More Right Rudder

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I built my first RC when I was 13 years old. It looked great. It flew like a brick, from my hand (the launch pad) to the ground, in what now I would call a deadly spin.

It took me several years until I went back to building models. Our first son was my assistant. One of the things I knew, was there was a need to “misalign” the engine in the longitudinal axis to compensate for turning tendencies.

Then I earned my PPL certificate, and I could say I had a better understanding of adverse yaw, and left turning tendencies (no, I am not talking about politics). And that was when the lightbulb went off: sometimes, airplane designers, tweak engine mounts to offset the left turning tendencies.

This weekend, we work in N333ST, our TSI. Arthur and I were in awe when we noticed how the offset looks like. You can easily see the engine mount itself (view from the top), and once the engine is mounted, it clearly points to the right.




Location: Torrance, CA, USA

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