How to Square loop

Hi friends
I have a profile Cardinal. straight.light enough to stunt.
I can get 5 second laps.
I am struggling to learn square loops.
the first 2 corners are OK. When I go inverted I have a very old
habit of turning my hand over flat with palm up.
This makes the 3rd corner tricky..........always too tight very
high pull-outs and no 4th corner.
Is it worth trying to break the habit so my hand stays
in the upright position or is there a better way please......anybody
( 63 year old beginner to stunt !)

Vincent Corwell

Vincent, glad you asked this question. I'm having the same problem-doing square loops with round backs! Help!

Yeah. Me too! mine look more like a lumpy letter "D"

Mine was a squared off "figure 9" last Friday. The SkyRay may be "done for" this time.

SK

HI Vince. I too am 63 and now all it takes is intense concentration. At our age it is just a woid! Ha.
Any how, do make it a point to not change your hand position. Snap your wrist as you come across the top. I usually count "one, two" for each leg of the square. The speed in each leg is pretty much the same for me and each leg will be very close to the same size. It takes guts to do those first square loops, but once you get the third leg, the bottom isn't all that hard. Wait for the outside squares ! I assume you do the reverse wing overs and inside and outside round loops and inverted flight? Ty M.

Man!!! Someone gave me advice as to how many planes I would need to learn these stunt pattern...3....After reading these posts, I think I am going to use 10...LOL!!

Made many Fox 35 shaped holes at Ala Moana park working on square corners. Still challanged and been through more than 10 ships!

Yes, Learn to fly with the handle straight up. Try practising lazy 8's, then more. Think of the handle as a joystick in the cockpit of a real airplane.Pull back(up), push for down. Rewverse for inverted.....

I think turning the handle is not relevant to this maneuver. Do what you feel comfortable with!

Square loops look like D's for a long time, sometimes they NEVER get squared off very well.

But with enough practice, eventually your reflexes will train up and your squares will look squarer. Also, you will get on friendlier terms with your airplane, and learn to trust it to pull out.

Squares can show up the true flying capabilities of an airplane as well as the abilities of the pilot. It takes very good timing to do them well, and well as a precise control to avoid bobbling.

Once you get over that part on the outside squares where you point the ship straight down, fly toward the ground, pull out smoothly (inverted) at 5 foot, etc. !

Good luck.

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"Americans will always do the right thing - after they have exhausted every other possibility." -Winston Churchill

LOL...I am glad I am not the only one having this problem. I can make a good D shape square...........sometimes, but most of the time it turns out to be a triangle, hexagon, parallelagram, trapazoid, or some other weird geometrical shape. I got to laughing at myself so hard the other day that I fell down in the middle circle about half way through the flight. I flew figure 8 setting on my butt for about 30 second then got up and finished the flight. LOL

I've noticed Ted Fancher flies palm up when inverted so it must be possible to get good corners this way.

Fly big, very big, and pull out higher (maybe 10' instead of 5), untill you get comfortable with pitching the plane into the vertical on the down leg. You want to learn how to establish the flats, or straight parts, and get the feel for the plane rotating through a corner and establishing a straight flight path before the next corner. Flying big gives you the time to do this. Once you become comfortable with both the concept of a leg of the maneuver aimed straight at the ground, and also become comfortable with a cadence of turns and flats,you will be flying a recognizable square with minimal D shape. ( I count to myself: one! annnnnd 2! annnnnd3 etc. Each drawn out "and" is the level or straight portion, and each number is when I pop the corner.)

Really, all the maneuvers are easy if you fly them big. The expert is the pilot who can make them small, precise and at 5'.

And I'm no expert, I'm just a lowly advanced flier. There will be other posts from more qualified people later I'm sure. But the technique I posted worked for me, at least to advanced....

I'm just getting started at the squares. Like you, Steve, I use the one and two and routine. I don't mind going straight down, do it all the time in wingovers. I'm just too slow on the mental trigger at this point to get all the corners in. I think on the first few I tried with the Pathfinder, I was so amazed that it did the manuever that I stood there and forgot to do the rest of the corners!

Flying big while learning is a help.
Personally, the cadence/timing idea only works when it is nearly calm. What do you do when the wind picks up and the down leg takes half the time of the the up leg?
Better idea is to frame up the maneuver in the sky, in your mind. Then fly the model from turn to turn.

How you follow the model with your hand, how you hold your hand, and how you put in the control input(wrist or elbow, or both) all greatly affect the flight path. Ted Fanchers idea of "drawing the maneuver" with your arm is a good start. Hand position affects it too. When the model is diving vertically holding your hand upright has a tendency to feed in up as the model dives(many folks forget to follow the plane with their hand, so the model dives below their hand, giving up, and rounding off the corner).

>I've noticed Ted Fancher flies palm up when inverted so it
>must be possible to get good corners this way.

So does Richard Oliver and both seem to be able to rack up pretty good scores at the Nats.

Do they do it during the squares, though, and during the triangle?

I wonder how many Combat fliers do this.. I know I don't... if I did, my wrist would be constantly spinning..

Holding the handle straight or turning it palm up is a personal preference and if it's become automatic after flying for long enough you WILL crash if you try to alter it. I fly palm up and it's an automatic cue that the controls are reversed. One thing I've found is to never try to analyse your hand movements through any manoeuvre because that can lead to disaster. I'm fairly certain though that as I start the 3rd corner I'm giving up and rotating my hand back to the normal position at the same time. Then I'm simply doing the last half of the dive from a wingover because mentally I break the squares into either parts of a wingover or a bit of inverted flying. I'm 60 BTW, not that it matters

Little anecdote on early "square" figures for Tools.

Judy (my wife): "Honey, how come all these guys are getting such high scores with herky jerky figures, when all of yours are so smooth?"

Me (at a local contest): "Well, Honey, about half of them are supposed to be 'square', complete with sharp corners."

Judy: "Oh, nevermind..."

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