Handle with bias caused crash of my Vector ?

[Han Slaats]

Having lost my Vector on its 9th flight I want to share my experience and a possible hypothesis for the crash.
I flew stunt a long time ago and picked it up again just recently; I never doubted I would still be able to fly. A very dangerous attitude !
I built a Vector 40 with an Evo 36 in it.
To get the engine running properly (the Evo has a very high spray bar location) I had to elevate the back of the tank by 1/4 inch and I changed the Bolly 11.25x4 into an APC 11x5: that gave me a perfect engine run and the plane was hanging on the lines beatyfully.
Initial maneuvers had not shown any aerodynamic problems, other than some sluggishness on outside loops. I attributed that to pilot inexperince, and never gave it a second thought...
Full of confidence I went into the wing over and crashed it on the transition into inverted flight: obviously pilot error, but I was left with a feeling that the plane was not responding fully to my "down" control.
In a phone call with Randy Smith he asked me what kind of handle I was using: a Tom Morris handle with wrist bias. His immediate reaction was to stay away from such handles because they cause insensitivity to "down" control!

Has anybody had similar experiences with such handles ?

HAn Slaats
 

[Brett Buck]

Having lost my Vector on its 9th flight I want to share my experience and a possible hypothesis for the crash.
I flew stunt a long time ago and picked it up again just recently; I never doubted I would still be able to fly. A very dangerous attitude !
I built a Vector 40 with an Evo 36 in it.
To get the engine running properly (the Evo has a very high spray bar location) I had to elevate the back of the tank by 1/4 inch and I changed the Bolly 11.25x4 into an APC 11x5: that gave me a perfect engine run and the plane was hanging on the lines beatyfully.
Initial maneuvers had not shown any aerodynamic problems, other than some sluggishness on outside loops. I attributed that to pilot inexperince, and never gave it a second thought...
Full of confidence I went into the wing over and crashed it on the transition into inverted flight: obviously pilot error, but I was left with a feeling that the plane was not responding fully to my "down" control.
In a phone call with Randy Smith he asked me what kind of handle I was using: a Tom Morris handle with wrist bias. His immediate reaction was to stay away from such handles because they cause insensitivity to "down" control!

Has anybody had similar experiences with such handles ?
 

   I haven't crashed from it, but yes, of course, having the grip or handle with significant forward bias tends to create slow outside turn response. It's been extensively discussed here and on SSW over the years. There are those who use a significant handle bias successfully, but from doing it myself for years (until I learned better) and diagnosing other people's problems, I think it's a mistake. In fact, if asked, I suggest *everyone* to break themselves of the habit of the "relaxed grip".

      Brett

[RandySmith]

"His immediate reaction was to stay away from such handles because they cause insensitivity to "down" control!""

Han

My statement was not directed only  at Tom Morrris handles, but at "any " handle  that has a large overhang difference either ,top\bottom  or  bottom \top, As I told you this will make for a big difference in "stick pressure" that you feel. And will make either up or down harder to turn, especially in the winds. I can notice 1\8 of an inch movement as a huge added, or subtracted , pressure difference on inside vs outside turns when I move handle overhang.
Best thing you can do is keep everything as equal as possible.

It is not a deal breaker to have a little tilt ,up or down in your handle, but having one leg moved out much farther than the other is. worse thing you can do is have differant overhang top to bottom, the plane will simply NOT turn when wind loads it up on the leg that has more overhang. So stay away from that type of setup on your handle and keep the overhang as short as you can get comfortable with.

Regards
Randy

[Lee Thiel]

I was having the same type of problem on outside loops when I came back into control line.  Finally figured out that I was not following the plane with my hand and arm, I was just using up and down movements with my wrist.  On an outside loop, the close to the ground the plane came, the less down I was giving. My hand and arm was still at about 45 degrees when the plane was at say 20 degrees.  Does that make sense to anyone but me?
Lee TGD 

[Randy Powell]

I used a handle canted forward for years without issue. The pivot of the handle was perpendicular to the lines and so the fulcrum for line movement was the same as a regular vertical grip, EZ-just type layout. I've since gone to a vertical handle, but I never had any problems with the 10° or so canted forward unit.

[Paul Taylor]

Yes, I had the same experence with my Twister.
There are some people that swear by them. I say fly what feels right for you.

I no longer fly with a bias handle just because they do not feel right for me.

[Dave Adamisin]

Flew my entire career with an 8 deg handle and never noticed any bias. Maybe because I grew up with it. Also. my handle had equal length posts with the grip tilted 8 deg. If the posts are different lengths maybe that causes the bia feel. ??

[Scott B. Riese]

Up is up and down is down....The plane don't care.
It's all muscle memory...OR handle time.
I fly with bias about 6-8 degrees.
EVERYONE should find their own feel or comfort zone.
If I fly someone elses plane, I always use one of MY handles. HABBIT

[Dennis Adamisin]

Hans:
First off WELCOME to Stunt Hanger!

You mentioned that you are a returning flyer; is your new handle similar to your old?

