I've got a Dragon Lady 40. I was flying it today and doing some basic aerobatics. What I found was that if I pulled out of a loop too hard with the elevator, the plane would stall and tip a wing. Is this normal for low wing planes? I don't remember this ever happening with my trainer. Is this what people refer to when they discuss a plane having snap?

Thanks!

That's what is happening to you. You are letting the speed get too slow in the top of the loop or you are trying to loop too tightly for your plane and power combination. One wing stalls a little before the other and it drops. If you hold the controls the plane will go all the way around in what is called a snap roll.

If you have dual rates on your plane, try looping on low rate and see what happens. If you have the power, you should get a larger loop. If you are low on power you may fall out of the top, in which case, dial your low rate up some and try again.

The Dragon Lady 40 should be a great plane to learn arco, especially if you have a .46 for power.

It is funny you should mention a loop with a snap as I write for R/C Report magazine, covering one or two aerobatic maneuvers every month in my column, Fun Aerobatics. Today, I sent in the June column which was loops with snaps at the top!

If I can be of any more help, please e-mail.

As Ed says if you are flying slow, it certainly could snap. Having a Lady myself, I've never seen that tendency. But I did have a extra that would snap on too much elevator. Check to see if you may have a bit too much throw and that should fix your problem. DL is a nice plan. Best ARC I've seen. Good luck.

You have to pull pretty hard for a flat bottomed wing to snap stall, but they will do it. With the exception of a couple fun fly planes, i usually end up increasing the throws of my planes untill i have trouble with tip stalls then back off a bit.

So true. Dont think I've ever seen a snap on a flat bottom wing. And even though the dragon lady has a symetrical, it is still difficult to snap it.

The snap is caused by the wing stalling, as has already been mentioned. A lot of people have the mis-conception that a stall is always caused by too little airspeed. A wing can and will stall at ANY airspeed (assuming it doesn't fold first) if the angle of attack becomes too great. That appears to be what's happening with your plane. Several set up parameters can affect this problem, but for a simple solution, just don't pull a whole lot of up elevator in a hurry.

I can actually snap my Dragon Lady at will. It's because I've sealed the gap for the elevator (they're quite effective/responsive). The plane is setup for the recommended deflection on low rates and 1/4 of an inch more than the recommended setup on high rates. And crosswind is absolutely correct that you can in fact snap regardless of speed. I was able to snap both at the top and bottom of a loop while traveling at a good clip, the wing just plane looses the lift due to the angle of attack and snap. It's the neatest thing and can be incorporated into some fancy aerobatics if done intentionally, or nail-biting if not expected and low. And Ed is right, the Dragon Lady is a great aerobatics plane. Knife Edge ain't Extra- or Cap- worthy, but the plane tracks extremely neutral (bank it and it stays banked until you move the controls again), and is super responsive. But it slows down very fast and can land slower than my Avistar.

I've taken my new-to-me Dragon Lady up for about a dozen flights to date, and I like it more each time... Too bad they discontinued it.

Since you've got high/low rates, it might be in your best interest to lessen the throw on low rates until the "snapping" tendency is gone completely. That way if you ever "dead stick" and you're a little low and pointing away from the field, you wont, inadertently pull back too far on the elevator trying to get the nose up to turn back toward the field. (I did that once :stupid: ) . Now when you dead stick immediately flip to low rate elevator then you're safe to do whatever you want to land safely. If have all my planes set up this way.

Now as far as high rates go, tweek it till the hinges creeeeekk

The Dreaded high speed elevator stall. Don't pull so hard!

Just a generic question. If the CG is way either front or rear heavy, will a plane snap more easily?

Thanks!

Generally, the farther back the CG the easier it is to snap roll. Get the CG too far back and it'll snap right into the ground!

How about too far foward?

With the CG too far forward some planes refuse to snap, and usually if they do it's more of a wallow than a true snap. I have a nose heavy RC Nobler that will not snap, but some of that could be due to the ukie type coupled flaps... that is the flaps go down with up elevator and vice versa. There may be designs that will snap better (or worse, depending on your point of view) nose heavy, but I've not encountered any.