I'm posting this here because I'm not sure where the best place for this is.. but anyway,, I have an EF Yak with a DL50 in it. My problem is that when I slow it down to land the nose of the plane floats up and it does'nt want to land.. I have it a little tail heavy for 3D flying, It flys hands off at a little less the half throttle. Is the plane being a little tail heavy causing this? The nose of the plane goes up just enough to make it float and not want to land. I have to force it down and then cut the throttle to get it on the ground. Thanks for any help you can give.

It may be tail heavy, but this is more a function of Idle speed I believe. All planes will come down with little or no thrust. They may come floating down and three point land but they will come down.

This trait is not uncommon in 3D planes

Depending on your Tx, you could try adding a little down trim that can be switched on and off

I have to let the plane Idle as low as it can to get down with out having to force it down, When theres no breeze it will float in like a trainer but when theres a breeze it makes it hard to get down because I cant let it just float down ,, I will try and put in some down trim on one of the switches and see how that works. I like to fly my planes in instead of floating them in, its just a little hard to force this one down..

I have an Global 60 size Raven with an OS 91 4 stroke, that does that. I just give a slight down elevator blip on the stick, at a spot that I experimented to find, (changes the angle of attack of the wing), and she starts a nice descent to land. Not much down, just a little.


Vince

Actually none of my planes want to land.... well actually i don't want to land them cause i am having so much fun

Well, the inverse of that is that all planes will land at some time or another. The key is to get them to do it when YOU want them to and not when THEY want to land...

Yeah, it sounds like a combination of to much airspeed, which when coupled with any wind, will cause problems because you land into the wind. The other issus is of course the tail heavy mode, which is necessary for 3D. As said, adding some switchable down trim may help the problem.

CGr.

Yup, my Yaks, Funtana, Giant U-Can-Do and Katana's ALL do exactly the same thing, yet none are tail heavy.

I've learned to pull off throttle earlier and keep the nose down until the plane is just above the runway, letting it slow until it stalls a few inches above the pavement.

If I try a normal approach, I'm prone to "drop" the plane onto the runway at stall.

If you have seperate servos on your ailerons & a computer radio, program in roughly 2-4 degrees so BOTH ailerons will move UP at the flip of a switch. That will kill your lift and it will push the plane down at a controllable rate. Start out with 2 degrees first and increase the degrees as necessary. This will still allow both ailerons to work for roll control. I use this on my large models to stop imediately after landing. I deploy them once on the ground, & my ailerons both deflect to 30 degrees. The plane acts like it has brakes. Hope this helps....Gene

Yup, that's exactly what I do on my Giant U-Can-Do. It helps get it down.

I never had that prob. with my 88" EF Yak. You don't need a rearward CG with this plane to have an awesome 3D machine...perhaps experiment with moving it forward a touch. Sounds like your idle speed needs lowered some. Also, what pitch are you running? I used a Vess 23A and it acted like a brake on downlegs and landing. I agree, the EF Yak lands like a trainer and is one of the things that makes it such an awesome plane!

Nah, I like the C.G. right where it is at... if anything a bit MORE rearward would be good to me.

Idle speed is fine too. I'm running an 18x8 or an 18x6 prop on any given day... This on a 74" plane.

My Yak has pretty thick wings, giving it a lot of slow speed lift ( just like my Funtana, and U-Can-Do ), so all of the planes exhibit exactly the same behaviour.

I'm running a 22X8 sword, I've been thinking about changing to a 23 but have'nt yet.

Have you ever stalled the airplane to see just how it looks and feels before the stall? It will help you get an idea of what it will do on approach.....
Now with that it maybe your idle is too high, or to small a diameter prop...go with a bigger prop

Did you check your down thrust angle?
If too much, you may be trimming for hands off with power, but the trim is lost when power is reduced for landing, and then the elevator is pushing the tail down.

There is no such thing as tail heavy, for any plane that can be controlled in flight.
Your plane may be less nose heavy or neutral, but even that would not cause a pitch up in landing.

Down stick.

I know one guy that struggled terribly with landings. He would run off the end of the runway and all sorts of stuff. I kept listening to his engine and it was always running about third throttle. I day I asked him to idle his engine down and after that the plane would land [8D]

If the plane is at a proper low idle, what does it do if you add some up elevator? It will come down. You need to practice this at a safe high altitude since the plane may snap roll. Once you learn to drop the plane without snap roll you can practice a landing. During the approach, use up elevator and idle to drop the plane, (shorten the landing point) and throttle to extend the landing point. If you merely hold the glide path, you are not flying the plane, you are following the plane. It will land wherever it hits. Pick a spot on the runway and try to touch down near it. It is difficult to be precise, but not difficult to be close. Broaden your definition of close. Some planes can accept more final flair than others. My Canard seems to handle about 10 degrees flair well just before touchdown. I had a Flying Lawnmower that needed about 15 to 20 degrees final flair. During the flair the whole plane acts as an air brake, so you need to be very close to the ground. The air speed seemed to drop about 50% in a heart beat.

As long as its not gusty you can "float it in like a trainer". The problem you seem to have is when you have wind your ground speed will slow and your angle of descent wil increase making it seem like its falling out of the sky. With some practice at altitude on breezy days you will find it will still flare and touch down smoothly. The slow steep descent looks a lot worse than it really is. The thick wings need to slow down or they will balloon when you try to flare.

A truely tail heavy plane wants to fly (hands off) a parabola at lower throttle then trimmed for hands off level. A fast harrier (stalled) landing is the best. Work the throttle with the nose up. If you crash it is not my fault, 3D is'nt for everyone.

He said he was carrying throttle on landing, so messing with the idle adjustment is wrong. Thrust controls altitude, Pitch controls airspeed. He is carrying too much thrust on landing. Simply reduce your throttle on landings!

I'll throw in a second vote to check your downthrust angle. I'm not saying to necessarily change it but a plane with too much downthrust will nose up when you cut power to land, the converse being true for too much upthrust.

HI
DO YOU know the incidence of the wing with regard to the stab-a positive wing incidence might cause your problem( you will often be carring some down elevator when you are trimmed for flight -if you are carring positive incidence in the wing ) will the plane track hand off at all air speeds ? if she climbes or dives at different speeds incidence may be your issue or you can click in some down trim on you base approachjust a few clicksshould prevent the porpusing effect you are having-which makes it difficult to make a great controlled landing-do remove the trim when you fly the plane before take off if you choose to do that-TONY

Hi!
Yes! What you describe is typical of a tail heavy plane! The nose rises slightly when the plane comes in for landing