Hi Scott:

Johnny's comments are right on. CG location is key on the HotSpot and Roo. I had to move the CG 1" ahead of the recommended forward CG to get the nose to consistently drop on my HotSpot. My flying buddy has a Roo that he chicken flops, and he uses a forward CG there as well. Both the Roo and HS still flare fine when landing, as long as you burn off most of your fuel.

If the CG is too far back, after speed decay to zero or near zero on a vertical upline, or following an outside snap on the vertical, both planes will flop onto their back, pancake flat, with little or no rotation. Power on with the Roo with it's high thrust line will start the flopping on the pitch axis. Power on with the Hotspot with just a little rudder will lead to the flattest spin you have seen. At this point, you are in deep doo-doo unless power off--full up--and full rudder== in the direction of rotation seems to work best== gets the nose down, but don't count on it. BobCats and Bandits recover very well since they are a true 3 axis planes. The elevon mixing leaves allot to be desired when trying to recover from spins, either flat or nose down.

If you get the CG forward, then it is just a matter of cutting power, pulling full up elevator till the nose drops====don't forget to release the up as soon as the nose drops or you will enter an upright spin which is hard to stop due to the momentum of the rotating heavy engine and lack of rudder power=== then power up pulling out of the dive.

The masters of these maneuvers are Dennis Lott and his sons with the Roo, and Jason Somes with the HS, BobCat, and Bandit. All of these guys are on RCU. When done right, these maneuvers add allot of pizzaz to the flight profile--not just stuck in the round n' round, bank and yank mode. And like all Lomcevak maneuvers, the departures are always different depending on power settings, angle of the upline, and entry speed, so no 2 ever look exactly the same.

I am going to try to capture some mpegs of our Roo and HS with my digi camera and try to post them on my picture site in the near future. I might be able to add them to the JetCat USA site, similar to Joe's vectored thrust videos if Bob has room.

Tom