been trying to nail the split-s for a while now and i keep either getting a weird snap at the top or losing too much altitude before i recover and nearly auger in. running a 5 inch on betaflight, rates are pretty middle of the road not super aggressive. watched probably 20 videos on this and everyones explanation is slightly different.

the part im confused about is when exactly youre supposed to roll and then how much you chop the throttle versus just letting it drop. some guys say chop throttle completely before the roll, some say roll first then chop, some say its a simultaneous thing. feels like the timing window is super small and i keep messing it up. is this just reps or am i missing something conceptual about whats actually happening aerodynamically

its more simultaneous than sequential but the throttle chop needs to be pretty agressive right as you initiate the roll otherwise youre fighting the propwash on the way through and thats probably whats causing that snap feeling you mentioned. the quad wants to pitch weird when theres a big throttle change mid-roll in the inverted position. think of it as ? you want to already be at low throttle when youre inverted so the recovery pull is clean.

also check your D term, if its too low the quad will feel loose and snappy through the maneuver. lots of people tune for freestyle feel and then wonder why split-s feels sketchy, sometimes you just need a touch more D to keep it planted through that inverted phase.

ngl i gave up trying to make split-s look clean and just started doing power loops instead because the throttle management feels more intuitive to me personally. but yeah the thing about propwash is real, theres a reason a lot of people practice these on sims first because you can actually slow down your brain and figure out the timing without the consequences. liftoff or velocidrone will at least let you get the muscle memory before you bin a quad figuring it out in real life