Inverted Tail Drag

[Doug B]

Late summer '05, I'm flying my 30% Carden Extra. There's another guy at he field flying an overpowered Slow Poke, showing off for his girlfriend... and he's talking all sorts of trash. Really annoying!

After 30 minutes of listening to him talk trash about how good a flyer he is, I challenge him to fly a simple straight line down the runway (we've got black top) inverted, about four feet off the ground. He grumbles that it's too windy, and nobody at the field could do it.

I tell him that I'll do it with my Carden, if he does it with his Slow Poke.

He takes off, and flys around a bit, and flip's the 'poke inverted. I yell out to him, that's great, now try it at four feet - not 60 feet high! He grumbles and lands.

I fuel up, and take off with the Extra. I fly a lap or two to warm up the engine, and wait for two guys to land. Then, my first inverted pass, about half throttle, at 6 feet. I stay inverted and make several more passes, and yell back at him that the first pass was just a practise run. The second pass is at four feet. My third pass is about two feet. The fourth pass, I'm trying for one foot or less..... and the wind let's up for a split second, and I drag the tail fin along the blacktop for about 6 feet.

They guy's jaw about drops to the ground. Mine did too... but I didn't let him know that. I end up sanding about a eigth-inch by 5 inch long piece of balsa from the top of the fin. There were about twenty people at the field that day....

The trash talking guy packs up his stuff, and leaves with his girlfriend. THe best part - the whole rest of the summer, I hear people talking about me behind my back.... almost whispering...."That's the guy that dragged the tail of his giant scale extra down the runway".

The cool thing is that the plane HAD to be just a little nose high, as the prop tip is the same height as the vertical fin. I'm just amazed (and happy)I didn't catch a crack in the pavement and plant the plane.

[JeeUm]

Your lucky you were able to pull out. I did that one time and ended up landing inverted. No matter how much elevator I gave it it just would go up.

[hillmanr2]

sweet. I'm glad you put him in is place
I have a jack a$$ at my feild who talks the same way. Unfortunatly this guy also talks bad about everyone, and his best manouver is an uncorrected high rate arcing aileron roll.

[Ramz]

When did Carden quite producing the 30% Extra? I was thinking of getting one for my DA 50. Do you have any pictures of the top of the rudder? That would have been sweet to see it in person.

[Bunky F. Knuckle]

I've done that one too!!! I call them Fin-N-Go's!!!! Done them with 40 sized junk. I aint got the balls to drop a 35% in like that!!

Simply awesome feeling, isn't it???

Chris~

[3Dkid330]

LOL, that's awesome! Put them in their place, lol. Jim is right, when you are level and try to push out, the tail will just get pushed to the ground more, which probably dosent end well.

I had a similar experience, but it happened when I came out of a blender in an inverted harrier, engine overheated (went lean on a hot day) and the rudder hit, power came back and I was just able to push it over without flopping it on it's back. Scary when it happens isn't it?

Here's a freeze frame from the video.

[Boulder]

And no video???

I've done it once, on a grass runway, almost planted it. The second time was with my Goldberg 330 profile, that time I did plant it, well more like an inverted landing with speed, had to re-hinge the rudder

You got away with one, count your blessings...try it high alpha then you can pull out by adding power , but don't forget the video!

[WOODisGOOD]

I did this last week by accident. Was just trying to fly as low as I could inverted and dragged the rudder a few feet on the grass with my Wildhare Edge. My buddy got video of it so when he gets time to edit it I will post it here.

[ifixairplanes]

I believe the term for that is a "50 grit pass"

good job, gotta love the self proclaimed ace's.

[3DGE 540]

Lol That remindes me of this one time a guy with a Funtana 40 tried to see how low he could get inverted and ended up ripping out his vertical fin and landed it inverted :P

[RCFlyer55]

We were all messing around a few years ago egging each other on. After one of us got pants while flying I went up. I was flying a CG Extra with a .90 and a pipe and just fooling around. When the yelling for "lower" started. So I got lower and lower then a buddy yelled "inverted" so I made a few passes inverted. The lowest was around 6 feet, when I got dumb thumbs and pulled "up". I heard "oh ShI*" and there was balsa spread over a 25 foot area. I couldn't help but laugh. One guy asked what happened, I said "I F'ed up". Probably the most spectacular crash I have ever had. Hey but what are friends for? To push us to become better flayers(and crash). Luckily we only have friendly rivalry here. Although I think it would have been only fair you leave with his girlfriend

[yooki]

I did it with a 68" EF Yak in an inverted harrier awhile back while trying to impress Wayne