I live in a rural town and had to learn to fly by myself, without any help from an instructor. I've been flying my trainer now for about 4 months and can confidentally take off, fly around doing some rolls and loops, and then land again. I am in the process of building a corospit using the plans on the Spad to the bone website, however I have scaled mine up to suit a 61 size engine.

What I want to know is what flight charecteristics does a low wing plane have compared to a trainer? How will the spitfire handle during take off, flying, and landing, that is different from the trainer?
Someone once told me that spitfires are known to tip stall. What exactly is that and how can it be avoided?
I want to at least give myself every chance of succesfully flying the spitfire without crashing it.

Thanks in advance,

Troy.

I'm assuming that your trainer was trike gear. (Had a front wheel.) If so, the take offs with the spit will likely require use of rudder and elevator in ways that weren't required for your trainer.

For example; when taxiing, you will need to hold in soem up elevator to keep the tail on the ground (prevent nosing over). You will also need to hold up elevator when you start your take off roll. As speed builds, you will have to ease off on the elevator, which will likely cause the tail to come off the ground first. (You want this to happen.)

During the application of throttle during take off, the plane will likely also try to turn to the left, sometimes almost violently. You will need to stay ahead of this tendency by feeding in right rudder. (Be careful, if the plane gets ahead of you it will turn left, then right, then left. It will get worse, not better, so shut down throttle and try again from a dead stop.)

Once the tail is up, and the plane is tracking straight down the runway and you reach "flying speed" just a bit of up elevator should get it off the ground. Do NOT try to yank it off the ground with elevator before it's ready. The plane will most likely stall and roll off to one side, then into the ground.

Tip stalls are what happens when the 'tip' of one wing loses lift earlier than the root of that wing. When that happens, that wing tip will usually drop quickly, the plane will roll to that side, and often dive straight into the ground if you don't have enough altitude.

Tip stalls happen when the plane is flying too slowly for the wing. I'm not sure if the Corospit will have this tendency. Coro planes are quite different than 'normal' planes.

To avoid a tip stall in the air, be careful to keep your spped up, especially in "downwind" turns, such as turning onto base during a landing.

You can build wash out into the wings to help prevent tip stalls. (The trailing edge of each wingtip should be raised a bit during construction.) This helps prevent the tip from stalling before the root.

All from me.
Good luck,
Dennis-

Thanks heaps Dennis for that explanation on what I can expect. I must admit now I am more nervous about flying this thing. My trainer was a trike and I have never flown a tail dragger before.
I think I might have to have a few practice runs without taking off just to get the feel of it.

Thanks again,

Troy.

another way to practice landings low wing err try to land ur high wing at a higher speed.. .. i might be wrong but thats how i learnt

Troy,
Two or three practice runs is a good idea. Not all taildraggers are squirrely on the ground, so you might not even see much difference, but I wanted you to be prepared in case.

AND, if your landing gear is far enough forward (wheels at the wings leading edge at minimum), then the whole 'holding in elevator at the start of your take off' thing might not be so critical.

I didn't mean to scare you, because 75% of taildraggers really aren't much more difficult than a trike, they're just a bit different. (My explanation makes it sound harder than it usually is.)

As Ragfrost mentioned, landings often need to be a bit faster, again, depends on the plane. The Corospit may be a bit heavier though, therefore requiring a bit more speed.

The only other thing I'd mention; IF the plane is prone to nosing over on the ground, you'll also have to play with the elevator when landing. ie, once it's on the ground, up elevator will be required to keep the tail planted (like during takeoff).

Post your experiences once she's flying. I'm curious to hear how it does on the ground.
Dennis-

Well I feel a bit better now Dennis. I am still building the plane so will make sure the wheels are closer to the LE.
I will post a report once I do fly it but it might be another month before I get everything that I need to finish it off.

thanks again,

Troy.

