I have been getting acquainted with my new Cloud Dancer 60 and have about 10 flights so far. I really like the way it flies except for one quirk.

When you put in hard rudder it will start out with a true yaw and then pitch to the belly hard. when I say hard I mean in about 20ft it's pointing down 30° or more. It does't matter left or right rudder both pitch to the belly the same.

Right now I have it mixed out with about 3/8" of up elevator but would like to know what causes this so maybe a mechanical solution could be obtained.

DEG

I built a Goldberg Tiger 2 last year, and of course I kit bashed it. I enlarged the rudder and elevator, and made it into a taildragger. Well, when I enlarged the rudder, I just made it bigger, with no regard for following plans and aerodynamics and all that crap. As it turns out, my larger rudder causes the plane to pitch (violently) to the belly at full rudder deflection. I did what you did, mixed it out with the radio. But inquiring minds had to know, so I have asked several self proclaimed experts about the problem. The consensus is that since my rudder is larger at the bottom than the original, it is stalling out the elevator at full deflection, thus mitigating the effeciveness of the elevator. In other words, the rudder below the elevator is now large enough that at full deflection, it causes a type of vortex (for lack of a better word) under the stab the acts like down elevator.

Wether this is true or not, I cannot say for sure. What I know is that the Tiger 2 is a great little flier, and THANK GOD FOR COMPUTER RADIOS!!!

Hey airwethead
That sounds like as good of a reason as any and makes kind of sense.

I talked to a long time pattern guy today and he said a lot of pattern planes pitch down with hard over rudder. He said that while flying the sequence you don't use a lot of rudder so it don't really bother you.

The fin and rudder on the Cloud Dancer is a little bigger than half the hoizonal and elevator so it could be the same thing going on here

Oh well mix it out and keep on going.

DEG

It also has to do with the shape of the rudder, and the stab placement. You could change the shape or you could mix it out.