A guy at our field today was flying his ROO powere d by a JetCat P80. He was doing lots of vertical passes and at one time almost came to a stop vertically then pushed hard over to get the nose to come down. The nose did infact come down but continued down and actually back around...a tumble type of thang...He could not get the ROO to stop doing this...he added full power in hopes of flying out of it but the nose just hung there while the ROO continued to spin and flop...finally I am sad to say ... it ended in a turbine shut down prior to entering the forest and impacting a larged tree. The plane is perched 75ft up and will be rescued tommorrow morning. So tell me what needs to be done to recover from this aggrivated stall condition. Power to idle did nothing either but watch the nose rise.


Thanks
Scott

If the plane is not tail heavy, in that the cg is correct,
he went into the chicken flop which is usually followed
by a flat spin. To get out the power must bereduced
to idle, alow the nose to drop (force with elevator/
rudder), add power to obtain flying speed and pull
up to level flight. If your plane is nose heavy it is much
easier to come out, the nose drops as soon as the
power is removed.

Johnny

Thats scary! do bobcat, topcat type planes do this too?
Thanks

Roo removed from tree. Needs Rt wing and both vertical stabs. He says it will fly again soon but no more verticals to a stall.

Hi Scott:

Johnny's comments are right on. CG location is key on the HotSpot and Roo. I had to move the CG 1" ahead of the recommended forward CG to get the nose to consistently drop on my HotSpot. My flying buddy has a Roo that he chicken flops, and he uses a forward CG there as well. Both the Roo and HS still flare fine when landing, as long as you burn off most of your fuel.

If the CG is too far back, after speed decay to zero or near zero on a vertical upline, or following an outside snap on the vertical, both planes will flop onto their back, pancake flat, with little or no rotation. Power on with the Roo with it's high thrust line will start the flopping on the pitch axis. Power on with the Hotspot with just a little rudder will lead to the flattest spin you have seen. At this point, you are in deep doo-doo unless power off--full up--and full rudder== in the direction of rotation seems to work best== gets the nose down, but don't count on it. BobCats and Bandits recover very well since they are a true 3 axis planes. The elevon mixing leaves allot to be desired when trying to recover from spins, either flat or nose down.

If you get the CG forward, then it is just a matter of cutting power, pulling full up elevator till the nose drops====don't forget to release the up as soon as the nose drops or you will enter an upright spin which is hard to stop due to the momentum of the rotating heavy engine and lack of rudder power=== then power up pulling out of the dive.

The masters of these maneuvers are Dennis Lott and his sons with the Roo, and Jason Somes with the HS, BobCat, and Bandit. All of these guys are on RCU. When done right, these maneuvers add allot of pizzaz to the flight profile--not just stuck in the round n' round, bank and yank mode. And like all Lomcevak maneuvers, the departures are always different depending on power settings, angle of the upline, and entry speed, so no 2 ever look exactly the same.

I am going to try to capture some mpegs of our Roo and HS with my digi camera and try to post them on my picture site in the near future. I might be able to add them to the JetCat USA site, similar to Joe's vectored thrust videos if Bob has room.

Tom

That would be Dennis Lott, and his two sons Paul, and William. When they have a Roo......they chicken flop a LOT! Dennis can tell you a lot about the CG location as well as he experimented with it quite a bit.

David Reid

Maybe he should change his name from "Dennis" to "Floppa".

Floppa Lott .... get it ? Oh, never mind.

As long as he didn't marry someone with a first name of Ivana, and a middle name of Humpa, then I guess all is well.

Gordon

As the pilot in question, yes it was pretty scary. Luckly Scott was there to remind me to shut down the turbine when it went in and he and another friend, Ben, helped me find it. Damage was minor considering...

Both Scott and I have had our airplanes (his was a HS) depart with less than favorable results. I for one plan on leaving the tumbling stuff to my Extra and Diabloic and let the 'Roo do what it does best - go fast and turn left!

Hi David:

My fingers were in overdrive and my brain was in park----Dennis vs Paul.


Tom