R/C Airplane Flight Characteristics

Here's a good question. How come when you stall an R/C Airplane and kick
full aileron at it you can't get a stall spin like in real planes? I've
tried it with multiple R/C planes and never have seen anyone else have it
happen. Is it a weight or wing loading issue?

"Ralph the Red" wrote
Here's a good question. How come when you stall an R/C Airplane
and kick full aileron at it you can't get a stall spin like in
real planes? I've tried it with multiple R/C planes and never
have seen anyone else have it happen. Is it a weight or wing
loading issue?

Because a spin is the result of a stall and full RUDDER.

Bob Moore
ATP CFI

On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 18:57:15 -0500, "Ralph the Red"
wrote:

Here's a good question. How come when you stall an R/C Airplane and kick
full aileron at it you can't get a stall spin like in real planes? I've
tried it with multiple R/C planes and never have seen anyone else have it
happen. Is it a weight or wing loading issue?

What are you doing with the rudder? How abrupt a stall? How much
washout in the wing? How much dihedral?

Non-aerobatic airplanes are not that easy to spin either, for reasons
implied above.

Don

"Ralph the Red" wrote in message
...
Here's a good question. How come when you stall an R/C Airplane and kick
full aileron at it you can't get a stall spin like in real planes? I've
tried it with multiple R/C planes and never have seen anyone else have it
happen. Is it a weight or wing loading issue?

Well, first off, you "kick" in full rudder not aileron to spin.
Works fine on my BobCat and Wanderer. The Wanderer has a tendency to tighten
the spin after three turns. I taught a friend how to spin his and he got so
enamored with the motion that he spun it into the ground. Bad news.

"Don Tuite" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 18:57:15 -0500, "Ralph the Red"
wrote:

Here's a good question. How come when you stall an R/C Airplane
and kick
full aileron at it you can't get a stall spin like in real planes?
I've
tried it with multiple R/C planes and never have seen anyone else
have it
happen. Is it a weight or wing loading issue?

What are you doing with the rudder? How abrupt a stall? How much
washout in the wing? How much dihedral?

Non-aerobatic airplanes are not that easy to spin either, for
reasons
implied above.


Having built and flown many RC model aircraft I will state that built
straight and balanced at 35% the MFA YAMAMOTO will spin easily and
come out of a spin when controlls are returned to neutral. The fun
really starts when a builder balances it far too tail heavy and it
spins onto the ground, seen that happen to a new Hi-Boy. The owner
was told repeatedly to get several faults corrected but still
returned to the field with the model tail heavy, the owner quickly
learned.:-)
--
---
Cheers,
Jonathan Lowe.
/
don't bother me with insignificiant nonsence such as spelling,
I don't care if it spelt properly
/
Sometimes I fly and sometimes I just dream about it.
:-)


Don

If you scale the r/c airplane to the correct moments of inertia and the
correct weight, they have quite close correlation on spin properties to
a full size identically shaped plane. If you slow down the film to also
correspond to the scale effect, it is very difficult to tell the difference.

Most r/c models have much lighter wing loadings and much less inertia
than a full size plane.

So your answer is - both. The weight distribution and the wing loading.


In article , "Ralph the Red"
wrote:
Here's a good question. How come when you stall an R/C Airplane and kick
full aileron at it you can't get a stall spin like in real planes? I've
tried it with multiple R/C planes and never have seen anyone else have it
happen. Is it a weight or wing loading issue?

"Ralph the Red" wrote in message
...
Here's a good question. How come when you stall an R/C Airplane and kick
full aileron at it you can't get a stall spin like in real planes? I've
tried it with multiple R/C planes and never have seen anyone else have it
happen. Is it a weight or wing loading issue?

I used to spin single and three channel planes like there was no tomorrow.
Try the rudder, its for more than just steering on the ground.

Spun a lot of 'em. It's rudder and full elevator that tends to give the
desired result.

However, the biggest factor in my experience is CG. Get it far back enough
and you won't be able to tell the spin from the crash on takeoff. Get it
far enough forward and most a/c will only spiral before the wings come off
(you should understand the diff between a spin and spiral). Moving the CG
within a range will dramatically but somewhat predictably change the
handling characteristics of any a/c. The range is defined by the two
extremes where the a/c cannot be flown in a meaningful way (i.e. will crash)

Now once you are having some fun, try adding full aileron - both directions.
Try reversing the turn of a fully developed spin. Try some inverted spins.
Some a/c will surprise you. Some combinations and configs will not be
recoverable.

"Ralph the Red" wrote in message
...
Here's a good question. How come when you stall an R/C Airplane and kick
full aileron at it you can't get a stall spin like in real planes? I've
tried it with multiple R/C planes and never have seen anyone else have it
happen. Is it a weight or wing loading issue?

On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 at 01:11:14 in message
, Casey Wilson
wrote:

"Ralph the Red" wrote in message
...
Here's a good question. How come when you stall an R/C Airplane and kick
full aileron at it you can't get a stall spin like in real planes? I've
tried it with multiple R/C planes and never have seen anyone else have it
happen. Is it a weight or wing loading issue?

Well, first off, you "kick" in full rudder not aileron to spin.
Works fine on my BobCat and Wanderer. The Wanderer has a tendency to tighten
the spin after three turns. I taught a friend how to spin his and he got so
enamored with the motion that he spun it into the ground. Bad news.


Indeed. I had a rudder and elevator only model with reasonable dihedral.
That would spin nicely and even flick roll.

A model with only rudder and elevator can also do surprisingly steep
turns.

I once one a club competition for the most number of spin turns in 2
minutes from take off. The model climbed fast entered and exited spins
very fast and with an extra climb in the middle I got around 50 turns as
I recall. That one did have powerful ailerons but they did not come into
that flight except for the start, middle and finish. It had no dihedral.


--
David CL Francis