In flying rolling maneuvers like rolling circle and rolling harriers, is there any memory aid for the direction of rudder to apply i.e. left or right rudder in the knife edge attitudes ? I have no problems with elevator, but the rudder orientation can get away easily. Thanks a zillion !

Well just practice practice practice.

Here is what a few have told me.

1. With the belly toward you try to crash using the rudder.

It is hard to come up with any other than just burning 3D juice, maybe some more people might have a better answer. Good luck.

Here's what I use for rolling maneuvers :

Rudder goes the same way as aileron when rolling from inverted. It goes the opposite way as your aileron when rolling from upright.

For hovering, torque rolls, vertical lines :

Normal when the canopy's towards you. Push the rudder towards the wing that's down when the belly's facing you.

..

I've been practising on my simulator to try to get it to be instinctive. I began by practising control line circuits, then figure 8s. Then inverted control line circuits and figure 8s. then knife edge circuits and figure 8s. Then I started to do full, half and quarter rolls at points to push myself. Now I am starting to get comfortable with it.

My most recent trick has been to set up a mix to cause the plane to slowly roll right or left (ie it is out of trim), then I try to fly around keeping it going where I want it to go. Now starting to get the hang of rolling loops as well.

Of course this is on the simulator, I am quite a way behind doing it for real. [&:] One thing I found when starting out on this was that I was not as good on the elvator as I thought I was.

As for rules, I have been trying to use the one that Barry B suggests. Trouble with all rules is by the time you have thought about it, you have probably crashed.[&o]

Practice a lot of flying around inverted and knife edge. I always teach people to do rolling circles like this:

Left , Down , Right , Up / With the elevator and rudder, while holding full ( or whatever it takes ) aileron. Just keep that in mind. ( left, down, right, up )

I can't do rollers yet, but I am learning to do slow rolls. I do then the same way each time and now I don't enter wrong controls. I will keep doing this until I learn to do rollers in one direction only. After I get this down, I plan to start doing it the opposite direction.

Falling out of torque rolls helped me learn rolling harriers.

Is it really necessary to use rudder in rolling maneuvers ? I've seen some good fliers using elevator only, and the roll looks smooth.

Depends on the airplane. You can usually get away with "cheating"

Also depends on the speed of the roll. quick rolls and elevator only is all you need. However for slow rolls you need rudder as well. Therefore it is a good idea to learn rudder control from the start.

The way I learnt rolling harriers was not thinking about which way the plane was going and correcting it, but thinking about the stick movements and where the stick should be in certain attitudes.

I fly mode 1(throttle right) which means rudder and elevator are on the same stick. The way I do a rolling harrier is merely stiring the stick in a circular motion. Clockwise for rolling right and anti-clockwise for rolling left. Because I do it this way it means I can do really fast rolling harriers without thinking much.

Thats just the way I do it, might not work for anyone else but it works for me. But on top of all that, you still need loads of practice, its only sure fire way to get good.

In a regular rolling circle you dont have to use much rudder. If you want to do one roll per circle then a lot of rudder and a lot more skill is required. Harrier rolling is a different monster. 95% of the time you have to use rudder. I have a scratch built profile yak which has such a large fues side that it doesnt require much (if any rudder). I have come up with this little rule but the best thing you can do is fly until yo become comfy.

Right wing up, Right rudder. Left wing up, Left rudder.

I never thought about it until 3DStein's post but mode one could be an advantage for rolling harriers, all the motion is in one stick. Or maybe it's harder, who knows

I should hurry up and learn Mode I