Brace of Scorpions

Built one of these Scorpions for my lad and ended up really liking the way the plane flies and built myself a brace of them.



Had been crashing heaps lately and it seemed I was finding a new way to crash every time I went flying. Past four trips of four filghts each, just flying these scorpions has been great and crash free.

When I was racing bikes there were a few periods where it seemed every time I practiced, qualified, or raced I found a new way to crash and Dad would make me practice on a week day for a few weeks between race meetings at the track with no pit board, no stop watches, and I had to focus on being smooth, clean and controlled. No steering in corners by wheel spinning and pushing the front wheel, no braking into corners with the back wheel in the air, no braking whilst cranked over, and definately no wheelstanding on the exits of corners whilst still cranked over. It worked. It made me go back to basics and get my head right again and when I started to push hard and do the other things again they would work without crashing all the time.

Flying the scorpions Ive been practicing flying flat and level at about 4 feet, doing loops and wingovers only. Ive been focusing on the wingovers being straight overhead, not inside or outside, straight overhead and with a pullout to level at approx 5 or six feet and going into the wingover from 5 or 6 feet. (42 ft steel lines)  With my loops Ive been focusing on looping and keeping the air speed constant through the loop and trying to get a nice round loop with an exit and entry point that are almost the same point. Another helpful thing has been the TD 049s on my Scorpions have been starting really easy and just reving really well and constant through the whole flight and keeping great tension on 42 ft lines so lots of sky to fly in. Having a really good engine that revs hard but constant makes a real difference to the ease of flying and I guess also your confidence as you can trust the engine will keep the line tension all the time.

I have never tried to clean my flying up before as I have always just flown on instinct and reflexes and I have now had 16 flights, no crashes and my flying is heaps cleaner and far more controlled. Now I hope just like I did on my bike, after a good lot of practice getting the basics correct, smooth and flowing, when I go back to doing the other things I will have more control and make a better go of it. Im sure I will still crash trying to fly inverted and doing eights but hopefully less often and with more regular successful inverted and eights.  I will also only try inverted and eights on days where the weather is good. No more trying to outfly lots of gusting wind.