Originally Posted by Mithrandir

What he said!!! (Except you can believe me... "The Mith" lol)

During the period of time you are learning to hover/TR, tail heavy helps...
but once you get that mastered.. move the CG fwd until it is just an RCH Pitch Positive Stable...

I trim for level flight at 50% power, if I take it up to 1200 feet....(errrr... I mean 400 feet! )
and I pull power back to idle and push the nose straight down and let'r go... it will pull towards the canopy about 10 degrees over 1000 feet of dive... it is slightly positve pitch stable.... negative pitch stable woulda pushed to the gear...

I understand this is all about opinion, but why would you tell a newbie to make a plane tail heavy to learn and then move CG forward.? A TH plane is harder to control, therefore prolonging his learning curve and possibly aggrivating him to the point of crashing/quiting.

A fairly neutral CG is best to learn with and stay with. Learn to setup the plane properly, then learn the planes flight characteristics and practice ALOT. Fly a 45 degree upline and Roll your plane inverted, center your sticks and plane should SLIGHTLY fall to nose in a straight line. This is a proper neutral CG for ALL types of flying.

Every bit of this conversation is airplane dependent. No 2 different aircraft will be the same. I start at the manufacturer's recommendation and then adjust to suit how I like to fly. As I'm predominantly a precision guy, I tend the move the CG forward slightly.. but your mileage may vary.

Originally Posted by Colombo

I understand this is all about opinion, but why would you tell a newbie to make a plane tail heavy to learn and then move CG forward.? A TH plane is harder to control, therefore prolonging his learning curve and possibly aggrivating him to the point of crashing/quiting.

A fairly neutral CG is best to learn with and stay with. Learn to setup the plane properly, then learn the planes flight characteristics and practice ALOT. Fly a 45 degree upline and Roll your plane inverted, center your sticks and plane should SLIGHTLY fall to nose in a straight line. This is a proper neutral CG for ALL types of flying.

He is new to 3D no?

not a newb pilot...

for learning Hover/TR.. tail Heavy = Easier

I never suggested tail heavy to the point of unflyable....

of course I assume he is practicing with a 50cc+ plane that isn't a tippy rock... if he is learning with a tippy rock... it prolly doesn't matter....

I vote for neutral as well, which will usually be past the manufacturer's cg measurement.

Most of my planes are just a tad behind CG, maybe an 1 1/2". For me I use more throw and on the gas a little instead of idle. The plane will still drop even though your above idle and I have found that it helps to slow down the wing rock also. Dont move the CG back to far. But I'm still a novice at this stuff.

the question - how much tail heavy?
if it balloons on landing it is too tail heavy (thrust and trim issues aside)
Personlly i too favour tail heavy planes if your into 3D. if you are going to mix up flying styles it will be a compromise to get the best for both. I agree with correct inputs a lot can be done with the less tail heavy planes, but one i cannot get right unless I set it up tail heavy is really flat spins.
oh and by tail heavy its just behind a nuetral CG, not like you have a brick tied to the tail.........

I move the balance back untill it will do flat spins at low power settings and decent walls. Hopefully this seting will allow the plane to settle into a glide that makes for near hands off landing, and can do a harrier landing if I want. If the weight is too far forward flat spins need too much power to hold the nose up.
This is more of a personal preference thing.

I personaly fly neutral to a little nose heavy and I can huck around just fine. Hovers easy waterfalls everything. I find that if your tail heavy 3D can actually be harder and easyer to crash with. Reason being (and I don'y know why) but when your tail heavy the plane becomes over responsive and more unstable.

Just my .2 cents

moving the CG back helps a plane tumble better, but ironically most actually snap BETTER with the CG a bit forward.

I set my up so I can hover and do tail slides. Also with aft cg wing rock will go away, landings will be three pointers and slower/better. You can also take off slower and hover land into a little wind. Snaps will be deep and might over rotate. Knife edge loops will be tighter with aft cg. Flat spins will be flatter. The only reason for more forward cg is for pattern maneuvers where you don't want the nose to veer off verticals and on pulls. With aft cg yaw will be more sensitive. I went with 1 1/4" aft cg behind the wingtube and I like is so far.

I would say that if you have problems landing with aft cg then move it forward. That would be my indicator that you're too aft. With my aft cg my landings are very nice, no balooning but plenty slow and all three pointers. My landing approach can be also much steeper and I'll bleed off the airspeed before I touch down whereas with nose heavy plane the approach has to be shallow and takes whole runway to land.

I vote neutral.

I vote experiment with a plane and learn for yourself what changes...and what you prefer.

I settled on a slightly nose down in inverted for 3D and I'm finding that to be the aft most CG position I'm comfortable with during hovering and rolling harriers. On high rates the plane will almost try to snap in 3D maneuvers. Also, in the slow knife edge as I approach max throw, the plane will start coupling to the gear and I can fly a knife edge circle with just the rudder and neutral elevator. The landings are very nice floating three pointers and knife edge loops are not too loose.

have you ever had an airplane that was tail heavy, and required to add 5 pounds of weight to the nose of the airplane to get it to balance? Does that sound crazy? it has a 100 cc twin cylinder...

i have a call into a friend with the Comp ARF Strega about where his is balanced.