 

[Dave Adamisin]

Up is up and down is down....The plane don't care.
It's all muscle memory...OR handle time.
I fly with bias about 6-8 degrees.
EVERYONE should find their own feel or comfort zone.
If I fly someone elses plane, I always use one of MY handles. HABBIT

Stated much clearer that I did. 

[SteveMoon]

Baloney. The Morris handle is biased in the grip, not in the overhang.
Make a fist with your hand right now. You'll notice that your knuckles
are not straight up and down. I have flown many a plane at many a
contest with a bias grip handle, and I have also flown many without.
In this case it is very doubtful the handle would cause a crash.

Later, Steve

[Brett Buck]

Up is up and down is down....The plane don't care.
It's all muscle memory...OR handle time.
I fly with bias about 6-8 degrees.
EVERYONE should find their own feel or comfort zone.

   That's what I used to think, too. Until I finally listened to people who were consistently beating me, changed, and suddenly, I noticed a lot more trophies in the back of my car. And if you need "handle time" to adjust to something, you are making a big mistake.

     Brett

[Larry Cunningham]

The human body adapts beautifully, and trains to work with what it has. But it takes awhile.

This is why when you pick up a friend's handle to fly his ship, it feels so clearly foreign. If your
neutral position gets tweaked slightly without your knowledge, you'll insist that your ship is
suddenly trying to climb or dive on you.

For awhile, I was getting weekly cast changes on my foot and lower leg. Each new cast was somehow
different, and some of them were just terrible (say, wrong ankle position). In every case, in a day
or two, I adjusted and could walk (with difficulty) and get around. Each cast change, including
removing the cast, left me barely able to walk, with my previous adaptation "programming" in place
for awhile. (I can imagine how well it works for a young, fit, healthy person with decent reflexes.)

That said, my personal opinion is that what's perfect for a pistol grip may not be ideal for a control line
handle. Just operate your wrist vertically, and you'll see that it is less symmetrical with your palm tilted
forward.

Bart Klapinsky (a guy who can instantly adapt to almost any handle) once told me that the best handle overall
was the simple old EZ-Just.

L.

PS - Brett, you keep your trophies in the back of your car? Where do you keep your model airplanes? 

"Gigantic Bloated Gluttonous Greedy Grasping Maw of The System" -memo on my tax penalty check to NM IRS last April

[john e. holliday]

The verticle grip handles is what I learned CL on.  Even the little fibre board handles that used to be in 1/2A kits.  I have tried the biased handles and don't like them.  It just doesn't feel right.  Everyone has there own feel.  DOC Holliday

[Han Slaats]

Thanks everybody for your thoughts; the handle is obviously an integral part of trimming, something I did not appreciate fully, but certainly do now !

My old handle is a flimsy affair (no bias) that almost disappers in my hand. Since belcranks are much larger nowadays and full up-down travel is much farther than on my old ships I decided it was time to join the modern world and get me a fully adjustable handle. In doing so, I apparently missed all the discussion about handles that can be found on the forum; my mistake...

Han Slaats

[George]

From some of the previous discussions online, I got the impression that whether you need a bias handle or not depends on where you hold your handle. If you hold it high...like so you can sight down the lines, you do NOT want a bias handle. If you hold the handle low. say near your waist-line, you should be using bias.

By holding your hand in YOUR normal flying position, while holding a stick, you can see if you need bias by moving your wrist so you can get equal movement of up and down, then note if the stick is off from verticle. Of course, this assumes that you have a normal range of hand movement.

I hold my hand a bit low and like the Tom Morris handle...but then, I'm not a great flyer either. 

George

[Alan Hahn]

Here's my 2 cents--and please don't take it wrong.

I think you crashed your plane. 

My guess is that you simply tried to do a "rule book" wingover, and didn't quite make the pull out. This was due partly with being unfamiliar with the equipment, but also your plane itself may not be turning outsides as well as inside (that's a flap and elevator trim issue). Yes the handle biases against the outside, but that's also because a lot of us are built towards an outside bias in the first place.

My advice (for next time) is to take it a little slower, do your first stunts a bit higher up, until you regain the familiarity with CL flying. Heck, even for me (by no means a "great" pilot), my first flight every spring is with pull outs much higher than even my normal high pullout!

[Ward Van Duzer]

I didn't see anywhere in here where anyone advised the gentleman to adjust his "down" line to tighten up his outside turns. Thats one of the reasons we have all of these adjustments...

Did I miss something?


W.

