AS3X+

[unknown speaker 00:00:11] Hello, everyone, and welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I'm Ron. I'm Tom. And I'm Dave.

[00:00:16] Dave: And I'm Miguel Alvarez.

[unknown speaker 00:00:19] Dave threw the and in when he just said, I'm Dave. That's okay.

[unknown speaker 00:00:22] He's used to saying and Dave.

[unknown speaker 00:00:24] He is.

[unknown speaker 00:00:24] It's rare that we have guests. Muscle memory.

[unknown speaker 00:00:28] So, Miguel, thank you for joining us tonight. Have a good beer. Miguel is a senior electrical engineer from Spectrum RC under the Horizon Hobby umbrella. Did I get that right? Yep, that is correct. And you will probably hear some dogs barking in the background. Miguel is a dog dad.

[00:00:47] Dave: Yeah, I probably shouldn't have brought them, like hindsight, but I think they'll calm down a little bit, hopefully.

[unknown speaker 00:00:54] No problem. Yeah. And we are actually recording outside, so if you hear a shivering, that's why. We are under the pavilion, or whatever you want to call it, out here at Eli Field in Monticello.

[unknown speaker 00:01:06] One of my favorite places.

[unknown speaker 00:01:08] Yeah. Same. Yeah.

[00:01:09] Dave: They're dogs' favorite place, too. That's why I brought them. They feel bad coming out here and not bringing them. They love running. Yeah, they do.

[unknown speaker 00:01:17] So, we're going to have a discussion about AS3X Plus. Mm-hmm. And we've had a lot of people ask questions about AS3X Plus and AS3X, safe, safe select, all that kind of stuff. And we thought, you know what? Miguel knows all that. I know all that, and I love talking about it. Well, good. Because…

[unknown speaker 00:01:37] That makes you a perfect guest on this podcast.

[unknown speaker 00:01:40] You can get as much into the weeds as you want, as deep dive as you want to go into it. While we might not understand it, we have guests… Or not guests. We have listeners that are smarter than us that will understand it. For sure. And we also have some that are dumber than us… One of the five will surely be smarter than us. …that probably won't understand it, just like us. But anyway, so first off, once again, thank you for agreeing to join us.

[unknown speaker 00:02:04] What is your history in the hobby? How did you get into it? And how did you end up in Monticello recording with a bunch of yahoos? A podcast about…

[unknown speaker 00:02:13] Yahoos. We're yahoos nowadays.

[unknown speaker 00:02:14] In the dark. In the dark. Well, we're not really in the dark. Not yet. Turn the lights on. Well, I did, but still.

[00:02:21] Dave: So, I didn't start in the hobby super young. Mostly just like, you know… You know, some people grow up with like families that are in the hobby for like forever. And I was just… This was just kind of something like… I saw planes. I liked them. I wanted to fly planes with a controller. And started with cars because they're accessible. They're not as expensive. Especially like, you know, talking like maybe early 2000s. Where RC kind of wasn't as user-friendly as it is today.

[00:02:52] Dave: At least RC airplanes. Agreed.

[unknown speaker 00:02:55] Yeah.

[00:02:56] Dave: Started with cars. That kind of… You get your bearings as far as like left is right. Right is left when it's facing towards you. Yeah. You can just stop. Yeah. You can just stop. You just let go of the transmitter and nothing happens. Even if you crash it, a lot of cars are super durable. I mean, they're made to get, you know, bashed around a little bit.

[unknown speaker 00:03:15] Yep.

[00:03:16] Dave: So, I enjoyed that. Started getting a little bored and trying to figure out how to get into planes. You know, they're expensive. I don't know what to look for. My parents definitely don't know what to look for. Convincing them to buy something for me.

[unknown speaker 00:03:30] Right.

[00:03:30] Dave: Is also tricky. So, I had like on and off tried random planes that either they bought me or I picked out. Never worked out. Didn't have someone to teach me. And around 14 years old, I got a AeroBird Extreme, which was a Hobby Zone plane back in the day, I think. It was a Horizon plane. And so, when I was 14, this was like maybe 2007-ish, 2006-ish, I think, if I'm remembering correctly. I feel old. Good. Yeah. And I went out. We had a ranch. My dad was into cattle.

[00:04:11] Dave: We had a ranch. I tried throwing it. Just went straight up, stalled, crashed. Didn't try again for like two years until I got the motivation to buy the parts I needed. Two years from then, they still sold the parts for it. I bought the wing. I bought the fuselage. And I just swapped out the electronics and crashed it again. But fixable with what I had. And eventually, I just kind of kept trying until I got it in the air long enough to self-teach myself to fly.

[unknown speaker 00:04:49] So, you didn't start with a simulator?

[00:04:53] Dave: No. I wish I had. Oh, so badly. I wish I had.

[unknown speaker 00:04:56] We recommend that.

[00:04:57] Dave: I recommend it so many times. So much. I mean, yeah. I do. So, I help a lot at the Champaign Field. We do Thursday night free lessons. Oh, cool. With our own personal planes. And we offer like additional like options to go from there. But I always recommend the simulator. And even without the simulator, like the planes that are available now are so much. Like, you know, so like the AeroScout, for example. I mean, obviously, plugging our company stuff. Sure.

[00:05:23] Dave: But like trying to be as unbiased as possible. Like, that plane is so hard to stall. I mean, it has way more power to wait than what the AeroBird Extreme I had back then had. So like Blasterfly. I love that. And it's super, yeah, you have, it's such a capable airplane beyond just a beginner level that you can really grow into it.

[unknown speaker 00:05:41] Sure.

[00:05:42] Dave: People prefer usually like Cubs and something that looks more like a real plane. Right. But I still push that so hard because it's just like, I still enjoy it a bunch as well.

[unknown speaker 00:05:50] Yeah.

[00:05:51] Dave: So, yeah, I did not get to start with that, unfortunately. Did not start with a simulator. Totally. If I could do it all over again, I would definitely start with a simulator first and foremost.

[unknown speaker 00:06:00] Yep.

[00:06:00] Dave: And then move to an AeroScout.

