zetor, go back and look at your own post. A planes abiltiy to hover and its ability to pull out vertically are two separate things just as you stated. Going vertical is a matter of engine power. Just enough engine power for a given weight plane will allow you to hover for a short period of time. How much excess power a plane has determines how long it can hang there and whether or not it can pull out vertically. Every time a new 3D fun fly plane comes out guys go out and buy it then start talking to each other in these forums about what engine to use to get enough vertical.

I just bought the new Hangar 9 Twist 3D a few weeks ago and went through this very discussion with others who had bought this plane. One guy takes his plane out for its maiden and happens to be running a .40. He tries hanging it on the prop and is able to get it to hang motionless for a short period of time but doesn't have enough to pull out vertically. He then comes back to these forums and says the .40 isn't enough since it doesn't have unlimited vertical - even though he was able to get it to hang on the prop. Another guy happens to put a .72 four stroke on his Twist and finds that it will go vertical out of sight and hovers very nicely. Like I said it is a matter of engine power. Whether or not a hover can be sustained for an extended period of time is determined by the design of the plane. That is why you can put the same engine on two different planes and one one will have just enough to hover but not pull out and the other will hover and pull out vertically.

DBCherry, what my LT-40 does is hang on the prop (hover). It isn't falling backwards and it isn't a tail slide. What it does is it eventually wanders to the side out of the hover because the control surfaces on this plane just aren't big enough to keep it pointed in the correct attitude to sustain the hover. When it does this it is neither gaining nor losing altitude and also not wander to the side for a period of time. When the prop is no longer pointing straight up the thrust is now pushing the plane sideways and no longer supporting the weight of the plane. This is when it starts to lose altitude. If you fly a light 3D plane in a hover and don't keep the nose pointed straight up it will do the exact same thing - it will wander to the side and lose altitude because the prop thrust is no longer supporting the weight of the plane. Even if you add power the plane isn't going to automatically pull out straight up. That will only happen if you give it the propper control surface deflections to keep the plane going in the right dirrection. Like I and others have already said, if you want a good hovering plane an LT-40 really isn't the proper plane to do it with. The ability to hover well is a combination of the design of the plane and the power to weight ratio.

I guess where we disagree is in how we define hovering. To me it is getting the plane to hang without gaining nor losing altitude or wandering off to the side for a period of time. The amount of time it stays there doesn't determine if it should be referred to as a hover. Granted I do think that there is a minimal amount of time that the plane needs to hang there before it should be considered a successful hover. Just because the plane wasn't able to pull out vertically doesn't mean it didn't just hold a hover for a measurable amount of time. Like I said, hovering and unlimited vertical are two different things. In this case maybe zetor is really more interested in having unlimited vertical. I still think an engine like a Webra .50 would be interesting on this plane. It would probably give it the ability to pull out vertically but once the plane is allowed to fall off to the side too far there still couldn't be enough control surface to pull it back into a vertical hovering position the way a true 3D plane will.