little craftsmanship at the workbench. One of my favorite places to enhance a project is when mounting the cowl.

Most modellers have heard of or seen magazine ads for diesel conversion heads for our two-stroke glow engines. Although running model diesel engines hasn’t been extremely popular in North America, model diesel aircraft engines have been commonplace in the rest of the world, including Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and many European countries. Many model engine companies do not produce dedicated diesel engines, so it is popular to buy a conversion head which replaces the fixed compression glow head.

One of the hardest aerobatic maneuvers to fly is the straight line. I’m guessing you think I must be kidding, so I’ll ask that you go out and give it a try. Fly a perfectly straight line with no variations in altitude or heading from one end of the field to the other. Not so easy is it? Now fly that perfect line straight upwards while correcting for wind, and then throw a snap roll exactly in the middle of the line.