[unknown speaker 00:06:02] But, you know, they were available back then.

[00:06:03] Dave: The same. Yeah, no. And, you know, this is, again, this goes into part of the lack of awareness. Internet wasn't what it used to be back then either. And, again, at the time, I mean, the simulators, they're not cheap now. They weren't cheap then. Still a hard sell, even if I knew about it. Right. But knowing what I know now, definitely would have pushed for that route, even if it meant having to wait longer to actually get a plane.

[00:06:31] Dave: Because as a kid, too, like, you just want, you don't know what's good for you, I guess, to a certain degree.

[unknown speaker 00:06:38] So, I'm assuming back then, I mean, internet purchasing was a thing back then. But did you buy that from a shop?

[00:06:44] Dave: I bought it from a hobby store.

[unknown speaker 00:06:47] Foul on the shop for not hooking you up with a club. Who could have maybe guided you in the right direction?

[00:06:54] Dave: So, I lived in South Texas, like McAllen, Texas, for anyone that knows where that is. There was maybe one club I knew existed, and I was just a very shy individual. And, you know, sometimes you're, like, afraid to ask for help because you don't want to be that guy that is bothering people.

[unknown speaker 00:07:14] I get it.

[00:07:15] Dave: And I was super shy. I didn't have the personality. My parents didn't really have time to take me. I don't blame them for this, by the way. Like, I'm so grateful for everything they've done with me. They've helped me to get to where I am today. They just lack the RC experience part. And they feel bad about it, too, which is okay. It's, you know, I tell them it's fine. Like, I work at Horizon Hobby.

[00:07:35] Dave: I develop RC stuff thanks to the help I've gotten from them, like, pushing me into my career and everything. So they made up for it heavily in other areas, right? But, yeah, I mean, I know a lot today. I started with that, got it in the air enough to fly it, you know, going back to the original story. And then it just kind of went from there. Got a Park Zone Corsair as my second plane as, like, a high school graduation gift. Nice. So my second plane was also a Horizon plane.

[00:08:02] Dave: I did, like, a scratch build foamy, like, cardboard. Not cardboard, like, foam board.

[unknown speaker 00:08:09] Foam board.

[00:08:09] Dave: There's a YouTube channel called RC Foam Fighters, I think it was. And they had, like, a bunch of plans. So this was, like, before flight tests and stuff. Cool. And so I just went off one of those plans and made one of those. And that was fun as well. But, like, all those things are, like, nice once you already know how to fly and you can, you know, what stalling is and things like that. So that's kind of how I got into RC, I guess.

[unknown speaker 00:08:34] Cool. And it just grew from there then?

[00:08:37] Dave: And it just grew from there, yeah. In college, you know, I kind of stopped for, like, the first one or two years. And then I got into it again in a different way. I was, like, FPV was starting to become a thing. And I didn't get into FPV with quads. Or at least it kind of started with quads because I was fascinated by, like, you know, stabilization algorithms. And, like, how can you fly this thing with just four motors and no wings? And all that engineering fascinated me.

[00:09:07] Dave: But that kind of transitioned into FPV on planes. And I ended up making some friends in college that also liked flying RC. And we all just flew formation, like, FPV and stuff.

[unknown speaker 00:09:17] Cool.

[00:09:18] Dave: And then, you know, eventually I was, like, what am I going to do for work? And I thought maybe Boeing makes sense because they do plane stuff. Sure. I didn't even get an interview for an internship. And then I was, like, I don't know what else I want to do. And then I just happened to look, like, maybe RC companies are offering internships. And at the time, Horizon happened to have internships for engineering, which is not normal. We don't do that now. But so I did that.

[00:09:48] Dave: Came over here summer of 2014. And after the internship, they made me a job offer contingent on graduation the next year. So and then I ended up moving up here to Illinois. From Texas. From Texas, yeah. From South Texas. Yeah, South. Well, so college was in Texas A&M. So that was central-ish Texas. So moving from there then up here. So it was a 15-hour drive. Getting out of Texas took me longer than driving through every state after that. Right. Yeah. It's a big state.

[00:10:18] Dave: It is, yeah.

[unknown speaker 00:10:19] That's cool. I didn't realize you'd been with Horizon for that long.

[00:10:22] Dave: Yeah, I've been here 10 years now. Yeah. Time kind of flies.

[unknown speaker 00:10:26] And how do you like it?

[00:10:28] Dave: I like it.

[unknown speaker 00:10:30] Like you'd say I don't like it, by the way.

[00:10:32] Dave: But you know how do you like it? Honestly, I've been here for 10 years, so obviously I like it. Nothing's ever perfect, right? Right. But I've kind of made it, like, you know, I've kind of grown into the position in a way that I feel like I've also made it to a degree what I want it to be as well. I mean, you know, when I started here, I was just some kid that didn't know anything about RC, or at least that's how I was treated. Like, you know, I was like, we should do this.

[00:10:59] Dave: We should do that. And they're like, you don't get it. You just don't get it. I'm like, whatever, no.

[unknown speaker 00:11:04] Working with old timers is like, they don't like change.

[00:11:07] Dave: Yeah. And, you know, a lot of the stuff I wanted to be different, I learned why things are the way they are. And it's funny because I interact with customers all the time that make some of the same complaints I made. And it's like, you know, I had that perspective until I learned how certain parts of the business work. Right. Like, you know, prices is like a huge thing for us, especially.

[00:11:35] Dave: And one of the things I realized is how much Horizon cares about hobby shops and how much they focus on, like, I mean, you know, I'm not on the business side of things. So take what I say with a grain of salt, like, you know, my perspective is not 100% accurate, but I still see and understand certain things.

[00:11:57] Dave: And so the way they focus on hobby shops compared to, like, some of the other brands, like, you know, some of the Chinese brands, for lack of a better term, that are really good value. But they, from what I understand, hobby shops especially don't get good margins on those products, whereas, like, we give really good margins to hobby shops. And that's part of the reason why some of our prices are what they are, because we have our margin and their margins to take into account.

