Krazy Rolls
I’m reminded of Cliff Whitney’s email .sig. “When flying upside-down, down is up and up is expensive.” Well in my case, up just got me to improve my super-gluing skills. I was working on my rolls and tried doing fun stuff in the roll. I found that the following combination puts the plane into this wacky roll where (if done right) you barely lose any altitude and the plane looks… I don’t know… cool…:- Dive, then pull up to gain a little speed and an upward angle
– Hard turn right
– When the wing passes vertical, push the stick far-right and far-forward
– When the wing passes vertical again, push the stick far-right and far-back
– Flatten out and smile.
The plane doesn’t roll nearly as fast as just a hard turn. While it’s inverted, it gains a little altitude and it looks like the right wing (which is now on the left side) is being pulled up while the left wing is just sitting there. It looks pretty cool.
I was also working on getting really comfortable with inverted flight. I’m almost there! The Zagi keeps trying to right itself (which is a good safety release) so you have to fight it while upside-down and turning. I was trying to recover from a botched krazy roll; I tried to pull out inverted and…. well… I got my controls confused and drove straight into the ground at full throttle. The motor mount was smashed. I repaired it with superglue and that superglue quick-drying stuff.
Also, it was pretty cool when I dislodged my battery at about 100 feet. That happens when you’re inverted and wiggling a lot. Duh. The battery flew out like a throwing knife and stuck in the ground about 3″ deep. Cool. Happily, the controls were locked in a position where the plane wafted down like a piece of paper… back and forth… back and forth. Ploop.
Wow, I burned through 5 batteries today.