[Steve Helmick]

Or more likely, trim in some down elevator (relative to the flaps) to improve outside corner. In any case, trying to push a model  (fly at 100%) to do what it cannot do is always a mistake. Don't try to compensate for the model...adjust the model to improve it. Adjustments/trimming includes everything between the prop and the handle... Steve

[Chuck Feldman]

This thread has come to the point where I can enter it. Keep in mind I am a nobody in our sport. I have what you would call an extremely biased handle. I designed it for me! You see my right wrist does not deflect very far in the upward direction but in the down direction it goes almost to horizontal. So my handle is biased. I set the angle of the bias of the handle to be the half was position between the up and down motion that my wrist can make. Flying now became easier for me. I never fly anyone Else's airplane with there handle. Picture my handle as a figure D with the top part short and the bottom part long. There is an aluminum bar from the handles ends connecting the vertical part of the D. My lines are connected to this bar and can be moved closer or farther apart. The line length is adjusted by changing the length of 4/40 eyebolts that I got from all my Tom Morris handles. I set neutral elevator by having someone watch the elevator while I adjust. When I am done the lines and the bar on the handle are 90 degrees apart. As you might imagine the pull testers look at my handle and shake there head. They finally inspect the handle attachment to the bar and then do the pull test from the handle bar. Not all do it this way some do it on the back of the handle in the normal fashion. The spread on the pull tester hooks has to be set so as to keep the controls in neutral for the pull. When I flew in the late 70"s  Used a Bob Hunt handle it was biased. Before that most everyone used an Ez-just mostly the large one. Only Tom Dixon uses the small one and he tells me he always has.  I do not think the handle caused the crash of the model. It was pilot error.

Chuck

[Bob Reeves]

Most outside crashes I've seen were caused by the pilot simply quitting flying the airplane on the down leg of the outside. A bias handle could contribute but it isn't the root cause. You have to continue giving it down through the whole loop or you see posts like this.

I can fly with either straight or biased, in fact I really love the old Hunt handles but also fly several airplanes with hard point straight handles, just depends on the airplane and what works. Looking forward to when Brodak receives the small Rock Crusher in quantities it fits my hand as well as the Hunt handle and I'll be able to buy enough to eliminate switching handles at all.

[Louis Rankin]

Anytime I crash, I always blame it on a radio hit. (The right people will get it)

[Joe Yau]

It could also be the line spacing was set too narrow on the biased handle..  

[Ted Fancher]

Just one question.

How many who feel a biased handle has no effect on your control system or your ability to fly accurate maneuvers would mount the bellcrank at a 10 or 12 degree bias?

oh, heck.  Make it two questions.

If you biased your handle down 90 degrees at neutral elevator how much down elevator do you think you could get to pull out of that wingover?

Ted Fancher

[Marvin Denny]

If you biased your handle down 90 degrees at neutral elevator how much down elevator do you think you could get to pull out of that wingover?

Ted Fancher

    Same as if you hold your hand hold verticle.
  Figure an "T" with the lines connected to the verticle leg.---  Now, holding the horizontal leg,  give a downward movement to the end of the "T" thast you are holding and you will see that the verticle leg now tilts forward  thus giving "down" to the lines.
  I think that as long as the line attachment points are verticle (or 90 Degrees to the lines)  It matters little (if any)  the position of the portion of the handle the hand is positioned on .  I think as long as you have equal number of degrees of movement in each direction from the relaxed position then you will get equal degrees of movement from verticle on the line attachment points.

  hope this has confused everyone too.

  Bigiron

  PS  I actually  made an T shaped handle to try this

[FLOYD CARTER]

Many of my friends use a "Hot Rock" handle, or a clone thereof.  Notice it has no bias, and can be hooked up either way with the same "feel".  I use a home-brew handle similar to a Hot Rock (with cables, no less).

Floyd

[Dennis Adamisin]

Just one question.

How many who feel a biased handle has no effect on your control system or your ability to fly accurate maneuvers would mount the bellcrank at a 10 or 12 degree bias?

oh, heck.  Make it two questions.

If you biased your handle down 90 degrees at neutral elevator how much down elevator do you think you could get to pull out of that wingover?

Ted Fancher

Actually the target angle is 7.5 degrees - like the natural angle in your hand.

OK now I'm really going to sling it:  If your hand is made at 7.5 degrees, and you fly it with a handle made at that angle then you are flying with a UNBIASED handle.  If on the other hand (PUN!) you FORCE the handle to be vertical then you are flying a BIASED handle.  SO to tie a bow on it, I would NOT install my bellcrank with a 7.5 degree bias, for the same reason I would NOT bias my handle to an unnatural vertical position that was 7.5 degrees away from natural.

(re-read that 3 times fast!)

Handle wars - I love it!  Haven't had this discussion in....30 years??  (not any closer to "settling" anything either)  I think we all need another round.

[Leo Mehl]

My first Vector did not turn the same both directions when I fdirst flew it. I had a Bill Byles adjuster in the pushrod and I added a little more down in the elevators and it then turned the same both directions and this could actually be a trim problem. Seein you havn't flown for a while this could also be a bias problem but I would say that proper trim could be the culpret.

[Phil Coopy]

I held my arm straight out like I was flying level laps,  with a dowel in it had my wife measure the angle of the dowel, and that is the the bias I put in to the handles I make for myself.  Works for me.

Phil

[George]

I think there are two problems here:

1. Only Han can tell whether he should be using a bias handle, depending on how he flies. And only he can tell if the handle was adjusted correctly.

Edit: After re-reading Randy's response, I believe I got caught up in the bias from verticle (hand tilt) while Randy was talking distance from center (fulcrum), Sorry.