[00:12:24] Dave: And so it's just, and then there's a whole support side of things. I mean, I've seen, you know, some people have bad experiences with our support. Sometimes I hear that. But the amount of times I've seen them just replace things for free and things like that, even when it's a user's fault. I mean, not everyone sees that. Right. And so you don't, and I'm an engineer, so, like, I'm used to just fixing all my own stuff and not relying on support from companies.

[00:12:45] Dave: So, like, but that's not the majority of the customers. And so I start to see a lot of the value add that makes our prices what they are. And so it starts to make more sense as you're within there. And it's not, I mean, there are things where I still feel like, oh, they could be different and they're just stuck in their old ways. But it's, you know, it's not how I thought it was before. There's a lot of things that actually make a lot of sense once you're in there.

[unknown speaker 00:13:12] Yeah. Once you see that side of it. Yeah. Right. Once you see how the sausage is made. Yeah. There you go.

[unknown speaker 00:13:17] Well, I mean, like, stuff costs to develop, too. Like, an airplane isn't free to make. You have to pay for a lot to get. Yeah.

[00:13:24] Dave: I mean, obviously, like, the funniest excuse, I always say, like, why does this cost this much? And I'm like, well, we have to pay your salary somehow. It's like, okay, whatever. Which is true. Yeah. But, yeah. So, there's a lot behind the scenes that people don't see that I think actually does justify a lot of the value. And, I mean, all of you guys. Well, I know Ron and Tommy buy some of our products. I just met Dave now. But, obviously, you guys buy them.

[00:13:52] Dave: Dave has Horizon products also. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I know you guys. I think you guys enjoy them.

[unknown speaker 00:13:57] Yeah. Oh, yeah. We do. But Dave is the trader, though. He went to FreeSky this year.

[00:14:02] Dave: Maybe after this he'll change his mind.

[unknown speaker 00:14:04] We'll flog him later. He'll go back. A good portion of that was the bad customer support. Oh, yeah. Unfortunately.

[00:14:11] Dave: And, you know, it's, it's, I, I wish I could, I wish I could, I wish everyone could have a perfect experience. I've had one-off experiences with other companies unrelated to RC where it's like that turns me off from them. Even though everyone says they have good experiences. It's like, you know, sometimes things are personal.

[unknown speaker 00:14:30] Yeah. I try to, I try to give them, you know, three, right? Three chances and then, you know, three strikes in your house. Yeah.

[unknown speaker 00:14:36] There are plenty of Horizon products in my home. Yeah. I just, I've just swapped away from the radio systems. Yeah.

[00:14:41] Dave: And it's understandable. I never try to push anyone towards our stuff. I don't want to force someone into something that they're not comfortable with. And then when they don't have a good experience, I'll feel guilty about.

[unknown speaker 00:14:54] Well, and then what do they, what do they do? They tell their friends about their bad experience and then there you go.

[unknown speaker 00:14:59] You know, I'll tell you something that I had when I worked back in the shop, I worked for 17 years in a shop. Hobby shop. Yeah. And I had a customer bring me a radio. He took, and it was his fault. He owned up to it. He dropped the radio on the floor and it shoved both gimbals through the back of the radio. Cool. We boxed it up and sent it off, fully expecting to get a bill to get this fixed. They sent him a brand new radio. Even with him fully emitting, my bad.

[unknown speaker 00:15:26] Just fix it because I love this radio. Yep.

[00:15:29] Dave: And you know what? Excellent. That happened to me too before I ever worked or had anything to do with Horizon with a blade. It was like a MCPX. It was like a red coaxial helicopter. I plugged the radio into the buddy box for real flight and it just started smoking. And I sent it in and they just sent me a new one. And I was like, whoa, that's it?

[unknown speaker 00:15:51] I mean, just the word of mouth.

[00:15:52] Dave: Yeah.

[unknown speaker 00:15:53] So again, it's worth something. What are that radio cost Horizon?

[00:15:56] Dave: Right. Yeah. So like, I mean, that you start to like, we're eating a lot of costs, obviously, when we do things like that. And it is a case by case basis, obviously. But most of the times I feel like people are happy with the experience. But obviously, to your point, Dave, it's not always going to be that way. And you still see upset customers on Facebook or whatever all the time. So, you know.

[unknown speaker 00:16:21] Well, Facebook is the sounding board for those that don't. Are unhappy. Right.

[unknown speaker 00:16:25] And I wanted a red radio.

[unknown speaker 00:16:28] You can get raps. Yeah.

[unknown speaker 00:16:30] So speaking of radios.

[unknown speaker 00:16:32] Well, hold on. No, that was one thing I wanted to say. Because, Miguel, you said you don't push product. You don't do all that kind of stuff. I try not to. So I don't know a lot of the Horizon guys, obviously, like you do. But the select few that I've had any interactions with or ask for help with or, you know, just know in general from the club and all that. Nobody is pushy on Horizon stuff.

[unknown speaker 00:16:55] So we've dealt with other companies and stuff, RC companies and all that kind of stuff, that you kind of get the salesman vibe on. And I don't get that knock on wood from any of the Horizon guys I've talked to. And that's refreshing because you don't feel like you're being pushed into something you're not sure of.

[00:17:13] Dave: Yeah.

[unknown speaker 00:17:13] I mean, does that make sense? Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Okay.

[00:17:18] Dave: I don't know if part of it is because a lot of the people you meet out here at the field are just developed. You know, it's not. I mean, some of the guys are marketing. Like, Steve Petrato's marketing. He's out here often. Yeah. I don't know if part of that is just not interacting specifically with the marketing people or just everyone's just good. And, like, you know, like we're all, like most of us are hobbyists, especially the people you see out here.

[00:17:41] Dave: So it's not like we're out here to have fun, too. Yeah.

[unknown speaker 00:17:44] So at least at some level, you're kind of the same.

[00:17:46] Dave: Yeah.

[unknown speaker 00:17:47] Like, we all love RC companies.

[00:17:48] Dave: Well, not understand what everyone wants, but we're all here kind of for the same end goal, in a sense. A little deeper dive than the average hobbyist. Yeah.

