Originally Posted by
rcpattern
Scott is a good friend of mine, but I will disagree with him here. There is no reason to use rudder on one roll, especially with today's airplanes. You don't even need it on 3 rolls. The idea of the sequences are to build skills.. In Sportsman, it's supposed to be fun and introduce the box. You also learn basic wind correction and overall presentation. In intermediate, you start doing more inverted and will use more elevator in rolls. There is no reason to use rudder in rolls, until the slow and 4 point in advanced. Too many Sportsman pilots try to fly an FAI "style" in Sportsman rather than working on the true skills it is trying to teach. The sequences are designed to gradually increase difficulty with each new challenge. If you approach it this way, you will see greater results much faster as you are taking lots of small steps, rather than giant leaps. Most importantly though, have fun... Arch
Full disclosure, I haven't been at this very long and the past couple of years I haven't flown much due to family commitments. But I have a pretty modern plane, 62" Osiris, but it seems to me that even on 1/2 cuban 8's (much less 1 or 2 horiz. rolls), if I don't use a little rudder on the 1/2 roll the straightness of my line suffers. Yes, I can be accused of being picky. But suchlike pickyness has never been a buzzkill for me, even when I was working on Sportsman sequences, but rather the spice of what makes pattern interesting (for me).