2. Being anxious to get back into stunt, Han also ignored the "sluggish" outside loops, which perhaps should have been corrected before going further. He didn't mention if someone was observing his flights, looking for trim problems on the first eight flights.

We all...well, most of us, make mistakes. Han, sorry for the loss of your plane. Hope your Vector can be repaired.

George

[RandySmith]

""OK now I'm really going to sling it:  If your hand is made at 7.5 degrees, and you fly it with a handle made at that angle then you are flying with a UNBIASED handle.  If on the other hand (PUN!) you FORCE the handle to be vertical then you are flying a BIASED handle.  SO to tie a bow on it, I would NOT install my bellcrank with a 7.5 degree bias, for the same reason I would NOT bias my handle to an unnatural vertical position that was 7.5 degrees away from natural.""

But Denny
 It is a fact...that if you have "any" handle that is biased in overhang, please note "overhang", because that is what I talked to Han about, It WILL make the plane harder to turn in the direction of the greater overhang.....  I am not talking about handle tilt. which I don't like, but many use.

Again I am talking about "overhang bias"  NOT "tilted handle bias" many seem to get this confused

When you have as much as 1 inch overhang difference that I see in some handles it will greatly affect the turn of the ship and will be in some cases almost IMPOSSIBLE to turn the ship in one direction in the high winds.
I can tell a large difference in as much as 1/8 of an inch in biased overhang. and in winds the turn rate changes as the stick pressure of whatever side you have hung out go way up.
I have seen, personally, more planes pile in, in HIGH WINDS from too much overhang, Matter of fact I would say that flying TOO nose heavy and TOO much overhang accounts for more flying into the ground in HIGH WIND crashes than any other part of the equation
I have seen people try to compensate for this by pushing the side (normally down) with more overhang out further to speed up the turn rate. This is the wrong thing to do as it is not a fix but a bandaid on that problem, Some people have used handles like this for so long they do not even realize that they have to use a much greater force to turn the ship in one direction as opposed to the other, BUt ,As Larry stated the body gets use to it

Regards
Randy

[Ted Fancher]

Actually the target angle is 7.5 degrees - like the natural angle in your hand.

OK now I'm really going to sling it:  If your hand is made at 7.5 degrees, and you fly it with a handle made at that angle then you are flying with a UNBIASED handle.  If on the other hand (PUN!) you FORCE the handle to be vertical then you are flying a BIASED handle.  SO to tie a bow on it, I would NOT install my bellcrank with a 7.5 degree bias, for the same reason I would NOT bias my handle to an unnatural vertical position that was 7.5 degrees away from natural.

(re-read that 3 times fast!)

Handle wars - I love it!  Haven't had this discussion in....30 years??  (not any closer to "settling" anything either)  I think we all need another round.

O.K. Denny.  Put up your dukes! 

I noticed you cleverly avoided my second question.  So let me put it another way and see how you respond.

"Biasing" a handle is achieved by lengthening one line relative to the other.  Biasing a handle so as to allow neutral to be achieved at the "natural" position of the hand relative to the forearm requires that the down line be lengthened appropriately.  You say doing so is appropriate because you'd rather bias the system than your body.  I say biasing the system compromises that system in a manner that can't be undone by simply forcing your body and mind to believe it's better.

I like to illustrate such stuff for myself by taking the premise to an extreme where the result is obvious and undeniable.

Let's take the biasing to an extreme and see what happens. 

Say you've got a handle with four inch spacing attached to a four inch bellcrank.  Now, either adjust the cable in your handle so that the down line is four inches longer than the up line or simply attach a set of lines where the down line is four inches longer than your up line.  This will bias your handle so that neutral will be achieved with the handle rotated down 90 degrees from vertical (as suggested in the second question in my original post).  (Big Iron, this is the type of biasing I'm discussing, not a "T" shaped handle you mentioned which is an entirely different deal ... I'll discuss that in a separate post when I get a chance).

The result of this four inch down bias on the "four inch" airborne system will be that any further rotation of the handle will produce up control no matter which way you rotate it ... "up" or "down" will result in up elevator.  This will happen because the "down" end of the handle will rotate "toward" the airplane and the "up" end will  rotate "away" from the airplane.  Any "down" input at all is impossible.

An ancillary effect of bias that becomes worse as more bias is introduced is that the rate of response for a given degree of handle rotation will be different.  Up inputs will be more responsive than down inputs and the difference will be increased as the bias is increased.  You can demonstrate this effect with the airborne system by assembling a test system and biasing the angle of the bellcrank at neutral elevator.  If neutral is achieved at 45 degrees of "down" bellcrank rotation elevator response will be very rapid in the up direction and very slow in the down direction.  This same effect occurs with handle bias.

As I noted this example is an extreme which demonstrates the end result of any intermediate changes toward that extreme.  I like to use the water and poison analogy.  Pure water is a healthy, nutritious necessity; poison will kill you.  Anyone interested in drinking a mixture of 90% water and 10% poison?  I didn't think so.

