Flyin' the rudder

[ifixairplanes]

Hey all.
So, one of my personal goals this summer is to master the rudder.
I stayed up last night till 1:00 on AFPD practicing a 1 roll loop. Today with my WH baby edge I was able to do them, but they weren't so pretty. I have been getting down the slow roll pretty good too. But I'd say about 60% of the time they are OK, the first half of the roll looks good, after that it goes to crap.
Does anyone have any practice suggestions or routines they use to help get the rudder side of your brain in gear?
I've been getting it down, but it's coming slowly, and I still need work.
Help me?

[DOORGUY1]

KNIFE EDGE SNAPS!!! NEXT STEP, WINGS LEVEL -- 1 1/4 SNAP TO KNIFE EDGE.

[fredo]

I'm somewhere where you are with this. What I've been doing, and it seems to help me a lot, is to do knife edge passes facing belly from both sides. Most of us roll the plane so you see the canopy. I think it's natural but if you can force yourself and start practicing facing belly it will improve the smoothness of the whole maneuver. That will also teach you the orientation plus knowing the position of your thumbs. When you become comfortable with it your point rolls or slow rolls will become much nicer looking. When it comes to perfecting it, there's no other way of saying it..... just keep practising.

[notorious_benny]

First flight of the day I do a few passes.

Straight and level, inverted, then warm up to some slow rolls, point rolls 4 and 8, in both directions, knife edge passes belly in and out. Then try your point rolls starting from inverted to inverted to spice it up a little.

If all that gets boring try one roll rolling circles inwards and outwards!

[bodywerks]

I fly the nose or the tail depending on the direction of the plane so that whenever I give a rudder input, the part that I am "flying" moves in the direction of my stick movement. For example, when I am torquerolling, I fly the nose when the canopy is facing me and the tail when the belly is facing me. So, when the belly is facing me and I am looking at the tail drift oft to the right, I know that left rudder input will swing the tail back to the left. When the canopy is facing me and the nose drifts left, I know that right rudder will bring it to the right. This works for all flight attitudes and directions - you just have to practice looking at the correct part of the plane.
After a while, however, it just starts coming more naturally. I would say that it has helped me, and I am about 85-90% in full control of my rudder now.

[Temptation]

The best advice I can give you, is to trust your flying ability. One of the most common things that I see when pilots are trying to do any type of rolling maneauver is they don't trust themselves, or maybe the plane. You will notice that a pilot will just nail the roll, until that pilot gets out of his/her comfort zone. Now, that could be once the plane flys past you, or is on the last 1/2 or 1/4 portion of a rolling loop or circle. Honestley, I think that is a major part of learning any type of rolling maneauver. I beleive most of the pilots can fly the maneauver, but bail out due to lack of trust in one's ability. The proof is when you can do it on the simulator, but bail out before the maneauver is completed when flying the real model. It really comes down to muscle memory, and practice. As we all know, we can do things on the simulator that we can't, or fear doing with the real model. I believe that all comes down to the simple fact that the simultor has a reset button, so when we dumb thumb it we can have a brand new model sitting on the runway at the push of a button. i.e. Pucker Factor .

Mike Darr

	Quote: Originally Posted by ifixairplanes
	Hey all. So, one of my personal goals this summer is to master the rudder. I stayed up last night till 1:00 on AFPD practicing a 1 roll loop. Today with my WH baby edge I was able to do them, but they weren't so pretty. I have been getting down the slow roll pretty good too. But I'd say about 60% of the time they are OK, the first half of the roll looks good, after that it goes to crap. Does anyone have any practice suggestions or routines they use to help get the rudder side of your brain in gear? I've been getting it down, but it's coming slowly, and I still need work. Help me?