Hi,

Ok this may be a beginners question but can someone explain the best way to perform a quick roll on my GP Supersporter 40

Everytime i try it i just looose alot of altitude and looks crap, i tend to just use alierons and no rudder !!!!!!!


Can someone give me a tip of how to do a decent roll !!!!!!!!!

Any help would be very helpful thx.

You might want to ask this in the beginners forum but I will attempt to explain it to you here.

1. Enter upright at 200 ft.
2. Attain proper airspeed
3. Pitch the nose up 5-15 degrees.
4. Apply left or right aileron
5. Allow the plane to rotate along its axis 1 full turn
6. Exit upright

The plane you are flying should not require rudder to do a basic quick aileron roll. If it does you have your rates too low. It may however require you to add a little forward stick during the inverted part of the roll.

The only time I use rudder in the roll is when I am doing a harrier rolling sequence or Harrier rolling circle or doing one super slow long axial roll the length of the field. Rolling harriers require deep precise rudder inputs and the long slow axial roll requires a transitional sequence between the aileron, rudder and elevator.

I have told you far more than you need to know about rolls I feel comfy in saying that your problem is that you may need to increase your throwage for your ailerons and feed in some forward stick on the inverted half of the roll.

You only need to use rudder when doing slow rolls. With quick rolls, a bit of down elevator when inverted will correct the flight path. You may need a little bit of up elevator when you level off having done the roll, or if you are doing a double roll.

Virtually all planes will pitch towards the ground as you do the roll as you are no longer flying the right way up, the wings are working with gravity rather than against it.

A good practise for rolling is flying inverted. you will learn how much down elevator is needed to keep the plane level when inverted. In the roll it then just becomes a matter of timing.

To practise slow rolls work on knife edge first in the same way.

Just jam the aileron's to the left or to the right and don't crash!!!

No,
Not a simple question. The plane should roll axially and should only loose a few degrees of heading in the process. Do it a few times, see how many degrees you enter pointed down and then slightly change you attitude before you enter the roll. Then you come out near to level.
Of course you will be downgraded if you flying competition. Ideally the plane should not need any correction and be within 5 degrees upon exit. If not a few things to check.

Ailerons - equal throw (and enough - 3 rolls 3 seconds) left and right?
Balance - Nose heavy (requiring up trim that gets you when you invert?)

Just a few thoughts.
RickP

its not necessarily nose heavy- its not a neutrally stable aerobaticker, its a trainer, it is bound to dive a little when upside down.

"Virtually all planes will pitch towards the ground as you do the roll as you are no longer flying the right way up, the wings are working with gravity rather than against it."

Not all the time. For this plane yes. It all depends on the wing design. A pattern ship and a well trimmed aerobatic plane knows no difference in which side is up or down.

I also forgot to mention that rudder is used a good bit in point rolls as well.

You can do it by just jamming the sticks over if its set up perfectly. As mentioned above, in a good roll you should lose NO alt. When I tell people how to do basic aerobatics I like to give them the proper ways to do it and try to get them to fully understand the physics of the plane. By doing this you will avoid being a "stick banger"

I think technically you do need rudder for a perfect roll.
Apply no elevator at the beggining, simply aileron.
Rudder is required before, at and after the perfect knife edge position (wings 90deg to horizon).
Then depending on the type of plane, your c.g location, engine thrust angle, etc, etc, you may need some down elevator at inverted.

Practicing slow rolls really improves your fast rolls. Leaning to use the rudder is very important, once you get confident with it, its not long and you are doing rolling circles and turns, loops,etc with rudder only. Then add elevator into the equation, and you have harrier rolls, 3d loops, etc.

Do things properly from the beggining and you will never stop learning.

listen, we are talking about a beginner trying his first roll, not a f3a champion perfecting his rudder/elevator inputs. KEEP IT SIMPLE!

LOL,
Right! Nose it up a little jam full aileron and let us know how it does. Serioulsy It should not dive that much. Tell us how much off heading you are after the roll so we have an idea of how serious it is.
RickP

Yup Poor guy's going to burn out reading this.

lol, sorry guys, got a bit carried away there!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually,


If the airplane he is flying isnt rolling by simply jamming the sticks over the info he received is very useful and practical. I have to roll my dads Senior the same way I would do an Edge 540 doing a roll using the full length of the box. I havent seen this particular airplane but I think the problem is that the rates are too low. I have flown other supersportsters even back before they made the ARF version and they all rolled well.

Not to be rude but is this your first airplane? The reason I ask is that most people have mastered the roll on the trainer before going on to a Supersportster. Its a good 2nd airplane but its almost a better 3rd airplane.

Perhaps the CoG is too far forward, causing it to dive sharply when inverted. A new pilot will not know the difference from moving it forward.