[unknown speaker 00:17:56] Yeah, exactly. They know a little bit more.

[00:17:59] Dave: No, I mean, we even have, like, some of the guys are, you know, like, some of the engineers aren't even hobbyists. And some of them, they come here to work and they get into the hobby because they start working here. And so they're just picking it up. It's not, you know, not everyone at Horizon is a hardcore hobbyist. I'm certain. I've shifted towards that, especially with the turbines and stuff. But I did not start as a hardcore.

[00:18:24] Dave: In fact, you know, the FPV stuff, almost no one here did that when I moved over here.

[unknown speaker 00:18:28] Yeah. Turbines are addicting.

[00:18:30] Dave: Unfortunately, because they're very expensive. But they're so cool. They're very cool.

[unknown speaker 00:18:35] They are addicting. So, anyway. So, shall we move on then? Yes. Do we want to get into the AS3X topic? So, okay. So, I've got a list of things here that I want to make sure we kind of hit. If we do, we do. If we don't hit everything, that's fine. What I want to start with, though, we have AS3X, AS3X Plus, Safe, Safe Select. Okay. Please define.

[unknown speaker 00:19:00] First off, what does AS3X mean? Okay. That's part of defining.

[00:19:04] Dave: We'll start there. Well, let's start with AS3X Plus and AS3X. So, AS3X Plus is an improvement to AS3X. AS3X is just stabilization to help. I guess there's two parts of that, too. But primarily, it's to help fly stuff through windy conditions, help the plane lock in a little better when you let go of the stick. Kind of affect the feel, I guess. You know, the main thing I hear a lot of people describe is it makes it feel like a larger plane.

[00:19:33] Dave: Especially when we did all the AS3X Plus improvements. UMX stuff. UMX stuff is, like, unfliable without AS3X. Especially just a little breeze. It's just awful. Not a fun experience. You can say all you want, oh, you're just not a good pilot. Like, no, it's just not fun. But if you use that excuse, I would say, well, it's cheating to buy a bigger plane then because it flies better than a smaller one.

[00:19:56] Dave: You're just trying to apply technology to make something smaller better and also usable. I mean, like, UMXs are, it seems to me, like a big part of the market. I personally don't care much for them, but I have all the, I mean, we have this field. Like, I don't need UMXs as, like, some people, it's their only option or space-wise.

[unknown speaker 00:20:20] Or cost-wise, even, honestly. That's a good way to get into it. It's a good way to get into it. So AS3X stands for.

[00:20:25] Dave: So AS3X is, ooh, I don't even, I'm not going to try because I don't remember.

[unknown speaker 00:20:32] Okay, well, correct me because this is what I think, but I could be wrong.

[00:20:35] Dave: I know that 3X is for 3X. 3X.

[unknown speaker 00:20:37] I thought it was active stability 3X.

[00:20:41] Dave: Sounds right.

[unknown speaker 00:20:41] Am I wrong?

[00:20:42] Dave: I'm not going to say you're wrong. I'm not going to say you're right, but it sounds right.

[unknown speaker 00:20:47] We'll roll with that.

[00:20:48] Dave: I guess just to give some clarification, AS3X and SAFE existed before I started working at Horizon. I was going to add that. So they were established brands, technologies.

[unknown speaker 00:21:00] Yeah. And do you know when that would have started?

[00:21:04] Dave: Like, roughly? I don't, because I know, I'm pretty sure AS3X came first and then came SAFE. Yes. I remember that. So I, I, but I, yeah, I think SAFE was relatively new, but like, so I started in 2015. I think SAFE maybe was like, I could be totally wrong on this, but I think like three years before I started were like the first proper bind and fly SAFE planes.

[unknown speaker 00:21:29] The first, the first, the first airplane equipped with SAFE that I remember was there, was that, it was a Hangar 9, the P-51 that came with the Gasser, the 8cc Gasser. Oh yeah, the, that had SAFE. Oh, the Air P-51. Yeah. That had SAFE. And that worked, that's going back 2012, 13 maybe?

[unknown speaker 00:21:46] Well, 2013, I think is when I started and I had the, oh, what was it? The Hobby Zone Super Cub. Yeah. And that did not have SAFE. That had the little sensor thing that was supposed to see if it was upside down or right side up. I mean, we didn't put SAFE in every airplane either back then.

[00:21:58] Dave: I think that was, and there was, there was maybe like a different technology at the, because I remember there was like the Firebirds, like similar to the AeroBird Extreme I had, but they had like some newer ones with like some assistant technology to help beginners. Yeah. They're just safe, they're like crash avoiding technology or something. Right, yeah. If you get into a dive, I think it was supposed to help, but.

[unknown speaker 00:22:17] Back then, Hobby Co., who was a competitor of Verizon back then, had that, I forget what they even called it, but it was that module that stuck on the bottom of their trainers. Some of their trainers.

[unknown speaker 00:22:29] The LiDAR? No, not LiDAR. Yeah.

[unknown speaker 00:22:31] It was something like that. Something like that. I actually have one of those brand new in a box from like a standalone unit.

[unknown speaker 00:22:36] Of course you do. Yeah. Why wouldn't you? I mean, but anyway.

[00:22:40] Dave: I know there was like a port on the Extreme, and you could put like a little parachute drop module. There was a, I think it was an ultrasonic or infrared combat module. Combat, yeah. And I wanted one of those so bad, but I didn't know anyone else that flew at the time, so it seemed really fun. Yeah. Or it seemed like a fun thing to try. But yeah, anyway, going back to that. So AS-3X is mainly just to help the plane.

[00:23:04] Dave: It's not, contrary to popular belief, it's not meant to fly the plane for you, which I would say safe is a little bit leaning more towards that. Within AS-3X, you can set up something called heading hold, which makes the plane, instead of just resist, I guess going back to the fundamentals of AS-3X, it resists outside movements. Which is mainly turbulence, or in some cases, depending on how heavily you have it tuned, it can resist even drift from like out of trim. Not by a lot.

