Zero Problem is Sorted

Went and visited Paul @nitrodude yesterday to see if he could figure out why my Zero was flying like such a pig. And yes, he had a solution and yes, it worked. Before I give you the soltuion let me give you the symptoms so that people searching might come across this if it suits their needs.

When I tried to turn left, the Zero would turn in okay, but then it would self correct (war birds aren't supposed to self correct!). When I tried to turn right it would hold the angle, but would start to nose in quite badly. When I pulled a loop she would roll to the right as she pulled the loop. However, she was moderately stable in flat level flight.

All in all, a most unsatisfactory aircraft to fly.

Here are some of the things I suspected which proved to have no bearing...

• Bent prop shaft. After a few heavy nose over landings the r2212 prop shaft seemed to be a fraction bent. I straigthened it as best I could, and cut down the prop shaft so the prop adaptor sat closer to the motor (thus reducing the size of deviation).
• Bad thrust angle. Didn't make any changes as I didn't know which way to change it.
• Tail Heavy. Added lots of nose weight (about 25g) and the model was certainly balanced just fine, but it made no difference. She was still awful in the air.

So, what was the problem. A sticker. About 1cm of red circle decal on the upper side of the left hand wing at the point nearest to the leading edge was not stuck down (flapping in the wind). I taped it down, based on Paul's advice, and she suddenly went back to being her normal self.

A sticker which was 80% stuck down was the cause of all my probs with the zero over the last 2 weeks. As was explained to me, it doesn't seem like much, but the sticker was effectively acting as an airbrake, and that close to the wing tip it is going to have a significant effect on your aircraft. So, get the stickly tape out now, and make sure the leading edge of the decals on your wings are taped down.