whiteout750

Been flying now for about a year after getting out of the hobby many years ago. Got my fingers crossed for a big stick this xmas! However for now I am flying fomies because thats what I can afford at the moment. I seem to keep having more and more electric and foam planes show up in my shop. Most are in need of repair and I get them cheap or free when others give up on them. Anyway I have 2 Hobbico fly zone planes in my hanger right now. A mini ventura and a 4ch J3 cub. Both look really cool and both have a bad habit of spiraling out of control and into the ground. Both are badly underpowered (at least by my standards) and I thought maybe that was it so I went brushless with the cub. Several successful and conserative flights and I got bold enough to try some basic tricks. Pulled off some ugly loops a very poor stall turn returned to level flight made a few banking turns with the ailerons and then a sudden spiral to earth. Nothing I could do at least not with my newish skills. Is there a proper name for what is happing here and how can I stop it? Is it something the folks at fly zone are doing to sell parts? Help!

fcomer84

Sounds like a transmitter problem on first thought.

whiteout750

I thought that too but during a repair session on the cub I moved the radio gear to one of my slow sticks and never had a glitch

jetmech05

probably a stall...hard to say as we aren't there to see it...if you have enough altitude you can recover from a death sprial...the key is altitude and you must stop the spin with either rudder or ailerons before you apply power and elevator.
I've never flown a cub..I hear it likes rudder in the turns. however to much rudder will cause you to roll over as well...
I guess you need to pratice nice easy stick movements with altitude and speed...the best advice I can give is to get some help from a seasoned flier

Mr67Stang

Check the ballance point (center of gravity) for the planes in question. If the C/G is to far aft what you are describing will happen. The C/G should be about 25%-30% back from the leading edge of the wing. For example if your wing has a chord (measurement from leading edge to trailing edge) of 10 inches (including ailerons) you should ballance this plane between 2.5 inches and 3 inches back from leading edge. Move the battery inside the plane or add weight (last resort) to achieve proper ballance.

Also use very small stick movements and ensure your control surface deflections are not set to high as if they do move to far they will act as a speed brake and suddenly stall the plane causing your plane to go into a spin. When your plane does go into a spin the way out of it is to let go of the controls and add power gradually. if the spin has not stopped already use the rudder to counter the spin (spinning to the right/use left rudder). Then ease onto the elevator to bring it back to level flight. Pulling hard on the elevator will likely put you into another spin.

Your flight right now should be done at a reletively high altitude to give you more time to react and recover. We call it "flying 3-5 mistakes high".

Good luck and have fun.

whiteout750

normally I do fly higher just got cocky and the little cub looked so good doing fly bys! The cg seems ok (i marked an x on each wing and check it before each flight) may add some nose weight just to get to the forward limit. The aileron throw is minimal but upon inspection i suspect the rudder throw is to high (although it is where hobbico says it should be) However, I was not using the rudder at the time of the spiral. So just to clairfy add power before or after the spin is stabilized?

MajorTomski

When was the last time you changed the AA batteries in the transmitter? I've had several of them show good and green on the power output but nothing happens at the plane.

Mr67Stang

It depends on how the plane reacts. I have had planes that will end their spins almost imediately after neutralizing the controls and I have had at least one that would not exit the spin until I added power and counter rudder... she was a handfull but did the prettiest flat spins. Lost her on a flame out during the flat spin and it spun 200 ft to the dirt... another 100 ft and it would have recovered[:'(] If you want to see it go to Youtube and search for "flatspin" authored by mr67stang... it's a pretty impressive impact

hugger-4641

My Feedback: (6)

Not familar with the flyzone cub, but this has happened to a couple of my parkzone J-3bls. One was due to a warped wing surface(leaving it in the back seat of my car on a summer day probably contributed to this). It was hard to detect the warpage with a normal glance, but a new wing fixed this problem. The other cub had a loose tail assembly that looked fine until you moved the elevator up or down. Just before about 3/4 elevator throw was reached, the whole rudder and tail assembly would kick to one side . A little packing tape, heat gun, and some glue fixed this.

