Tips for doing slow rolls

[scotty82]

Hi all,

I am going to enter my first F3C competition in about 6 weeks time. I am going in the advanced class.

I have to do a slow roll which is a minimum of 3 seconds duration in forward flight.

My flybar N9 will be used for this comp as FBL is not allowed. I run at 1900 on the head. -/+10 in pitch and 8 deg cyclic. I use a linear pitch curve and run a gov. I have 20% expo on all controls.

I am getting them corkscrewed and struggle to keep them straight. I can do stationary rolls pretty good. I know I am getting collective timing wrong. Do I need to be going faster in forward flight?

Does anyone have any tips please?

Thanks.

[Shane Butler]

The usual mistake I see for rolls is that most do not hold negative pitch for long enough or use too much. It is harder than it looks but looks so much nicer than eye bluring speeds. Difficult to say though without seeing it. Most of all it is just practice.

[RyanW]

I don't know about slow flying rolls, but on stationary rolls and flips the key is to think about it doing a mini loop or sideways loop in the case of a roll. If you think about trying to keep the helicopter's rotor disc perfectly stationary or at the exact altitude with a flying roll, you will usually end up porpoising up and down through upright and inverted.