Hi,
Im new to foamies and 3D flying so i was wondering if u guys out there have any tips for hovering, Blenders, and Harriers.

For Harriers, you'll need to pull the nose up to 60 degrees or more. The airspeed will be minimal and most of your lift will be generated by the prop and not the wings. You'll be steering using primarily the rudder and you'll be using the ailerons to keep the wings level. You'll also probably find that you need to constantly modulate the throttle to maintain altitude and attitude. It's hard to explain...Also, your plane might be more stable at a certain angle, you'll have to experiment to see what works best. Once you get good at flying the Harrier, keep increasing the angle of attack until you're almost vertical, and you'll be hovering. Hovering takes tons of practice, so don't get discouraged. Depending on the plane and how much practice you can get in, it can take months to get good at it. Sorry I can't help you with blenders, I haven't tried them yet..

rmg mag did do a good job on explaining harriers and hovers, but luckily blenders are one of my favorite all time trick only because i flew nitro first and usually most nitro planes can don one, some electric planes cant. heres what you do, start out with a lot of altitude since you will be practicing , untill you get comfortable you can bring it down lower, ok throttle down, go into a dive, heres where you can decide to roll left or right, for explaining purposes we will roll left, now put the right stick all the way over to the left, roll a few times to get momentum, then go into a snop roll which you will hold all other control and add full left rudder, now another decision to end up in an inverted or rightside up flat spin for easiness for you well go right side up even thou i liek inverted its mor of a crowd pleazer, k you will then pull back on the right stick while letting go of the left roll so now you have left rudder full up, and your going to be dogging on and off the throttle to maintain a slow decent rate, if you get good and have the right plane you can even do an upward flatspin. but you final attempt is to let everything go and your plane will stable out, practice and practice and if you get into any trouble during anypart of the trick just let everything go and back off throttle a little bit. make sure your throttle is only on during the auctual flatspin part of your manuver otherwise you might not have a plane left.

also a good video for beginning 3d pilots is ultimate 3d with chris maier he does a good job at explaining and it shows his control movements on the screen.

I learned to do Harriers by first doing an "elevator", then moving into the Harrier. I'm currently learning how to move into a hover from a harrier.

Here is what worked for me:

To do an elevator, just fly the plane up high. Turn the motor off, give it full up elevator, and let the plane come down on a horizontal position at about a 60 degree angle simulating coming down on an elevator. You will have to stir the plane with the rudder and perhaps experiment with the elevator (maybe full elevator may be too much).

The next step is to give it a little power which will start picking up the nose of the plane and slow down its descent. Add power a little at a time until the plane actual stops descending and you just stir it with the rudder. The plane will fly around with the nose up high coming down when power is reduced and going up when power is increased. If you increase power too quickly, it may do a loop, so make sure you are at least one or two loops above from ground. Also, the wing will start flopping from side to side. Just give it right aileron when the right aileron starts to come up countering the flopping back and forth. After some practice, you will control the flopping of the wing. At first, just ignore the flopping of the wings and concentrate on keeping the plane on harrier at the same altitude. After you learn how to do that, then concentrate on the flopping of the wings.

To come off the harrier, slowly increase power at the same time you are slowly returning the elevator to a neutral position. The plane will just take off horizontally back to normal flight position.

I hope the above helps. When you learn how to do harrier and hover, let us know what worked for you.

Good luck!

That's a great tip jmir. I agree you can learn so much about "3d" flying just from the "elevator" trick and its a very safe maneuver for a beginner. Once you can fly your plane down in a stable steep elevator (and even steer it around some), its not so big a leap to try harriers.

You should also try inverted harriers. While its harder for the pilot to think of how to throw the sticks when inverted, many planes seem to settle down better when inverted. Again, its a smaller step to go to inverted harriers once you've done inverted elevators.

Clark