Guy’s, back a few years ago when Scale combat was hot here in NY I was flying it every chance I could. It gave me a real time chance to try a lot of the maneuvers I’ve always read about and seen performed with only one plane in the air. Well with 6 in the air and all looking to do you it puts a whole new light on maneuvers. We wanted the max elevator and aileron we could handle, while aileron was easy, elevator proved to be quite the illusive little bugger. We would start the elevator throw at double the manufacturers recommendation Then do the loop test if it snapped out reduce the throw and try again until it stopped snapping out. Once this point was found we noted it in the flight log and moved the movement down another 10 points. This usually left us at 150 to 170% of manufacturers suggested travel.

I personally had seven planes that failed the loop test initially two of which never flew the same again after failing it. So the point is be careful you do not bust your plane ding these snaps as they are very stressful for the airframe/wing. The first on stopped spinning as soon as I let up on the elevator, I aileroned it back to level made a descending turn to bring the plane in front of us at a good clip then gave just a smig of elevator to level off and it snapped. While I was able to stop the spinning by letting up on the elevator the closure angle with the ground had increase. I throttled back (not that I expected it to help) and tried elevator again. It rolled inverted as it hit the runway. Two years later I had another one that snapped out of a loop by the time I got it back to straight and level it was getting out there (for a 47in wing span plane) so I decided to do a split –s. The role inverted was uneventful but as soon as I hit the elevator it began to spin when I let up on the elevator it stopped. I rolled her back around with the throttle at 1/3 to ½ and she spun again with elevator. So quickly before she hit the ground I tried to get it into a flat spin and it went in off the runway in the tall grass.

The cowling was a total loss but nothing else was damaged. I took it home and looked it over for something that was out of place / different / broken and found nothing. The next time out the aileron and elevator trim settings had changed (6clicks of A and two of E) so I figured the mass of servos in the wing for the ailerons has twisted the main spar. I also had noticed that the tank was empty after the first crash so I wanted to see if the aft CG had anything to do with it so I figured I’ld run it to about five minutes at ½ throttle then land. Well just after the two minutes left beep I was making a gentile turn and 30 to 60 degrees of bank at less than ½ throttle and it snapped again. I stopped the spin and got it headed back to the field, with another expert right there with me who suggested going to full throttle (because we already know that less does not work, so I went to full throttle let it run on that line as long as possible before I had to start adding elevator. You guessed it, upon adding the elevator it snapped and went in. Having already used up my luck on this plane this time it strained through the trees.

So what do you think happened? I’ll bet the mass of servos out on the wing for the ailerons twisted the wing in the first loop test. Two ounce servos in each wing of a 38 oz airplane.

Joe