H9 Taylorcraft

[nickbrotherton]

Hi folks,

New to this review site forum but not new to flying and need some help please!
I flew this lovely model once and it was a bit slow, (Zenoah 20 petrol with a 15x8 prop). I was advised to fit a larger prop so i fitted a 16x8 and on the second flight it seemed much better. I did a roll then a loop into wind and at the top of the loop the wing dropped putting the plane into a nasty spin.
I thought if I just let go of the sticks it will correct itself - nope. I throttled back in the hope of slowing its plummet to earth and giving me more recovery time but it just continued spinning down till it hit the ground, stick inpuits had no effect whatsoever.
After recovering the bits (surprisingly few), it was decided that it would easily be repaired which I am now doing.
I need a new cowl and spats and its basically a rebuild of the front end from the windscreen forward. It will fly again but I'm worried that the same thing will happen again so please can someone advise me if this was a stall or perhaps something else? The radio was all OK when I reconnected the battery (which fell out on impact). Heavy duty switches and battery was still showing a charge.
Radio is DX7 with an AR7000 receiver. How fast should these planes be flown into a loop? (I dont recall flying too slow but maybe I was).

Thanks
Nick

[pushinoldrc]

This definitely sounds like a stall to me. Having been there, done that, I have found myself holding up elevator all the way to the ground, further inducing the stalled condition. Full scale stall/spin recovery involves getting the air moving across the control surfaces again in a manner that they become effective, i.e. low angle of attack. Generally you want to pull the throttle back, push a little opposite rudder (probably the only effective control surface) to stop the spin, then add a little throttle to increase the airspeed across the other control surfaces while GENTLY adding up elevator. Please be aware that the aircraft can easily stall again, as it has just started flying again.
I am not very good at this, as I tend to crash lots of airplanes due to various stupid mistakes, but I have been able to recover from a spin on an RC that was supposed to have 'nasty spin characteristics'.
Hopefully others will comment to correct my false beliefs, or maybe agree with me.
Bryan

[nickbrotherton]

Thanks for that Bryan. I have rebuilt the plane and she will soon be flown again but this time much more carefully! (and with someone watching over me who is more experienced with larger petrol powered models).
Nick

[disco stu]

Yeah, it was a spin. Recovery techniques on full sized is once on its plummet to earth, full opposite rudder to the direction of the spin and ease the stick forwards till the spinning stops. Ease her up, assuming enough height for it. Otherwise get it the hell up however you can Broken plane better than a broken plane and broken you

Never had the pleasure while flying RC to experience a spin yet, but still fairly new to it. Pushinoldrc was pretty mcuh on the money, though I would give it a lot more rudder. THe idea of the rudder is to increase the effective airspeed of the stalled wing (hence opposite to spin direction) to get it flying again, so jamming that over should be the way. The airframe should handle no problem

[Stroman1]

You might consider moving the CG ahead a bit. A friend had an old DeBolt Jenny that was impossible to stop spinning until CG was moved forward.
Good Luck,
Stroman