How do I do it? I'm a pretty competent pilot but having trouble with mastering the prop hang using my Extreme. Is there a special technique I'm missing?

Yeah- it's like the instructions for the Morris Su-Do-Khoi say; point plane up, adjust throttle and there you are in a nice, stable hover. Hmmmmmm :-)

There are a few steps you can take to ease the way.... balance the plane laterally as well as fore / aft. Balance the plane with the CG back as far as possible. Personally, I balance a plane so that it doesn't require any elevator changes when flying upright or inverted but some call this tail-heavy. You will almost certainly need a bit of right thrust offset if this is a ~.40 size plane, perhaps 1 to 3 degrees. This will help prevent the left wing from dropping all the time while in the hover.

The last step is practice. It's not all that easy to hold a stable hover. Bring the plane in low and about as slow as possible, let it pass you and then pull back on the elevator and give it a shot of power (throttle). This should bring the nose up. Try to back off the throttle some before the plane accelerates upwards. You will almost surely need some right rudder in the hover and this will have to be adjusted constantly. I fly mode (2) and it took quite a while to teach my left hand how to be gentle, accurate and quick on the rudder (sort of like writing with the 'wrong' hand, at least it was for me).

Once you are good and frustrated, practice some more. It took me (4) planes and 10 months to learn how to hover but I'm tenacious :-)

Best of luck,
Brian    http://members.cox.net/bdfelice

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