Rudder: You MAY Be Using It Wrong. Here's Why.

If you've enjoyed Rudder: You May Be Using It Wrong. Here's Why. - consider liking and subscribing!

What's that rudder for, anyways? We all know the folks in the RC airplane community who only use their rudder for taxiing and never fly in a crosswind. We'd love to change that mindset and hope this video helps folks with their directional control about the yaw axis in order to prevent an RC crash. Let's forward slip while flying RC planes and take a look at what the folks mean when they talk about things like; side slips to landing, forward slips, cross control, and many other fun topics such as aerobatics/3D flying that incorporate the rudder. We hope this RC Rudder 101 video is helpful for everyone learning how to fly RC!

Our educational videos are written and narrated by Zach - our full-scale professional pilot & instructor who brings both his real-world and RC experience into our videos. This script was also reviewed and given two thumbs up by many fellow full scale and RC pilots, as well as an FAA designated examiner and some aerospace engineers. We hope you found it fun and informational and learned from it as well! 😁

What's your favorite rudder intensive maneuver? Let us know! 🛩☁

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Happy Landings! Fly outside the box. 📦✈

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Intro: 0:00-1:07
Adverse Yaw: 1:07-2:53
Coordinated Turns: 2:53-3:12
Intro to Slips and Skids: 3:12-3:27
Skidding Turns: 3:27-4:47
Intro to Slipping Turns: 4:47-5:16
Forward Slips: 5:16-6:46
Intro to Side Slips: 6:46-7:10
Crabbing : 7:10-7:46
Side Slips: 7:46-8:44
Extra Rudder Goodies: 8:44-9:09
Outro: 9:09-9:53

[Coops]

I love how you combine full size and rc model flying. I recently got my light sport license after some years of rc flying. My RC experience has been very helpful in understanding how my Legend Cub flies. (I also have a world beater CFI too!) Love your work!!!

[stephensowell]

This reminds me of years ago when, at the flying field, our longtime club president mentioned he hardly ever used a rudder input. This got me rethinking using the rudder more, improving my overall enjoyment of it. Much later, during flight instruction In a 150 Cessna in Fairfield, MT, using the rudder all the time, especially during the landing approach. Now Fairfield, MT, is close to the east side of the great divide, and the wind blows strongly from the SW most of the time. For reasons unknown, the main landing strip runs SE to NW, and strongly induced side slip was mandatory. This experience improved RC's enjoyment even more. Thanks for that instruction.

[Dagsmasher]

Exactly what I needed, now i can crab rave on the rc field

[ishigamiyu]

your channel is so underrated when you make such quality videos. please keep producing! I'm sure your channel will blow up soon!

[natecougoule]

Been flying for 10 years and people always ask what is adverse yaw and I always try to explain but they never understand but now I will point them to this video. Love what you guys are doing keep it up

[lamborghiniespada]

Please make a video about flaps! Especially about which planes need upwards flaps and which need downwards flaps.

[flyingmonkey]

OMG! 😂 I’m sharing this everywhere!! The production quality on this is BANGING!! Props to your editor

[ediflyer]

Excellent video! Such a great mix of RC and full size examples and edited very well! Subscribed! Hopefully you do a video on using throttle and pitch to perfect a landing. Thanks!

[kreech]

This was a change from the usual "mostly humor" to a "mostly teaching" video, with plenty of humor (and fun clips) thrown in - I'll watch this a bunch of times and go practice those landings - thank you

[moonmullins]

Best RC flying advice ever, I stress it all the NO R/C pilot listens. Watch 95% of RC plane takeoffs on YouTube and on the initial turn after takeoff every tail sags No rudder input.

[tonydeaton]

I wish you would slow down the pace of the video. Extremely informative and some of the absolute best rc flying I've seen anywhere.

[washburnb]

This is super helpful for rudder use, but also all control subtleties. Thanks.

[carnagefpv]

When I first learned how to slip my FMS supercub I went crazy with. There's a driveway all the way around our field, and I flew 3 or 4 packs around it, on the ground😂 I would alternate between wheels, but never really went up in the air. These shenanigans continued for months because driving a cub around is way more fun than flying it lol. This is with headtracking FPV and a decent bump in power over factory of course, but still, one of the most satisfying things I ever learned.

[LowVoltage_FPV]

I've been flying fixed wing rc for almost 20 years but never really used the rudder other then on the ground. However the last couple of years I have gotten into fpv quadcopters. As you know with quads you use a lot of "rudder" to control your direction.
I have noticed that I use the rudder on my fixed wing planes much more. I look back to how I used to fly and I realize I have been doing un coordinated turns all these years. I recognize how the plane looks and can adjust rudder correctly to keep turns coordinated.

[clopetrone]

Not related to R/C but I can talk about free flight model airplanes which used rudder and stab tilt for turns (tip weight for tip launch gliders), there's lots of things to do other than using rudder like wing washin and washout, etc to prevent "death spirals" (that's even more important for free flight hand launch gliders (HLG) and catapult launch gliders (CLG)). "Death spirals" is when the glider starts to bank more and more, that's decreased the vertical lift then it dives gaining more speed and rudder even banks it more causing dives and crashes. Also rudder is important for free flight gliders transition (transition from launch to glide) too.

[dandanthedandan]

Great video. That was fun to watch. Maybe I'm in the minority here but on super windy days in NC (20+ mph), my absolute favorite planes to fly in those conditions are the UMX Timber or Delta Ray One. Both handle it like a champ and backwards flying is easily achievable. I also enjoy flying the F-27 Evolution in heavy winds. You don't even notice the winds with that wing. Many RC pilots stay home on windy days. Embrace it and fly something fun in the wind but not necessarily your nicest plane. Wind equals fun!

[jonowillmer]

I've watched this video so many times now, the more i learn the more get out of it each time i watch it. Thank you for putting in so much effort to your videos.

[jlester]

Great video and explanation!
What's weird is that I started flying RC with rudder only. 1 channel. I even learned to do rolls and loops with rudder only !
And a few decades later got back into RC, and almost never touch rudder.
Now I'm trying to learn to use the rudder more. Dang near want to go back to 3 channels; LOL. Stopped using a mix for coordinated turns. Having fun with flat turns. And learning to do 1 wheel touch & goes. It's like starting over, but doing it the right way.

[genrcflyer]

Learning to fly helicopters on the simulator really helped me get an understanding of using rudder when flying airplanes.

[Taboloncawonthemasters]

I always used rudder naturally when I first started out. The actually fly just like a fpv race drone(stick input wise for a turn). The left stick always follows the right stick (speaking in the terms of yaw follows the direction of the way you are rolling) so it translated into me naturally. Although I did just wreck the mess out of my 1.2m p-51d cripes 😢 my own error. But also coming from drones I know crashing is apart of the game and you won’t get those flying skills like we want if we are too scared to push ourselves! Cheers!