I've have been getting conflicting advice on the proper way of using the rudder along with ailerons for right and left turns.

Some of my club members claim when turning right...

Right aileron and right rudder

others claim...

Right aileron and left rudder


Who's right? Why?

In full-scale airplanes in a coordinated turn, the rudder and aileron typically go the same direction (e.g. right rudder in a right turn). In RC airplanes, it is not important at all in most trainer type of planes and most beginners leave the rudder at neutral.

That's because some use the rudder to assist in turns (rudder and aileron in the same direction) and others use it to keep the nose from falling in a turn (in most cases the "falling nose syndrome" can be helped or cured by adjusting the center of gravity). On a trainer, as well as some other flat bottomed dihedral winged plane, it is quite possible to turn the plane using only the rudder.

Rudder and ailerons should go in the same direction for a coordinated turn. The "falling nose syndrome" should be controlled with the elevator. Ya bank the wing and you lose vertical lift-physics. Lift the nose (actually hold level) slightly to compensate with the elev.

Basically, when you bank the aircraft, inertia will keep it from following a true circular path, it has a tendency to 'skid'.
The rudder will be applied in the direction of the turn to counteract the 'skid'.
The only time opposite rudder is used is when a slip is wanted. The side slip is used to either loose altitude
without increasing airspeed or in a crosswind landing to point the nose down the centerline while banking into wind to
counteract drift.
I have never heard of turning using opposite rudder and in fact that would be counterproductive.
And the practise of adjusting CofG to stop the nose from dropping during a turn is
in my oppinion, a dangerous act that could put the CofG beyond limits. The nose will
drop as stated in an earlier post, due to the physics how lift is developed and how the
lift vectors are tilted during a bank. It has nothing to do with the CofG.
Dan

If you need opposite rudder to keep the nose up, you are overbanked for the turn radius, in other words you are doing sort of a knife edge turn.
The ailerons and rudder don't exactly get used together. Once the ailerons have established a desired bank angle, they need to go back to neutral or else the plane will keep rolling, however, the rudder along with the elevator still get used to carve a coordinated turn. When a plane is in a 45 degree bank, the elevator and rudder act like the two halves of a V-tail elevator and together swing the plane's tail around to make the plane turn. Generally, the less the bank angle, the more the rudder does and the less the elevator does.

As was mentioned, using rudder in the turn in a full scale airplane keeps the turn coordinated. This is of course true for models as well.

The reason rudder -in the same direction as aileron- is added is to counteract and correct for adverse yaw. Adverse yaw is the drag that is caused by the downgoing aileron in a bank/turn. The down aileron drag causes the nose to go in the opposite direction of the turn so adding rudder keeps the nose going where it should which is the same direction as the turn. Most full scale airplanes have differential ailerons to lessen adverse yaw; the down going aileron will not deflect as much as the opposite wing aileron goes up, and vice versa. Aerobatic airplanes have virtually no adverse yaw. They can do 'pure' rolls with almost no movement about the yaw axis. But they sacrafice other stability and handling qualitites for such pure flight, which isn't desirable in other more standard purpose aircraft.

Use up elevator to keep the nose up in turns. As any airplane banks, its load factor (G force experienced) increases. This means the plane gets heavier in a turn and needs more aft elevator to keep the nose up. At a bank angle of 40 degrees the load factor is 31% greater than 1 G level wings flight (1.31 load factor) and at 60 degree bank the load factor is 2.0 which means the plane is twice as heavy at that bank angle. The steeper the bank the more elevator one must use if altitude is to be maintained. But most of our model flying isn't that precise so its more a point of interest; but that is the reason you will find the nose dropping in banks, because the plane is experiencing higher G's which is weight. The more shallow the bank the less the nose will tend to drop.

Only when you are doing a turn while inverted.

You are absolutely correct. I have been practicing coordinated inverted turns quite a bit lately and it's almost natural to me now.

lol, it's as much as I can do to fly inverted! Using rudder to co-ordinate an inverted turn is a lesson for another day. aileron and elevator (and lots of elevator!!!) gets me round for now.

However, this is a great thread, I'm summoning up the courage to get a 1/4 scale aeronca champion into the air and have been considering the need to use rudder in turns with a bit of aileron differential. This thread has helped a lot, thanks.

Regards,
Andy

Andy, you think that makes your head hert. Think inverted backwards flight on a helicopter. Now that makes my head spin

As an instructer I teach to move the ail and rud sticks together same direction with added elev to keep altitude the same. Others teach elev / ail only. Try a roll with your trainer without rudder then with rudder. With rudder you can make an LT 40 do sweet axial rolls.
Using rudder also helps you fly smoother on windy days, especially in those down wind turns.

Andy,
The reason for differential aileron throw is to alleviate much of the need for rudder input, as it helps eliminate adverse yaw. As far as your ΒΌ scale champ, it will fly more like the real deal than a model. So using rudder on the takeoff to track straight, getting the tail up on the takeoff roll while building speed, and using the ailerons if doing a crosswind takeoff all get crammed into a very few seconds of control. Once on the mains, build speed until it is ready to fly off. Although challenging to do correctly, it is very rewarding.