Does anyone have a video of a Shockflyer been flown with precision? Most of the videos I've seen feature pretty sloppy flying and cover tricks mostly automated by an extremely shifted cg rather than flying technique. Yes, I get it; it's easy to hover. Now has anybody learned to fly it smoothly and with some style?

What's your opinion? What would you consider "great flying technique" with one of these unusual aircraft?

Clark
(awaiting the flames)

I know exactly what you mean....Im gathering your a pattern flyer?

Yes there are people that have flown them with precision like a pattern flyer, but normally they dont. Even most of the good pattern flyers I know....well once they get their hands on a shockflyer it turns them into a barnstorming yank-it- around the sky crazed pilot.

I have some video of Steve Rojecki and Tony Stillman flying shockflyers in our local high school gym. Steve was doing very smooth 4 point rolls across the gym, and Tony was flying smooth slow rolls(well as slow as you could go in a short indoor gym) across. Unfortunatly I dont have anyway to post them up here as they are still on film.

So in answer to your question, yes there are folks that fly them in precision aerobatics, and they are capable of doing it. Its just most people have fun doing the crazed 3D stuff.

There is a pattern plane built for exactly what you are wanting to do....its called the "Tangent" Its a small indoor pattern plane. Ive never seen one fly, but it looks really nice.

If you want to fly outdoor, go for a Formosa. Its a right fine pattern ship designed for outdoor park flying. Its basically a bigger Tangent.

Ill see if I can get Tony to fly a F3A pattern in the gym, so I can video it. Then Ill figure out how to get it up on the net. Its probably gonna be a while though. It will get quite a stir Im sure, so you'll probably see it.

Meanwhile, check out the vids at

www.shockflyer.com

Particularly the one labeled"Unknown" He does a real nice smooth slow rolling circle. Nice knife-edge. Some snap rolls that are blink fast. Not much hovering.

Thanks BD! That one video was exactly what I hoped to see. Flew like it was on rails, level lines, really exploited the slow speed capability of the super light airframe. Granted that was inside so no wind, but WOW. You could tell it was hard work because you can see he gets tired near the end.

I'm no pattern flyer yet, BD, but I aspire to be one because of vids like this. I'll look for the other planes you mentioned too.

Clark

go to www.rcmania.cz there are videos of f3ai, and aeromusicals. the vids of Benoit Paysant le Roux are the best by far, his aero musical flight is the best flying I have ever seen in a video.

Who makes the Tangent?, Sounds like it could be interesting.

I thinks WattAge makes the tangent if I remember correctly.

Yeah, pattern flying is fun, and exhausting.

The concentration required to fly precise maneuvers really wears you down mentally. Ive never flown in competition, but I have been instructed in pattern flight. If you get a pattern flyer to help teach you, you will see things in your flying you never noticed before. I have to say it was a huge learning experience. It requires extreme patience, attentiveness, and a real finesse that most fliers just dont have. When you see a pattern flier fly, you can tell he's a pattern flyer.

As if flying the maneuvers wasnt hard enough, doing it so that they are shaped perfectly, altitude stays constant, you come out of a maneuver EXACTLY where you entered it, and nothing is half @**ed. In pattern flying, it either is or it isnt. If you botch one thing in a pattern flight...everyone is going to notice it.

Surprisingly the hardest maneuver for me to learn was how to get a stall turn to look exactly right. Bear in mind that in pattern flight, what you see is not always what really happened. For instance in a stall turn, as the plane rotates on yaw axis during the stall, as it comes back down, in a real stall the tail will wiggle slightly from side to side. Well the problem with actually doing a REAL stall turn, is that it of course makes the plane unstable. So alot of pattern fliers, will "cheat" the stall. That is they will get it REAL close, but not quite stall it. Problem with this is that the backside wont have that charactoristic tail wiggle. Well most pattern fliers have figured out how to cheat this too. They know just the right amount of back and forth rudder inputs to get that tail to appear to be correct. The judges used to look for that tail wiggle as a sign that it actually did stall, although now I dont think they look for that anymore, if Im not mistaken now they dont want to see the tail move.

Loops are supposed to be PERFECTLY round. A pattern flier knows that at the top, you may actually have to hold DOWN elevator to keep the top round.

During slow rolls, most pattern fliers will start feeding in the rudder, as the wing starts rolling. It looks much smoother than if you start rolling the plane, and wait until the wing is vertical before putting in rudder.

There is another little trick. Occasionally you will come out of a maneuver and the wings wont quite be level. Well the judges are looking real close, so if you give aileron to correct and they see it....bang deduction. So alot of guys will roll it back upright with rudder. If done right, you cant even tell they made a correction.

Its little things like this that you cant really see, but these are the things that make a pattern flight look so smooth and refined. Some of these guys are really slick.