Hello all,
With all the hype about the TOC I have reading on how they score snap rolls. It seems that you have to get the nose of the aircraft to depart from the direction of flight before it rolls? Can anyone shed any light on this for me. I'm not really shure I have seen it properly done before, and don't know if I'm doing it right.
RickP.

The way that some of the rc people snap is not really a snap. They tend to aileron it around too much. A real snap is when one wing stalls and the other doesnt, making it go around. To do this you have to mainly use the rudder and the elevator and maybe just a little aileron. To do it the real way it is harder.

To get the nose to depart is just the pulling of the elevator to load up the wings then you add rudder and it goes around. I will admit that the aileron does help on being more precise.

Have fun

I'm no expert but I noticed the same thing. All the pros seem to be pulling up the nose and doing a quick aileron roll with a little elevator added in. I don't see any stalling.

Personally, I don't think it is nearly as dramatic or violent as an actual snap roll.

When I see a snap roll I think WOW when I see a TOC snap roll I think, what just happened???

I used to do snap rolls with LOTS of rudder and elevator, and the thing would just stop and ball up. It looked cool, but you bleed off almost all of your momentum. A friend of mine suggested using mostly aileron, with just enough rudder and elevator so it doesn' t look axial. I guess that is cheating, since technically the wing isn't really stalled, but this technique makes it very crisp, much easier to stop instantly, and you have plenty of speed on the exit to start into another maneuver, without much "recovery" time.

It takes practice but it will impress the judget alot more if you do some good ones.

I have heard the current trend with the top F3A pilots is to use very minimal amounts of elevator.

The lack of elevator does make for a nice quick, crisp snap that stops clean but it looks too much like an ordinary aileron roll IMO.

I agree, the great thing about a snap roll, TOC type or not, is the way the aircraft abruptly seems to tumble. That s what I think looks impressive. I think it should look very different from a roll.