Biasing of the handle (or any other fixed part of the control system) is like adding poison to water.  It changes the character of the resulting product in a less than beneficial way and we shouldn't do it.  Any such bias will result in more rapid response in up inputs and reduced rate of response in down inputs.  That's not good.

To make this point even more dramatically.  Say that your modern aft CG, large control system airplane requires the use of narrowed line spacing at the handle for comfortable response rates (my Trivial Pursuits, for instance, use right around 3 1/4" spacing at the handle couple to a four inch b/c).  It is entirely possible with significant bias and a narrow handle spacing to set up your controls so that it is impossible to achieve all the down control with the handle that is available from the airborne system.  This is not remotely hypothetical.  I can recite two very real instances where I have flown such airplanes and nearly crashed them because the down response was so dead.  These same airplanes with the bias removed turned outside just fine.  One was Bill Fitzgerald's Banshee a long, long time ago and one belonged to a now top level Pacific Northwest flyer who shall remain nameless unless he chooses to get involved.  Note, also, Brett Buck's metamorphosis to vertical in his earlier post.

A final note.  Some have suggested that the above problems can be overcome by utilizing a longer arm on the down end of the handle so that the attach points of the lines are vertical.  While doing so does eliminate the problems addressed above it also introduces another variable which ... while not as likely to end up with an airplane which is unable to turn outside ... will bias the effort necessary for maneuvers; requiring more effort to turn outsides than insides.  This is because the overhang of the down side of the handle will be greater than the overhang on the up line. 

As Randy has suggested above, increased overhang increases the amount of pilot effort required to achieve a desired amount of control deflection.  Doing so on only one end of the handle means you only increase the load when turning one direction.  Thus insides will feel "easier" to do than outsides.  An imperfect solution in my opinion, but much preferable to simply biasing your Hot Rock which can very easily result in the sort of imperfect end to a flight as the end of the flight which started this thread ... lots'a little pieces!

Ted Fancher

[Bob Reeves]

Interesting thought...

If I'm not mistaken, back in the 70's Bobby Hunt won the NATS and worlds with a Hunt Handle which is both biased, has what a 2 inch overhang and on top of that is a cable handle. What has changed, are the patterns that much better now with straight hard point handles? Would the pattern flown by Bobby at the 76 NATS get beat by Paul Walker with a straight handle. What kind of handle does the current NATS champ use?

I don't know the answers just thought it interesting to note that some pretty impressive patterns have been flown with all kinds of different handles.

[Dennis Adamisin]

Ted:
Gosh you answered in COLOR  Not sure I can top that!  I did not intentionally mean to disregard any part of your orig post - sorry.

I remember way back when watching you fly - I always though your hand looked uncomfortable laying way back like that.  As I recall you could not understand how I could use my angled grip handle - when ever I pick-up a Hot Rock style handle it feels like an impending crash!  I do not recall we convinced each other of much back then.  I will go out on the limb and say it does not look like either of us has changed our positions very much.

Randy: just saw your post.  Perhaps a touch of "handle history" might be in order.  Early on my Dad and brothers were heavily envolved in Rat Race - typically flying with Hot Rocks & such.  These handles were NOT very friendly to hold down a hard pulling rat, and when 1000 lap races came into play - Dad decided to make his own handle.  Finger grips were a natural and he noticed his grip was NOT vertical and made the handle accordingly to help accomdate a relaxed neutral position.  Longish arms helped give solid feedback and again made it easier to help, uhhh, lead the rat along - only while gliding in for a landging you understand!  The arms were made the same length top & bottom so at their extremes the were roughly 1/2" diffierent from each other relative to a vertical line.  THe new handles greatly reduced pilot fatigue flying Rats, but they seemed to work just fine flying stunt too.  Came to idea later that maye the arms SHOULD be the same length for stunt - so new handles were made and old ones modified. 

That is  LONG story to say that I suppose under conditions you could notice a 1/8" difference.  I have flown with handles with as much as 1/2" offset in the arms without a problem.  YES it felt different AT FIRST but was never unflyable.  Within 3-4 flights I did not notice it at all anymore.  Try restating what I said before: any offset from a comfortable neutral position is biased; if you FORCE your hand into a vertical position, then THAT is biased. 

Howver, I am amazed at how much out bodies can consciously or unconsciously adjust for things like handle - yet ultimately we all find something comfortable that works for us.  That is the key.  I do not think there is any prohibitive "best" way to make a handle.  However I think it was Alan Hahn's & I think Steve Moon's posts that said it best: handle "bias" did NOT cause this crash.

Its kind of like the old discussion about whether toilet paper should unroll off the top or the bottom (Ann sLanders said this was her MOST responded topic!) 

I'm not above trying new things heck, one of these days I am going to get around to trying one of them high fallutin hardpoint handles just to see what the fuss is all about.  Heck, I'll probably even cut the arms off one just to spite.  I suspect it will feel very strange and uncomfortable.

...and my hardpoint handle prototype has a 7.5 degree angle built into it. 

(I can almost see Ted & Randy going   but you know I'm teasing you!)   