[00:23:35] Dave: But, and then heading hold will like straight up, if it starts moving off its current trajectory, it'll try to hold that angle. Which can sometimes, you can use just a little bit to make up for some bad tendencies in airframes. Like the AeroScout actually has a little bit of heading hold in the bind and fly setup for pitch.

[unknown speaker 00:23:56] Oh, in the factory programming it does?

[00:23:58] Dave: Yeah, and I didn't even know this until like a month ago when I was looking through it, because I don't set up the planes, you know, the air product developers do. I just provide the technology for them to use. But, yeah, so if you ever factory reset an AeroScout and try flying it without any gyro, when you throttle up, it actually pitches down.

[unknown speaker 00:24:18] It's got that high thrust line. Yeah, yeah. It'll change.

[00:24:21] Dave: And so, I always assume they probably just have like a throttle to pitch mix in there. And now they just have a little bit of heading hold on pitch, which, you know, does the job. And, yes, it's low enough that you wouldn't even know that it's really doing that. So, hopefully that kind of answers the question on AS3X. And if you want, we can go back after to what makes AS3X Plus different. Yeah, we can hit that afterwards. This is just definitions here. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:24:47] Dave: So, safe and safe select were the other two you asked? Yeah. So, they're both essentially the same thing. Safe select. Well, starting with safe, safe kind of covers both what some people might know as beginner mode and intermediate mode in our trainer planes, such as the AeroScout. So, there's safe by itself, there's what we call an angle demand or auto level mode, which basically turns your stick input into a angle demand.

[00:25:15] Dave: So, there's programmed angle limits in the model configuration. And if I do full stick input, it's going to, the plane is going to try to go to that max angle limit. If I'm halfway on the stick input, it'll go halfway between zero and that angle limit. So, it's basically making your stick tell it what angle to fly at for either roll or pitch. It doesn't affect you all.

[unknown speaker 00:25:38] And so, it won't continue to roll.

[00:25:40] Dave: So, it won't continue to roll. Whereas, when you're normally flying a plane, your stick input is more of like a rotation rate rather than an angle. So, if you keep it deflected, it's going to keep rotating. But, yeah, on safe, you put it at a position, it gets to that angle.

[unknown speaker 00:25:56] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, you're commanding an angle.

[00:25:58] Dave: And that's why people usually think of it as auto level because you let go of the stick and it levels. But, really, all it's doing is you're telling it to go to zero degrees.

[unknown speaker 00:26:07] Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

[00:26:08] Dave: So, that's the main part of safe that people know about. Maybe not to that technical explanation. The other part is the intermediate mode, which is called envelope mode. And that basically is you have normal just AS3X or no AS3X if you don't want it in there. But you set angle limits. So, you have full control of the plane. But once you hit the angle limits, it kind of takes over in a safe angle demand mode. And it locks into that angle so you can't go past it.

[unknown speaker 00:26:43] So, basically, it allows you to do whatever you want to do up until you hit that limit.

[00:26:47] Dave: And then it goes, no, I don't think so. So, it's kind of a transition point before you go full advanced mode where now you're controlling the rate of the plane instead of the angle. But it prevents you from getting upside down where when people get upside down, they just, especially beginners, usually, they panic, they don't know what to do. And, yeah. So, keeping people from getting upside down helps a lot with the learning process. So, yeah.

[00:27:13] Dave: So, safe covers those two modes, angle demand and envelope. Safe select is a mode on bind and flies, typically, usually. So, trainers like the AeroScout are not safe select models. They have the beginner, intermediate, advanced, pre-programmed. Safe select is kind of like an optional mode where you buy the plane, you bind it in a certain way. You can either have safe on or off, depending on how you bind it. Or you can go into forward programming.

[00:27:45] Dave: And maybe you guys have seen this menu on some bind and flies before where you could just manually turn on safe in there or off. And if you want, you can assign a switch so you can flip between AS3X and safe. So, they call it safe select, I guess, because it's like a you select if you want safe on or off. But otherwise, by default, it's either always on, always off, or you can assign a switch.

[unknown speaker 00:28:11] And I can tell you from experience, we're kind of not fans of crutches. No offense, Dave. Hey. To learning how to fly. Right. Yeah. Like, so on the V900, for example, on the eFly V9, I use safe for the launch because it's pre-AS3X Plus, so it doesn't have hand launch mode.

[00:28:31] Dave: Yeah.

[unknown speaker 00:28:31] So, I use safe for launch. And let me tell you, before I learned that little trick, that thing was a nightmare to hand launch. But, and with safe on.

[00:28:40] Dave: Yeah.

[unknown speaker 00:28:40] And then I quickly turn it off so I can do the, you know, whatever I want.

[00:28:43] Dave: So, what I used to do before hand launch assist, which for people that don't know, that's a feature we introduced with the AS3X Plus update. But it's actually, it falls under the safe technologies category, I guess. Yeah.

[unknown speaker 00:28:58] Yeah, because you can set limits.

[00:28:59] Dave: So, if you've ever flown the trainers, I don't know if you've noticed this, they're in the beginner mode with safe on, they're set up so you have a throttle to pitch offset, basically. Yeah, so, depending on your throttle position, it'll automatically add a pitch up or down. And I think part of that is just to teach you throttle control. So, if you're climbing, add throttle. If you're not climbing, decrease throttle.

[00:29:25] Dave: And you kind of just use the throttle to manage that pitch angle. And I guess it also probably helps avoid stalling. Because if you drop the throttle, it's also dropping your angle. Dropping the nose, yeah. And you don't just go up and stall, right? Right. But so, what I used to do, if you set up a plane yourself, you can add these options, these throttle to pitch options. I would have a safe mode, especially for flying wings. And I'd have a throttle to pitch.

[00:29:50] Dave: So, you just full throttle, it automatically adds this pitch. So, when you let it go, it's automatically trying to go at that pitch up angle. Then we added hand launch assist, and it kind of handles doing that automatically.

[unknown speaker 00:30:01] Does all that for you, yeah. I used to do that manually. Hand launch, I'd put in four clicks of up trim before I caught it. And I knew it was four clicks, so I'd get going and put four clicks back down.

