Tutorials: 3D Maneuvers

[skiermike123]

Hey y'all,
I'm new to 3D flying but am totally jazzed about it, too. Do any of you know good sites that detail how to set up a plane and fly 3D maneuvers? I've watched people fly 3D and can figure it out more or less as I go, but I'd love to see some literature that details how to fly these maneuvers.

I could use any help you can give me. I'm pretty new at this--I don't even know what a harrier is! How about plane setup? Center of gravity? Hovering? Control throws? Exponential? Variable pitch props? Huh?

Thanks for the help...
Mike

[ThomasRP]

FMS has a great free Flight simulator FMS 2.0 and check the link "RC experimental studios" for FMS torque roll download that has 3-d capable aircraft.

[Fly-guy]

I can help with a few of those questions.

Well your first :D a harrier is a move where the planes wing is stalled and flown more or less on engine thrust alone. The plane sits nose up at about 45 degrees and just continues moving without gaining or losing height. There are of course variants, inverted harrier and rolling harrier. The harrier is IMO one of the hardest moves to do WELL. The basic part is reasonably easy with practise but coordinating turns and then trying inverted and rolling becomes much more difficult.

I'll adress plane setup before the rest because the rest depend on how the plane is setup.

Most 3D planes have a power to weight ratio somehwere in the range of 2:1. Also they must be very light so they have a light wingloading, and so you can achieve this power to weight ratio.

Prop choice is also very important. generally speaking for a 3D plane you need more diameter, less pitch to maximze airflow over the controls. Take a 46 size 3D plane for example. Usually an 11x6 is a common sport prop, for 3D you want less pitch, say around the 4" mark, and about 11.5-12.25" in diameter.

As for hovering, you need AT LEAST 1.5:1 but 2:1 is far better. The simple reason is, there has to be some power left if you get in trouble. If you are hovering at full throttle you dont have a chance if you lose it. Hovering at half throttle and lose, just jam the throttle wide open and youll be at 100 feet before you know it.

Control throws are relatively simple, give it all it'll take!!! :D When the plane is stalled, in a move such as a harrier or hover, you need as much movemtn as you can to move the plane around, 45 degrees movement is always a good starting point for elevator, a little more for rudder and about 35 for ailerons.

I guess controls throws leads to exponential.
Exponentail just softens the centre of the stick, so when you move it you dont get a huge input all of a sudden. When I began flying 3D is was flying expo as high as 60% but as my skills increased I was correcting less often but with more fine movements and found that much expo way too soft for fast movements. Now I am down to about 30% expo on my surfaces, although this does make a straight line a good time sometimes ;)
I find that is as much personal preference as anything else. There are no hard and fast rules, just what you like.

As for centre of gravity, again this can be a personal preference kind of thing, but generally speaking further aft (back) makes for a more responsive tail and makes moves like walls, harriers and hover easier.


Variable pitch props :D I dont do foamys ;)

Hope that answered a few questions and brought on 1000 more, but if you have more, feel free to ask!

Marcus

PS WOW that post came out bigger than i thought :D

[Algae]

well stated fly-guy.
if you ask some people, 3d planes are easier to fly than "regular" planes, but most will say they are extremely difficult. If you know how to fly a 3d plane it can be very easy to manuever it around a field in a very small area. The good thing about 3d's are that if you have have trouble, like fly-guy said, you can power out of just about anything and you have the control surface movement to do so. But this blessing can also be a curse, obviously. Biggest problem I had first starting out flying 3d, and same with others, is over sticking or over compensating on the controls. Since the center of gravity is further aft and surfaces 2-3 times larger, it is easy to get into something you dont want to be in.

I think there are 2 ways in which to learn 3d flight the best. The best way is a simulator. You can crash and crash until you get every movement perfect. Also getting a cheap foamie is a good way. Just dont hover low to the ground on a low battery or ill-perfect needle settings...like I have done..hah the results can be quite sour.

As for literature or websites listing 3d manuevers or setting up for them...they are scarce from what Ive found. When I first started off I tried looking for explanations but couldnt find too many. There is, however, a hover tutorial on horizonhobby.com if you look at a 3d arf plane. Honestly the best way is to just go out the field on a calm traffic day and just mess around. Ive watched 3d videos and tried to recreate certain manuevers (which is where a simulator comes in reallllyyyy handy lol).

