Inside and outside snap rolls add great excitement to flying while opening up a whole new world of maneuver possibilities. We’ll start with inside, or positive, snap rolls, which are accomplished by applying full (normal rate) up-elevator along with full rudder and aileron in the same direction. Quickly applying full up-elevator causes the wing to exceed its critical angle of attack, resulting in a stall. The stalled (unloaded) wing breaks the hold of the airflow, allowing the airplane to rapidly rotate about all three axes, i.e., snap roll. Europeans quite descriptively refer to this as a “flick” roll.
SNAP BASICS
There are several different directions in which snaps can be performed. Pulling up-elevator distinguishes it as an “inside” snap, irrespective of whether the plane is upright, vertical, or inverted. (Pushing forward elevator distinguishes a snap as an “outside” snap, which we’ll cover later in this article.) The snap inputs need to be applied quickly or the airplane will tend to barrel off course before it reaches a stall. Most planes snap roll better to the left because of torque, whereas right snaps tend to develop slightly more slowly and barrel more.