[unknown speaker 00:30:14] Yeah, that hand launch assist is kind of handy. Because I was out here the other week, and I didn't have a good hand launch. And I didn't cut the grass, I don't think. But it was pretty close as I threw it down. And that did a good job of keeping me from crashing. Yeah, for sure.

[unknown speaker 00:30:29] I've had airplanes thrown straight up in the air. I was like, whoa.

[00:30:33] Dave: We put that through its paces. So, myself and David Payne, which I think some of you guys have met, he's one of the, I think he's a director. Actually, I don't remember his exact title. But he works a lot with me, especially on developing these technologies, verifying. He has a good eye for minute details in how things feel in the air. He's an excellent pilot.

[00:30:56] Dave: And so, we were out here, and we were testing the worst way you could throw the plane and still have hand launch assist recover it. That would have been fun to watch. And we were testing this with an AeroScout, actually. But we got to the point where he almost like boomerang. Like, you know when you throw a boomerang, but you throw it over your head, so it's kind of vertical, like pointing up-ish, but you throw it forward.

[00:31:17] Dave: He threw the AeroScout like that, and then it still launched, right? So, then he started throwing it more and more towards the ground until eventually it was, it just, yeah, it just went fast enough. Yeah. But, yeah, that was fun. That was a good day. It was a good day, yeah. We at least knew that, and obviously it depends a lot on the plane that, like we mentioned earlier, the AeroScout is super forgiving.

[00:31:42] Dave: There are planes, especially like very torquey planes that can benefit from that, but, you know, you can only do so much to recover from a bad throw.

[unknown speaker 00:31:52] Isn't that right, Tommy? Yes. Truth. They don't let me hand launch the airplanes. I haven't asked, but then you refuse. That's true. But I did lawn dart one of his when he asked me. And it was one, unfortunately, Dave spent hours upon hours building from scratch, and I took it and threw it right into the ground.

[unknown speaker 00:32:10] It's back flying.

[unknown speaker 00:32:11] Yeah, it's fine. It's all fine.

[unknown speaker 00:32:12] It's all fine. It's all fine and dandy.

[unknown speaker 00:32:14] But that airplane would definitely have benefited from hand launch assist.

[unknown speaker 00:32:18] Yeah. It's, like I said, I enjoy having that on airplanes that don't have landing gear. Yep. Was it, was the F-14 the first one that that was in? Because that's the first one I remember seeing that in.

[00:32:32] Dave: I don't remember. I, yeah, I can't say I remember because I, you know, we didn't even test this on, usually whenever we do a lot of these new features, stabilization related features, we test it on planes we already have. We don't want to break samples and things like that. Sure, yeah. And then once that's done, I go back to my, my engineering cave and they work, they implement these features on new stuff.

[00:32:58] Dave: And if there's something wrong with it, then they call me and, and then, so then I, so there are times where we actually release planes that I didn't even know were coming. Cause I just, you know, yeah, like you said earlier, you're not in the, I literally, here's the receiver and they put that in a bunch of planes and unless they need some new feature or something for a specific plane, I'm, I'm not involved.

[00:33:21] Dave: So unless I happen to be at the field and I see them testing it or in the office, you know, there, there are times where, yeah. And it's not that they don't want me to know. It's just, I just happen to not know. Right.

[unknown speaker 00:33:33] So, let's move on to the next one then. Do you know, like what problems were trying to be solved when AS3X plus came out?

[00:33:42] Dave: Yeah. I, I think so, so at the time when we did the new lineup of receivers that currently support AS3X plus, a lot of what we were focusing on was user accessibility, I guess, in the sense of letting users set up everything they want. Like we used to have safe in the older receivers, but it wasn't a user configurable thing. So we were trying to just focus on ease of setup and introducing that feature so that people could do it themselves on whatever plane they want.

[00:34:16] Dave: performance wasn't as much the focus, more of just matching what we already had in a different package to a sense. and in the larger scale of things, especially, so we had our power safes with the AS3000, which you guys may or may not be familiar with. Have you ever used one? Heard it, but I've never had. I've never used one. Yeah. Okay. So, so it was, it was a very convenient package.

[00:34:42] Dave: but there, there's still mentions of like, I like the feel of this gyro better and stuff like that. And, and to me, I took that personally, not, not just me. I mean, obviously like this was, I, I, I didn't use these other gyros. So it's something I hear from other people or I heal here from coworkers that tell me, Hey, I've tried this gyro, it feels better. And what can we do?

[00:35:07] Dave: And, eventually we, when I was working on the new power safes with the synapse, we had time to improve stuff and I wanted to improve it. And with the whole COVID situation, the whole COVID thing was happening at that time. so there was like supply chain issues and things like that, like other, other things that were going to delay the project. So it just felt like a really good opportunity to just dive into it, see what I could improve, make better.

[00:35:39] Dave: like, you know, my personal goal was if you're using spectrum, there's no, like you should have no reason to want or have to use another gyro unless you're doing like, you know, GPS navigation and all this stuff. Like, which we don't focus on. We're focused on like line of sight, just you fly the plane type stuff, which is another part of contention with gyros. Like you're not flying the plane, whatever. Right.

[unknown speaker 00:36:01] we've heard the argument. Oh yeah.

[00:36:03] Dave: but so, so yeah, it's just, you know, my personal goal and obviously the company I'm sure shares the sentiment and obviously they gave the time to work on it. So if you're using spectrum, you should have no reason to use another gyro. and yeah, I just worked on making it better.

[00:36:20] Dave: And I had some ideas already at the time and a big part of it, aside from the actual algorithm changes was actually trying to make it as user friendly as possible, making the default settings work across as much as possible without having to like fine tune different things. which there's always something you lose and or gain by doing that, but you still have all for the, for the power users.

[00:36:50] Dave: You still have all the things you can change in there and, making sure we make that available as well for the people.

[unknown speaker 00:36:56] I mean, I'm definitely not in the demographic power user, but I certainly appreciate the ease of setting up the synapse and what it does.

