Although superficially similar to a Four Point Roll - the stick deflections and senses are identical - the Slow Roll demands smooth transitions in the use of elevator and rudder as you progress through the roll.

A typical roll rate for an aerobatic model is around 360° per second. Compared to the average sports model, this rate is slow. To execute a slow roll, you should be trying to get down to 60°-70° per second which means that a slow roll should take 5 or 6 seconds - not long until you try to do a roll in this time! A good slow roll also eats up a lot of sky.

Half the problem in being able to execute a good slow roll is having a well trimmed model. If applying rudder causes your model to pitch up or down or roll with or against the rudder, you are not going to enjoy much success. Ideally, you want your model to be completely "uncoupled" so that rudder only causes yawing, aileron only causes rolling and elevator only causes pitching. If it also flies with no down elevator when inverted - read on!

To achieve a very low roll rate you may want to consider using the low rate aileron on your transmitter for slow rolling only. It is very important that you watch the model very carefully throughout the roll and make any minor corrections as the roll progresses.The hard part is maintaining direction and height. Initially you will find it hard to really slow the roll down and to make it look smooth - all it needs is tons of practice.

You need to start a slow roll well away from you as the intention is that you will have completed half the roll as the model passes in front of you inverted.

Start the roll with a small aileron input which will remain constant thoughout the roll. In the first quarter roll, the model will progressively want to fall down the downgoing wing. This you correct with a progressively increasing amount of opposite rudder until it goes through it's knife edge position. (Right roll, left rudder and left roll, right rudder)

As the model continues to roll to the inverted position, you have to slowly release the rudder that you've just input. The model will progressively want to drop as it nears inversion so you have to gradually input down elevator to correct this.

Half way there! Hopefully the model is now inverted and right in front of you!

Continuing through the roll, you gradually reduce the elevator and feed in the same rudder as the model approaches knife edge again. (Right roll, right rudder and left roll, left rudder)

As the model passes through the knife edge, gradually release the rudder until you are back in level flight.

As said before, this is not an easy manouevre. If you've seen an expert do a truly slow roll - horizon to horizon - it is impressive!