[Randy Powell]

>>"Biasing" a handle is achieved by lengthening one line relative to the other. <<

Well, maybe that's were the discussion should begin. When I talk about a "biased" handle, it's only the grip that is biased. The lines are the same length. The "bar" that the lines attach to is perpendicular to the lines. The handle (grip) attaches at an 8° or so forward angle to the bar. The connection to the plane is not biased.

It's been my experience that if you hold your hand directly in front of you with your elbow bent (as I've been learned to fly lately), then an upright grip is necessary. Rather than rocking your wrist directly forward and backward, you rotate your wrist around the pivot of the handle. If you hold your arm more straight out with little bend in the elbow, then you sort of have to have a biased forward handle or you won't be able to give much "up" control without bending your elbow.

It's really a matter of stance and how you hold your arm when you're flying that dictates which handle is going to be more comfortable. I've found recently that if I move my hand in and use the vertical grip that I move my arm less while flying, keeping my hand movement more or less in a restricted space. This has allowed, I think, somewhat more precise control. But it's really a matter of taste.

[Marvin Denny]

  Ted, as usual, you pontificated sufficiently to completely lose me in your "explanation" of where I was wrong.  Well, I am not so wrong.  As to not answering your second portion of your question, that is where I got the "T".  Again---simply put---'  leave the belcrank NEUTRAL, lines the same length, handle arms or line attachment points either verticle or parallel to the belcrank arms (the way you seem to think they should be) and now rotate ONLY the grip portion of the handle (the part that goes in your hand).  IF you rotate that part ONLY, you effectively have a "T".  Now tilt that stem of the T either up or down and you will get corresponding angle changes of equivilant degrees on the line attach part of the handle.
  Since we are "supposing",  Suppose one's hand will not tilt upward past a point where if he was holding a stick, it would not go past the verticle.  HOW is he supposed to give "UP" ?  But he has LOTS of down now.  Bias the grip portion in relation to the verticle bar such that he has equal number of degrees both up and down from neutral.

  I stand firm in my assesment.
  Bigiron

[John Miller]

Apparently, we will all find the sweet spot that we best feel servess our needs. Comment has been made that the human body can adapt to huge differences, and I b elieve that's a fact.

So biased or not go for it. As for me, I'll use what works for me. (I'm not telling)

[RandySmith]

Baloney. The Morris handle is biased in the grip, not in the overhang.
Make a fist with your hand right now. You'll notice that your knuckles
are not straight up and down. I have flown many a plane at many a
contest with a bias grip handle, and I have also flown many without.
In this case it is very doubtful the handle would cause a crash.

Later, Steve

Hi Steve
and  NO it is not baloney, ANY  handle you fly with that has a lot of "overhang bias" can and will  put  you into the ground in high winds, and there is most times ZERO that you can do to stop it. Except for trimming the setup so that you can overcome the bias in winds.
Not saying it happens every time, but it does happen...then it's too late. It is obvious that many people fly with all types of handles. If your handle fits you and cannot be improved, by all means use whatever you like.
It slows one control in all  conditions  but in high wind it is  MUCH MUCH worse, to the point in some I have test flown ,that you cannot fly a consistant pattern because of how much the force changes with wind speed, or  kiting windup or motor windup.

Randy

[Steve Helmick]

Apparently, we will all find the sweet spot that we best feel servess our needs. Comment has been made that the human body can adapt to huge differences, and I b elieve that's a fact.

So biased or not go for it. As for me, I'll use what works for me. (I'm not telling)

Well, NOW he's not telling. But last March?  Steve

[Randy Powell]

And if you adjust those arms out or in much, you create bias.

[RandySmith]

And if you adjust those arms out or in much, you create bias.

LOL he already did

[Dave Adamisin]

Flew my entire career with an 8 deg handle and never noticed any bias. Maybe because I grew up with it. Also. my handle had equal length posts with the grip tilted 8 deg. If the posts are different lengths maybe that causes the bia feel. ??

After reading the discussion and re-considering. I have a non biased tilted grip handle. It fits my hand and I have NEVER crashed a plane on an outside pullout. And I have lots of trophies too...

[RandySmith]

 It is a fact...that if you have "any" handle that is biased in overhang, please note "overhang", because that is what I talked to Han about, It WILL make the plane harder to turn in the direction of the greater overhang.....  I am not talking about handle tilt. which I don't like, but many use.

Again I am talking about "overhang bias"  NOT "tilted handle bias" many seem to get this confused

[John Miller]

Well, NOW he's not telling. But last March?  Steve

Darn Steve, you outed me.

I make a huge effort to have the ends of my lines come out as equal as possible, so there is no excess overhang dialed in when the handle is adjusted. I understand and agree with Randy and his statement about biasing with overhang.

It is a fact that using any adjustable fixed or hard point handle, a small amount of overhang bias can be induced. In mine, where the handle ends of the lines line up almost perfectly, any overhang bias is so miniscule as to be a non entity.

Still, my opinion is to use what works for you, and I'll continue to use what works for me.