Hi troyp, low wing planes tend to be faster and more responsive than high wing planes. They are easier to fly than a trainer once you get used to them because they are able to ignore the wind much better than high wing planes. I find low wing planes easier to land because they have a steady, predictable decent rate and the plane won't suddenly jump up in the air or turn on you because a gust of wind hits it. Low wing planes do require a bit faster steady landing speed however. Don't try to slow it down to a crawl like a trainer or the plane will suddenly stop, turn and drop to the ground. When you are about a foot over the ground start pullling on the elevator stick to keep the nose up. Keep pulling until you are at full elevator and hold it there until the plane has stopped moving. This will keep the plane from nosing in on you on landing. Best of luck and keep us informed. FGast!

more carefully than you fly a trainer. i suggest you wait more than 4 months. wait until you can torque roll it in your sleep

I had no problems whatsoever transitioning from trainer to a Kyosho Spitfire and a Great Planes JU-87 Stuka, basically, just worry about what people said, up elevator till ready to take off, and stay on the rudder, isnt much different really.

Make sure gear is forward enough, if ona grass field like me, nose overs on landing are too easy with gear back to far.

Mill

This all applies whether the plane is high wing or low wing.

I agree with some of what Dennis said, but not all of it.

The "problems" you need to look out for aren't really caused by the wing location, they are caused by the fact that the wing is tapered, the wingloading is higher, and the airfoil is different, plus a handful of other issues like tail size and location etc.

Coro planes fly exactly like balsa contrary to what Dennis said, so don't worry about what the plane is made out of.

Wingloading is the weight of the airplane divided by the area of the wing, usually in oz per sq foot. What happens is that as the wingloading goes up, the airfoil has to work harder to produce enough lift to stay in the air. This translates to needing to fly faster. (I'm glossing over details here). So, your trainer can fly nice and slow espeically on take off and landing. The spitfire will need to be going faster to take off, and can not slow down as much to land. The result of going to slow is frequently as mentioned above, you stall, and sometimes drop a wing and your plane heads for the ground. Most trainers have a very low wingloading, while more acrobatic planes tend to have higher wingloadings.

Early on flying your spit, I recommend you go way up high, get in to level flight, then pull back the power and add in up elevator to try to maintail level flight. Eventually you will stall. Note what happens, if the plane drops the nose straight ahead, or falls off on a wing. And more importantly, note how fast the plane is going when it happens. Compare that speed to your trainer, and you will get an idea of how much faster you need to be to take off and land.

The higher airspeed requirements are the single biggest difference you will see. Beyond that, the spit will not self-right itself like a trainer, so you may find that you have to pay more attention to it than your trainer. And since it is flying faster, you will have to think farther ahead of the plane.

Just for the record, I never mentioned the wing location as making any difference to flight characteristics. He asked about the possible differences in flying his low wing Corospit vs his trainer and I tried to give him some of the possibilities to watch for.

Coro MAY fly just like balsa, but from everything I've read, Coro is heavier than balsa, which raises the wing loading. Correct?

So I essentially explained the potential problems without giving him a lesson in aerodynamics. (Figure he has pletny of time to learn all that. )

P-51B,
I disagree. Take off and landing procedures for tail draggers are different than trikes.
Dennis-

I fly a P-51 and on take off add about 5-10 degrees of flap. On landings if your not sure, come in with 15-20 degrees of flap but at an 'attempted' landing, just to get the feel of your bird.

Keep the altitude up, so if you do tip stall you'll have some recovery time to increase throttle, decrease flaps and fly out. This is how I practiced my approaches (about 100 feet above active), until I was confident with the characteristics of my plane.

If I stalled, I had enough room to recover. Once I was sure what speed to maintain, what angle of decent to come in at, and the flap setting, the landings were a breeze.

Again, ALTITUDE is our friend. It you’re uncomfortable with 100ft, regardless of the plane you fly, increase the distance form terra ferma (Mother Earth). I practiced with my second plane (4*60) and would purposely try to tip stall/stall her (at high, forgiving altitude) but really got to know the flight characteristics.

Food for thought, just know your plane.

The problem is I dont have flaps.....

Troy...basically there are 3 things that help make any model easy to take off, fly and land.
These are....
1. Low wing loading
2. Low wing loading
3. Low wing loading


A rule of thumb for positioning the main wheels of a taildragger is to have a 15 degree angle between the vertical CG of the model and the point where the wheels contact the ground. Too far back and it'll tend to nose over, too far forward and it'll bounce on landing.