Hope this helps a bit...probably not, but enjoy!
-Aaron

[cje0114]

http://www.teamflyingcirkus.com/newindex.php?page=Videos

http://www.blaineaustin.com/3d_tips.htm

Chris

[3D-flyer-93]

http://www.teamflyingcirkus.com/newindex.php?page=Videos

http://www.blaineaustin.com/3d_tips.htm

Chris
I was gonna post the teamflyingcirkus link :D

[jasonflier]

You could also try http://www.docinsane.com/content/category/3/7/25/
There are detailed instructions on how to hover,torque roll,rolling harrier and a few other tricks aswell

[Major Justice]

I have been playing around with some 3D planes on FMS, and I can execute a lot of the well known maneuvers (They sound harder explained than they are to do on the simulator), but I can't get it to torque roll. I can do variations by doing a hanging hover & use aileron & then try to fight it straight, but tutorials say to let the engine do the spinning. Can you torque roll on FMS? If you can, I either am using the wrong planes, the wrong version of FMS, the wrong combination of controls....

[3D-flyer-93]

You have to have special planes to torque roll in FMS. look up FMS torque roll.

[Algae]

I personally would move away from. Its great if youre first starting off with some basics, but when youre moving into 3d it really doesnt have the precise physcics to learn from. I started with FMS and it taught me a ton, then I migrated to RealFlight G3 and thats where I learned all the 3d manuevers. It might be a bit of money but its well worth it, especially when you go out the field, hover a plane inches off the ground and come home with the plane in the same number of pieces.

I was never able to find a 3d plane in FMS that reacted the right way; they all seemed very flakey and unrealisitic. If you do end up finding a good plane that does have 3d physcis and properties, let me know Id like to fly FMS again.

-Aaron

[Major Justice]

I personally would move away from. Its great if youre first starting off with some basics, but when youre moving into 3d it really doesnt have the precise physcics to learn from. I started with FMS and it taught me a ton, then I migrated to RealFlight G3 and thats where I learned all the 3d manuevers. It might be a bit of money but its well worth it, especially when you go out the field, hover a plane inches off the ground and come home with the plane in the same number of pieces.

I was never able to find a 3d plane in FMS that reacted the right way; they all seemed very flakey and unrealisitic. If you do end up finding a good plane that does have 3d physcis and properties, let me know Id like to fly FMS again.

-Aaron

The torque roll planes take some kind of prop program to run right. It's freeware, but very confusing. The way I understand it, you have to have a brand name RC controller to use those models. The prop program has different files listed as Futaba, JR, etc.

As for the 3D in FMS, I always figured that it wasn't very close to real. The only differences in most of the 3D planes is the different sizes have different throw rates. I have one that will do loops in place, but some of the bigger ones show the difference between a foam plane doing 3D, and a full scale balsa.

Here is a link to some of the best 3D planes you'll find (Non Torque roll models). They pull themselves out of a hover, so maybe these are a bit more realistic. I got the link from Hobie.
http://kimagure-hikoki.hp.infoseek.co.jp/Hanger4/

There's also 6 other Hangars filled with planes, but these are the best on this website.

[Algae]

Thanks for the heads up, Ill have to give 'em a try. Heh, for now I'll stay partial to RealFlight. Actually I found hovering at the field a lot easlier than in FMS, but thats why you train with weights, eh?
-Aaron

[Algae]

dang, those guys on team flying cirkus are crazy. i have a difficult enough time doing most of that in the sims, hah. but then again they learned alot from their crashes...i think.

p.s. if any of you are looking for a good 3d intro plane, the u-can-do 3d plane is amazing. i fly the 60 size with a .91 2-stroke and it is great for sport/aerobatic flight and full blown 3d. you dont have to change the cg for either configuration so you dont need to be a 3d master just to fly it.

-Aaron

[DsWright]

The Single MOST IMPORTANT thing to 3D is proper setup.

Get all your surfaces perfectly flat and neutrel, the trim it by CG only. not the trims on the Tx.

once you can fly at a little over 1/2 throttle upright and inverted and stay level without any trims on the plane then you will have a well setup plane for 3D.

Remember... up trim in upright flight is down trim inverted.... that is bad because with a nose heavy cg it will dive towards the ground in rolling manuvers.

And for the Record, The U-Can-do is not a good 3D plane.... It's capable of it yes... but has bad coupling issues. get a small Profile like a Mojo .40 or Katana .40 to learn 3D on.

[Algae]

Maybe its the way mine is setup but I like the U-Can-Do because it doesnt couple. I dont have any coupling issues with knife edge or any other manuevers. I just think its a good introduction plane because its not strictly a 3D plane (like a short fuse length plane such as the yak or edge). You can fly it in a sport or aerobatic flight style and still be able to hover. But at any rate, maybe its the way mine is setup.

Ultimate best way is a sim; dont have to worry about crashing hundreds of dollars worth at the field.
-Aaron