[Dave Adamisin]

It is a fact...that if you have "any" handle that is biased in overhang, please note "overhang", because that is what I talked to Han about, It WILL make the plane harder to turn in the direction of the greater overhang.....  I am not talking about handle tilt. which I don't like, but many use.

Again I am talking about "overhang bias"  NOT "tilted handle bias" many seem to get this confused

I agree completely. Your older post is what prompted my clarification. I have always used equal post handles for stunt. When we made our first handles they were not equal. I complained to my dad that it was hard to do outsides so he made me one with equal posts that were long enough to be shortened to fit my needs. Same handle angle - equal posts. Eliminated the issue completely. Unfortunatly for me I took a couple years off and Big gave my handle to George A. I'm now using Dennis's Walker Cup handle which is almost the same as the one that got away. Lucky me......

[Ted Fancher]

Interesting thought...

If I'm not mistaken, back in the 70's Bobby Hunt won the NATS and worlds with a Hunt Handle which is both biased, has what a 2 inch overhang and on top of that is a cable handle. What has changed, are the patterns that much better now with straight hard point handles? Would the pattern flown by Bobby at the 76 NATS get beat by Paul Walker with a straight handle. What kind of handle does the current NATS champ use?

I don't know the answers just thought it interesting to note that some pretty impressive patterns have been flown with all kinds of different handles.

Here's a better question, Bob.  What kind of handle does Bob use now?  I don't know the answer for sure but I'd be interested to hear.  I'm betting it isn't the same type.

I'm well acquainted with Bob's handle with which he won the World Championships.  It was exactly as you described with some notable bias, a wide spacing, a very long overhang and a cable in it.  It was beautifully made (as is anything Bob and his late, great father put together) and he had some for sale at the Nats I believe a year or so before he won that WC.  Gary McClellan and I both bought one of these in flight adjustable beauties and went out to test fly with them promptly upon arriving home from the nats.

Both Gary and I had qualified for the finals that year so we sort of knew what we were doing already.  We both used Hot Rock handles on our ships but couldn't wait to see how much better we'd fly with Bobby's beauty.

Long story short, even though the handle spacing was wider than our Hot Rocks (I'll have to go measure to be sure) "BOTH" Gary and I planted our stunters (Gary's a Nobler and mine the Nobler based original Moby Dick) on the first inverted pull out of the very first wingover.  On grass, fortunately, and in both cases it was a pancake wipeout that did nothing more disastrous than breaking the props and getting grass stains on the top of the airplanes.  This paragraph probably sounds pretty familiar to Han, I'll bet.

The difference in control forces involved was huge and the response rate per unit of force applied was dramatically reduced.  Since both airplanes were still flyable we were able to make (more conservative) subsequent flights and found the difference from what we were used to unacceptable.

I did modify mine by cutting off the overhangs to more or less match the overhang of the Hot Rock and it was better but still not as consistent as the Hot Rock (for a variety of reasons including, of course, the fact that I had by that stage of my life thousands of flights on Hot Rock handles).  After one additional flying session the handle was put on the shelf and still exists somewhere in the bowels of my "stuff".  I later came to believe the reason I continued to find the handle inferior (from my perspective) was the turn bias that came from the handle bias.  Outsides just always took more effort.

I retell this story to emphasize that the effects we're talking about are very real.  You can argue whether they are good, bad or not worth thinking about because you can adapt to anything (I don't believe that last one) but anybody that flies back to back flights with handles so different will never be able to honestly say it doesn't have the effects I've chronicled.  At least that's my opinion.

Finally, and most importantly, Bobby could beat 99% of the stunt fliers in the world flying with one line held in each hand.  He is among the very best (if not the best) natural flier I know of and I know most of the best ones stateside.  That he won with equipment that wasn't, perhaps, as good as it could be is no surprise.  Both because of his great skill and because other equipment hadn't been refined to the degree it has today.  You can only beat what's at the field on the day of the contest.

I've beaten Bobby a handful of times over the years and I don't think I would have done so if I hadn't refined my equipment to the greatest degree of which I was capable at the time.  This for no other reason than, although I'm pretty good, I'm not in the class of a Bobby or a Bart when it comes to flying naturally.  What success I've had over the years has occurred when my pretty well tuned equipment was mated with near perfect engine runs (something that had always been more or less a crap shoot for me until the piped set-ups came along).  

Like the tuned pipe, once I flew the first time on a Hot Rock based adjustable handle with minimum overhang and no bias, I never went back.

Which may or may not mean a darn thing.

Ted

[Ted Fancher]

 Ted, as usual, you pontificated sufficiently to completely lose me in your "explanation" of where I was wrong.  Well, I am not so wrong.  As to not answering your second portion of your question, that is where I got the "T".  Again---simply put---'  leave the belcrank NEUTRAL, lines the same length, handle arms or line attachment points either verticle or parallel to the belcrank arms (the way you seem to think they should be) and now rotate ONLY the grip portion of the handle (the part that goes in your hand).  IF you rotate that part ONLY, you effectively have a "T".  Now tilt that stem of the T either up or down and you will get corresponding angle changes of equivilant degrees on the line attach part of the handle.
  Since we are "supposing",  Suppose one's hand will not tilt upward past a point where if he was holding a stick, it would not go past the verticle.  HOW is he supposed to give "UP" ?  But he has LOTS of down now.  Bias the grip portion in relation to the verticle bar such that he has equal number of degrees both up and down from neutral.