Jetdesign

My Feedback: (8)

Death spiral = PARE

Power down,
Ailerons neutral,
Rudder to control,
Elevator to exit.

Gungadin

Death Spiral is the proper term. What happens is the angle of bank gets too steep and pulling back on the elevator stick only causes it to head toward the ground instead of going up as usual. As was mentioned the solution is to level the wings or at least decrease the angle of bank and then the airplane will go up instead of spiralling to the ground. I learned about this a long time ago and busted a couple of planes as a result. Usual scenario goes something like this. Flying around at full throttle and maybe the plane starts to get a little distance away so you can't see it real good. Then in an attempt to bring it back to a closer proximity we don't realize that the bank angle is about 90 deg. or more, so pulling back on the elevator stick just makes it spiral into the ground. Once the bank angle exceeds 90 deg. from horizontal, up elevator is now down elevator. I had to learn number 1, to not fly around at full throttle cause things happen faster in that mode. Number 2, not to fly to far away so I don't loose good eye contact, and number 3, don't be getting in a high bank angle situation. And when the airplane is flying at a slower speed and is not to far away I can see it better and it reacts slower and the whole death spiral scenario is avoided. That's been my experience anyway.

Villa

I wish they would stop selling these small J3-Cubs for other than just indoor use. I think it discourages many people from going further with this wonderful hobby. I have tried to help a few times with these planes. I am a very experienced flyer but will never again try to help someone with a small J3-Cub. They are way to squirly and underpowered for flying outdoors. I realize I'm painting this with a broad brush.

MetallicaJunkie

in my whole like ive never gotten into a "death spiral" with out throwing and holding them into the corners, and usually putting the sticks back to neutral straightened out everything, yeah ive had some mean stalls, and crazy high speed stalls that resuledt in a wicked snap.. Ive never flown a full fledged scale war bird which are more prone to death spiral though.... I would say properly balanced practical airplane that most of us fly arent prone to D.S., unless you overcorrect the stall all the way to the ground....lol

bkdavy

My Feedback: (1)

A common beginner mistake is overcontrolling, which as you now know can deepen a stalled condtion (which the death spiral is). The only way to recover from a stall is to increase airspeed. Any control input other than throttle will reduce airspeed. Therefore, the best way to exit any stalled condition is to increase throttle and remove all other control inputs. If the plane is now nose down, you can pull up gently to exit the dive. If the plane is flat spinning, hopefully removal of the control inputs and increased thrust will pull the plane out.

Brad

jaka

Hi!
Agree! The Parkzone CUB is totally useless for a newcomer as it flies so bad.

hugger-4641

My Feedback: (6)

I dissagree to some extent, I learned to fly on a Parkzone J-3 and still own several j-3bl. They are great flying little planes if kept in good shape and trimmed properly. I fly them outside all the time and even at night. Plenty of speed and power to pull loops or whatever and even fly inverted. But you are correct that they are not begginer friendly. That's probably why they are advertised as an intermediate plane, and not a begginer plane. I reccomend the Super Cub for begginers.

jaka

Hi!
It depends on what you compare them with...been flying for 32 years!

whiteout750

Thanks for all the great input! Looks like I did everything wrong starting with the plane itself. Not a plane for a newcomer and the 4ch version I have is just another channel to confuse! However, I think I can fly it at this point but not well enough to get too bold or overconfident for sure. Looks the death spiral is not totally uncommon. I have concluded mine was cuased by several factors. I was flying slow and too low at the time and tried to use the ailerons only to make a tight turn. wingtip got too high pulled back on the elevator too hard and started to spin. cut the throttle tried to correct with the ailerons (never touched rudder) and rode the spin into the ground. Could not have done much else wrong! No real damage some foam safe ca and its good to go. If nothing else this little plane is tuff! i'm calling it a learning experience and now thanks to the help I got here I at least know why it happened. Guess it's not really fair to blame the plane. Sure its not a good plane on a windy day or for a new flier but at least in my case it would now appear the plane did just what I asked to do! I asked it to stall and spiral and it did. Way to go little cub!