Rear-hinged flippers

"In arenas where it's possible to win by throwing an opponent out of the arena, a monster flipper is a viable design choice"

- Aaron Joerger

Rear-hinged flippers were the more common of the two types of true flipper. They first came into existence when Chaos 2 stormed through Series 3, becoming Grand Champion. Before that most rear-hinged weapons, limited as they were, were lifters, or rear-hinged flipping arms. The other innovator, although not as successful, was Facet.

As the series progressed, flippers became more powerful, easily able to toss house robots over and throw other competitors out of the arena. The most notable robot with a rear-hinged flipper is Chaos 2, also the first robot to throw another out of the arena, but as the series progressed, other, more powerful robots such as Wheely Big Cheese, Gravity 3, Spawn Again and Dantomkia also came into the spotlight.

Definition

 * Flippers aim to propel another robot and allow gravity and torque to flip the robot over. This contrasts lifting weapons, which aim to lift, push and tip a robot over.
 * A true flipper is defined as a flipper designed to get the entire mechanism underneath its opponent. The surface area of the flipper is much bigger than that of a flipping arm.
 * The weapon is considered rear-hinged because the hinges are at the top of the robot (usually top of a wedge). When the robot fires its flipper, it gives the impression that a robot is opening its "mouth."

Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages
 * The weapon can throw a robot out of the arena. Chaos 2 and Dantomkia both earned fame for their ability to do this.
 * The weapon can double as a self-righting mechanism. Chaos 2 was the first to do so successfully, in the battle with The Big Cheese.
 * They were possible to fit into an invertible design, as shown by Wheely Big Cheese and St. Agro.
 * It is the most effective weapon at the start of a match, where it can easily end a battle by throwing a robot on its back. This was proven in Ripper's three second defeat of Daisy-Cutter.

Disadvantages
 * They were often fragile and vulnerable to heavy axes, crushers, or heavy rotating weapons. For example, Chaos 2's flipper was nearly destroyed by Razer, Killerhurtz, Dominator 2 and 13 Black at varying points in its career.
 * Flippers rarely offer damage potential and their effectiveness was decreased when Self-righting mechanisms and invertible robots became more popular. Tornado, having lost to Chaos 2 in Series 4, went on to defeat Raging Knightmare, Gravity and Chaos 2 itself (doing so twice) as time went on.
 * CO2 powered flippers only had a limited supply of flips. Having unsuccessfully flipped Tough as Nails around the arena, when Robochicken was finally in a position to throw it out, its flipper lacked the power to do so.
 * Compared to other types of flipping weapons, rear-hinged true flippers are the least effective for self-righting due to the increased amount of leverage required. Robots such as Chaos 2 and Thermidor 2 both succumbed to defeat once they became low on CO2.
 * When opened, the innards of the robot were vulnerable to an attack from the front. This was best shown when Hypno-Disc sliced through the pneumatic cylinders of Stealth.

List of Robots with Rear-Hinged Flippers
Robots are listed alphabetically. Robots that are not heavyweight are listed with a green background. Robots that failed to qualify are listed with a blue background.