  I stand firm in my assesment.
  Bigiron

Big Iron,  I'm sure you do! I never thought I had much chance of changing either "Dennys" minds.  

However, pretty much none of the message was directed at your T handle concept.  I put that comment in green to emphasize the fact that I was talking about a particular type of bias.  The last couple of paragraphs where I talk about the difference in overhang which accompanies the sort of "adaptation" of grip bias to a vertical line attachment point is the only part of the pontification which could be applied to your "T" handle concept ... and I stand firm in my assessment of the negative aspects of differential overhang.

TEd

p.s. Marvin, 

I'm sorry you think I'm pontificating on this stuff.  It really isn't my intention to sound like some sort of huffy college perfesser!  I'm only trying to state my case as clearly as I can because I don't really know how to go about making and posting the pictures that are worth a thousand words apiece to make it clear.

Here's hopefully a clearer way to test my suggestion.  Measure the distance between the up and down lines on your AAE handle and then cut a piece of string or wire and tie it off to match that distance ... i.e. if the handle spacing is 3.5 inches make the string 3.5 inches. Now add that string to your down line.  The result should be a 90 degree biased handle at elevator neutral; i.e. the attach point of the up and down lines should be equal distance from the ground.  Now rotate the handle and try to get some down elevator.

Tell us how it works.

Ted

[Frank Sheridan]

Less talk - more pictures, please!

[Ted Fancher]

Less talk - more pictures, please!

Had to laugh, Frank, because I saw your post two seconds after adding the PS to my response to Big Iron.  I simply don't have the computer skill to make and post pictures.  Ergo ... as you so accurately suggest ... way too many words to try to get the point across.

Sorry,

Ted

[Ted Fancher]

I thought it might be of value to relate the story of Bill Fitzgerald's Banshee that I alluded to in an earlier post.  Bill is the late father of current World Champion David Fitz and was an excellent stunt pilot in his own right.  In the early to mid '70s he was a very competitive expert flier in Northern California WAM contests ... and probably my very best friend from then until his untimely death a couple years ago.  Bill was an airline captain, an award winning aviation safety expert and an accomplished accident investigator who worked on a number of very exhaustive accidents including the disasterous crashes of B737s in Colorado Springs and Washington National (now Reagan).  He was nobodies dummy and a meticulous builder ... and a great coach who was the primary coach for three eventual national champion stunt fliers.  Notwithstanding these hard earned "props", Bill suffered dramatically from exactly the problem under discussion in this thread.

In the '70s WAM contests had three classes of stunt: 1/2A, A and BC.  As I've mentioned a number of times we routinely used Sig Banshees with Veco .19s spinning low pitch props at high revs for Class A events.

Bill had thoughtfully developed a control system geometry that alllowed him to use large handle inputs that resulted in  very modest flap and elevator deflections, believing this would provide a large degree of "slop" in the system allowing errors in input not to result in big errors at the airplane.  Not totally without merit, IMHO, but taken too far.

Bill modified his Hot Rock handles by installing an aluminum frame with multiple holes in it that extended forward allowing him to vary the line spacing in roughly 1/4" increments. It also moved the point at which the lines exited the handle forward at least an inch ... maybe a bit more.  IOW, the frame both narrowed spacing and increased the overhang.  Bill's handle spacing was a very narrow 2.5 or so inches, combined with the aforementioned additional overhang.

Finally, Bill also flew with a relaxed grip position and, thus, the handle was biased "down" with flaps/elevators at neutral.  In other words, Bill's system was the "Perfect Storm" of the situation we're talking about.

Well, Bill flew it "fairly well" but constantly complained that it was very slow in outside maneuvers and required pretty much all the deflection he was able to input ... sort of a panic response in every outside corner.  He didn't like it and wasn't competitive with it.

In frustration, one day he asked me to fly it.  I did so and discovered his description was entirely accurate.  It barely was capable of decent outside loops and outside corners were pretty much a hit it and pray situation.

My first thought (remember, this was more than thirty years ago and was the beginning ... not the culmination ... of my experience and conviction about handle geometry) was that the problem was the very slow control system.  I asked to fly another flight with my own handle ... a hot rock ... and Bill said sure.

To make a long story short, the problem disappeared.  The airplane turned outsides just fine and although a little quick on the controls (my Hot Rock was a full four inch stock spacing).

To finish the story, we put Bill's handle back on and investigated the response of the flaps/elevators to handle rotation.  Because of the narrow spacing and because he threw away part of the potential down input by biasing the neutral, the handle was only able to drive the flaps/elevators to a fraction of the throw of which the on board system was capable.  IOW, no matter how hard he yanked on the down line he was only going to get a fraction of the deflection he built into the airplane.

That was wrong!

Ted