[00:37:05] Dave: And the reception on that end was pretty good. There are still, there are still people that it doesn't quite click, getting, they're looking at us. Yeah. there, yeah, there's, there's still some people where it's still not like, it's, it doesn't click. And, you know, we, we've, we added, we also introduced the wiki pages with all the guides. I mean, I wasn't really helpful.

[00:37:32] Dave: And so like, I write the guides, David reviews them and there's a bunch of back and forth. cause sometimes like, you know, I don't, I don't perceive things the way someone else might perceive it. So I'll write something that to me makes sense. It's like, dude, this is too complicated. Say it in a different way. Yeah.

[unknown speaker 00:37:50] Yeah. You've got the engineering hat on. Yeah.

[00:37:51] Dave: So it's not, not dumb it down, but simplify it enough for, it's not, no, it's not, and you know, it's not even that it's, it's, it's literally just explain it in a different way that is still accurate. It still makes sense. And we have this discussion all the time. Cause he, he'll say like, why don't you say it like this? And I'll be like, but that's not true. That's not correct.

[00:38:11] Dave: So, but, but it's good because, you know, he understands that I understand his point and we end up finding a middle ground. where it's still, it's still accurate information, which is my, my main thing is I want people to have accurate information. Yep. This misinformation spreads like wildfire. Oh boy. and, and sometimes misinformation works, but it's not right. And that leaves to misunderstandings on how to set up other things.

[00:38:41] Dave: Like suddenly it becomes an issue when you try to do a different thing because. Yeah.

[unknown speaker 00:38:45] Because you've learned it.

[00:38:46] Dave: Because the core concept that you're working off of is incorrect. Yep. but yeah, no, we've reached good middle grounds and, you know, even the wiki is still not perfect. There are still people that it's, you know, it's doesn't make sense to. And, it's, it's kind of hard to find something that works for everybody at the end of the day. And I, I guess like the consolation to me is like, we also have bind and flies that are already set up for you.

[00:39:12] Dave: Like worst case scenario. I know it's not the solution everyone wants. They want the, they want to fly whatever other plane they can get from another brand brand and add that to it. but you know, we're always trying to make it better, but it's obviously it's not perfect. And there's still parts that are complicated.

[unknown speaker 00:39:30] There are certain parts. I don't know how easy you can make them though.

[00:39:35] Dave: Right.

[unknown speaker 00:39:35] It's so that, you know, there's no one button setup. I mean, you have to kind of have an idea of what each setting does and what you're looking at.

[00:39:43] Dave: Cause like you can, you can tune, especially like one thing I've heard with AS3X plus. And one thing I've described to people is like, if you took the old AS3X and you had a bind of life, which was all fine tuned, like the product developers tune each access individually, make it as good as possible. You could take AS3X plus, just tune it with the dial without fine tuning each access and it'll fly better than the fine tuning that they spent hours on.

[00:40:08] Dave: Except now on the new bind and flies, now they're fine tuning with the new algorithm too. So it's even better. So you can make it really good on a basic setup, but you can make it even better if you deep dive into it. And, I remember talking to, do you guys know Ethan Ader? He does a lot of our videos. He's a great 3D pilot. he never really used, or I don't know if never, but he didn't use gyro as much before, if at all.

[00:40:33] Dave: And when he, he tried one on one of his 3D planes and he said he liked it so much that even though it worked great on the basic setup, it like motivated him to learn more about it, to do fine tuning. Cause it just, it just like got him excited and motivated to just want to learn about it, I guess.

[unknown speaker 00:40:51] Yep. Yeah. That's cool. so next, how does AS3X plus interact with safe or safe select and can they be used together?

[00:41:00] Dave: so they, they should be used together. So, AS3X is, I guess going back to like what AS3X does, it's when you let go of the stick. So, sorry, dog, dog, dog sounds again. when you let go, so there's a setting in AS3X called priority. I guess if you don't mind, I want to talk about like when people say AS3X takes control from you.

[00:41:29] Dave: So there's a setting called priority, which takes your stick input and it determines how much gyro it takes away as you're applying a stick input. So you can control if you want it to pretty much take gyro away instantly, or if you want it to hold gyro input longer as you're applying stick input.

[unknown speaker 00:41:50] So is that a linear equation then?

[00:41:52] Dave: It's yeah. And we have a chart on the wiki that kind of explains how you adjust it and what that chart looks like, because yeah, it's, it's linear as you're applying stick input, the gyro gain is dropping, dropping, dropping until it hits zero. Or you could have it to just never fully go away if you, if you wanted to. Yeah. but our default is set so that when you're at about 60% input, the gyro is completely gone.

[00:42:17] Dave: So maybe you still feel it a little bit if you're around the center, but, but it's, it's less than if you're hands off. Cause the primary goal is just, if you're hands off, it should fly through turbulence, help with all that stuff. that's like kind of the main goal.

[unknown speaker 00:42:32] Yep.

[00:42:32] Dave: but then you can play around with priority just if you want less intervention. So like I did a, I did a 3d tuning video with Ethan where we recommend increasing priority more cause you want less intervention on 3d stuff you want. And there's some other settings you can change to have the plane have more natural responses when you let go of the stick, but still have the gyro on when you're not on the stick.

[00:42:55] Dave: So it's still works through turbulence, especially like, like I said earlier, like it helps a lot on smaller planes.

[unknown speaker 00:43:01] Yeah. So it's kind of smooths it off in the center. Yeah. As you reach further and further into your extreme movements, it's not limiting the airframe.

[00:43:09] Dave: Right.

[unknown speaker 00:43:10] Right.

[00:43:10] Dave: And it's a balance. Cause like some people described, you maybe feel a little bit of an expo feeling around center when you set up the gain, but it also depends on that expo setting. You could, you could, take some of that away so that when you add that input is just gone completely. Some people just compensate by reducing the expo on the transmitter and letting the gyro kind of give a little bit of that expo.

[00:43:32] Dave: Cause it is still affecting a bit when you're just adding a little bit of stick input. If that makes sense. Right. But again, it's all based on that priority setting. Most people don't even touch it. I know, I know one person, John at two bros I see, which I've seen some of his videos. He likes making all his planes tail heavy, but he adds, he, he adds really low priority.

