48.3 Jump failures

[Famous481]

Ok finally took her to the dirt. Works amazing however I suck at jumping jumps and almost always landing on the hood. What am i doing wrong? With limited throttle of the jump still wants to nose dive. Sailing (coasting) up to a jump and off seems to work fine. Bottom line where's a video on not being a goober landing on the top of you rig majority of the time. I don't prefer doing back flips and all that. Just want to bash down my local bmx track and make a couple consistent laps

 

[Billl DeLong]

If possible, try to find a local RC specific track instead, the jumps will be designed more to scale and hopefully the track builder will have proper experience on how to distance the jumps so that they are lined up straight and have proper landing ramps.

If you can post some video of your current track, I can see what you are doing and then try to make suggestions from there. Typically you want to stay on throttle to keep the nose up, only tap the brake if you need to get the nose back down, and adjust the brake strength if you tap the brake and the nose dives too drastically. If the ride height is too low, then it's not uncommon for the rear chassis to slap on the lip of the jump which can cause the car to nose dive... you can also control your jump so that you are accelerating up the ramp... if you are already at full speed before you hit the ramp, then that will cause your car slow down as you enter the ramp which causes the nose to dive because the momentum shifts forward where if you are accelerating then the momentum shifts backward keeping the nose up.

 

[Famous481]

So keep the current momentum with a little thottle spare for correction(bringing the nose down). Right after this post I used my arrma talion to get a better concept of how momentum works. I WILL NEVER USE MY RCS JUST FOR BACKFILP SPECTACLES. I might have answered my own question. Jumps and landings seem to be easy on 4s. But when I want to smash on fellow bashers, 6s does it... until a little kicker jump and rig lands on hood. I know practice makes perfect and that's what I'll do to get a feel for it before breaking it

 

[lampshade9909]

It takes A LOT of practice. It also helps to watch others do it. It's all in throttle control and car tuning. But if you're bashing, the tuning probably won't help as much since you'll be moving to new spots all the time. On the track, tuning is more important.

So just focus on throttle control in the short term. Bill gave some great input to help with that.

It's also important to note that tire traction is critical in jumping. If you don't have proper traction when accelerating before the jump, you won't perform well during the jump.

 

[lampshade9909]

If the ride height is too low, then it's not uncommon for the rear chassis to slap on the lip of the jump which can cause the car to nose dive...

I had this problem a lot when I first started racing. Once I figured out that's what was going on, I made a minor ride height adjustment and was all set.

you can also control your jump so that you are accelerating up the ramp... if you are already at full speed before you hit the ramp, then that will cause your car slow down as you enter the ramp which causes the nose to dive because the momentum shifts forward where if you are accelerating then the momentum shifts backward keeping the nose up.

This is important too. There are a lot of cases where I'll have controlled acceleration (less than 100% throttle) leading up to the ramp on level ground, then quickly go full throttle while inclining up the ramp.

 

[Klappars]

So keep the current momentum with a little thottle spare for correction(bringing the nose down). Right after this post I used my arrma talion to get a better concept of how momentum works. I WILL NEVER USE MY RCS JUST FOR BACKFILP SPECTACLES. I might have answered my own question. Jumps and landings seem to be easy on 4s. But when I want to smash on fellow bashers, 6s does it... until a little kicker jump and rig lands on hood. I know practice makes perfect and that's what I'll do to get a feel for it before breaking it

On kicker jumps you want to be on 6S to have enough rotation ability, then stab the throttle qucikl;y just as the car leaves the jump, that should level it out in time before landing.

Are your shocks built to the stock spec and approximately what ride height are you running?

 

[Nicochau]

A race RC will be a more difficult to control in the air than a basher and for multiple reasons:
1/ with heavier tires, you get more momentum and more air control
2/ with 6s, you get more rotation speed and also get more momentum

I run my ET48 on 4s, with race tires (light), on all sorts of jumps and it does require a bit of learning period.

As you jump, keep some throttle to keep the nose up. I keep light throttle on landings too, it makes the landing a lot more stable and prevents the truck from bouncing out. As soon as you’re back with traction, you can slam the trigger again. Full throttle on landings will hurt your axles.

Note: racers want to keep the nose down in order to keep the speed. Nose up and your RC will parachute and lose a lot of speed while in the air. So those things are also designed for that.

 

[Billl DeLong]

A race RC will be a more difficult to control in the air than a basher and for multiple reasons:
1/ with heavier tires, you get more momentum and more air control
2/ with 6s, you get more rotation speed and also get more momentum

I run my ET48 on 4s, with race tires (light), on all sorts of jumps and it does require a bit of learning period.

As you jump, keep some throttle to keep the nose up. I keep light throttle on landings too, it makes the landing a lot more stable and prevents the truck from bouncing out. As soon as you’re back with traction, you can slam the trigger again. Full throttle on landings will hurt your axles.

Note: racers want to keep the nose down in order to keep the speed. Nose up and your RC will parachute and lose a lot of speed while in the air. So those things are also designed for that.

While I agree that more power will tend to be more difficult to manage in general, this shouldn't make any difference in applying the same techniques, which really shouldn't change between a "basher" jump and a "race" jump, only difference will be that most bashers will not have a landing ramp which will be more likely to cause damage... racers need to land with nose down because the angle of the car needs to be the same angle of the landing ramp, where a perfect landing has all 4 wheels touching at the exact same time to maximize cushion for the landing. Parachuting is very minimal and not really a concern with modern designs, even with 4WD SCT bodies since the evolution of FloTek to mitigate parachuting issues.

There are some advanced techniques that racers will implement which may not apply to a basher to include "scrubbing speed" which naturally forces the nose down because you are braking as you clear the jump, this maximizes speed and minimizes time in the air, where more time with wheel contact equates to faster lap time, though a properly executed "Speed Scrub" still has all four wheels landing at the same time. Another technique is called a "Tail Whip" in which you steer the front wheels in the opposite direction of the approaching corner while in the air where a gyro effect happens which rotates the car, and then you turn the wheel back into the corner as you land to self correct so that all 4 wheels touch at the same time with the advantage of already having the car pointed in the direction of the corner which drastically reduces lap time when executed properly because the car has already turned while in the air.

Nothing is changed with the basic fundamental requirement of landing all 4 wheels at the same time regardless, though there is a special circumstance on high bite conditions such as racing on turf/carpet when jumping into a corner without a landing ramp, then you want the inside front wheel to land first, but ever so slightly which helps prevent the car from traction rolling after the landing.... you never want the car bounce after the landing where the tires lose contact after making initial contact... this is called "sticking the landing"... if the car literally "bounces" then you need to make tuning changes which can vary anywhere from harder spring/dampening to shock position.

A poorly designed ramp is one that launches the car straight up in the air, because then the car comes straight back down... the more forward the angle of the jump, the less likely to "pancake" the landing and less likely to damage your electronics from excessive hard impacts This is why the landing ramp is often the same angle of the face of the jump, what goes up must come down!