[00:43:53] Dave: So even when he's adding pitch, the gyro is still working because when you have a tail heavy plane, the gyro helps a lot. But by making the plane tail heavy, you can do a lot of maneuvers that you wouldn't be able to do otherwise.

[unknown speaker 00:44:05] And if you watch enough of his videos, he still crashes them, even though gyros, you know, are right.

[00:44:09] Dave: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, yeah, it's the internet. You can, you can control how much intervention it has. I guess what I'm trying to get at with the priority thing, I'm not going to go too much into details, I guess, about the tuning, but well, you can, I mean, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

[unknown speaker 00:44:23] I mean, but I guess either way, it's kind of whatever you think is important, honestly, because you don't know what you don't know. Yeah.

[unknown speaker 00:44:31] Whatever, whatever you want folks to know. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:44:34] Dave: I guess, I guess just, just to not take up too much time on that. I would recommend looking at the wiki and looking at that priority setting, just to see how to play with it. If you ever tune your plane, the planes yourself, or, or even if you take a Bind and Fly, you can adjust the priority on the AS3X modes. You can't touch the, the, the settings for safe modes. Cause we really want to keep those on lockdown and not make people, we don't want people to get into trouble. Sure.

[00:45:02] Dave: with the Bind and Fly setup, they can still factory reset it and set it up from scratch if they want all their personal preferences. But for our setup that we provide, we try to prevent them getting in too much trouble. Yep. If you take AS3X away, I mean, the plane doesn't fly as nice. I think that's my personal opinion, but you can, and it's not going to make it unfliable. If you take safe gain off too much, you pretty much like lose control.

[00:45:26] Dave: Like you can't control the plane anymore. So it's, it's, it's, yeah. So we control that one a little more. And then also, well, I guess the other thing is there are things like, say fail safe that you need those gains to be correct for it to work. Yep. which for those, for people that don't know, and this is a, this is actually a good, good thing to, as far as like setting up your own planes, like people saying, oh, we don't like safe. We just like AS3X.

[00:45:54] Dave: I set up safe on all my planes and I, I usually always have it on a switch cause I've flown into the sun. And sometimes I've had a bug on my face. so having that as just like a flip, or even if I have to look away for whatever reason, I, it's like an extra sense of security. It's not, I don't think I'm a bad pilot. Right. Yeah. but there are just situations out of your control where it's nice to have.

[00:46:19] Dave: and then, you know, jokes aside on fail safe stuff, if it ever were to happen for whatever reason, you can set up the plane to enter a, a roll and pitch angle in a fail safe so that it doesn't, or even just no angle, but at least auto level. So it doesn't just fall to the ground. It at least will loiter or fly level in a straight line. So it gives you time to hopefully figure out what's wrong and recover.

[unknown speaker 00:46:46] Yeah.

[00:46:46] Dave: so I, I always set up safe. I, I, you know, I don't, I don't need it, but it's, but it's a good to have. There are many reasons why it's nice to have.

[unknown speaker 00:46:56] It's not a, yeah, it's, it's that extra level of insurance of just in case with the jet, especially. Oh yeah.

[00:47:03] Dave: Even my jets, the Diablo has a safe mode. It's, I literally have never used it, but it's nice to know it's there just in case.

[unknown speaker 00:47:11] Yeah. And that's, it's funny because we used to kind of think that was all crutches and all that kind of stuff.

[00:47:17] Dave: And that's the main thing I always see online. Yeah.

[unknown speaker 00:47:19] The, the more you kind of get to know what it does and what to expect from it, you kind of change your tune. I think we have, especially Tommy, you and I on what it actually does and how it's a good thing, not a bad thing. It's a tool. Like safe. Thank you.

[unknown speaker 00:47:36] It's perfect. Right. It's a tool for learning how to fly a model airplane.

[unknown speaker 00:47:40] Right. Like the goal is not to be unsafe for the rest of your life. Right. But use that to where you don't crash. Use that to where you can move on and not get discouraged because you crashed your plane eight times in a row.

[00:47:53] Dave: I mean, and you know, there, there are people, I mean, people are going to hate hearing this, but there are people that depend on safe to be able to enjoy the hobby. Like they, they just never get around to learning to fly. And it's not, it's not because it's not because they don't try or because they started on safe and therefore they can't learn how to fly it normally. It's just, you know, they, some people just, they're okay with it. Are happy with that level.

[00:48:18] Dave: But we're fine with it. I mean, like, you know, it's there for you to use if that's what you want. And, you know, it's, it's there for you to use. If, if you don't like it, you don't have to use it. Yeah. You can turn around. That's a great part about it. Like, you know.

[unknown speaker 00:48:31] Yeah. Who cares? It's your hobby.

[00:48:33] Dave: Exactly.

[unknown speaker 00:48:33] As long as you're enjoying it, that's.

[00:48:36] Dave: And that's the other thing. With all this gyro stuff, you enjoy the hobby the way you want. Yeah. As long as you're having fun and you're doing it safely. Right. Which, you know, that can go into another.

[unknown speaker 00:48:46] I'm not going to push a gyro onto somebody that, you know, is dead set against them. I'll sing their praises, you know, makes you look like a better pilot than you are.

[00:48:56] Dave: I mean, the one thing I would say on going back to just AS3X and not the safe stuff, there are so many pilots that, you know, way better than I am that use gyros as well. I mean, it's, I think there's, there is a misconception on what a gyro does and what it takes away from the pilot having to do. And there are, some of those are true if you set it up to do that.

[00:49:22] Dave: But the, the reality, or I mean, obviously many people are going to think I'm biased because we sell, we sell receivers with gyros, but I think for me, it makes the hobby way more fun. I mean, this, this erratics is flat for me. Like I was flying it in 20 miles per hour wind the other day. I would never do that without a gyro. It's just.

[unknown speaker 00:49:41] No, it just makes it so much more enjoyable when you're not fighting those little gusts. Exactly.

[00:49:45] Dave: You can concentrate on actually controlling the aircraft, not fixing it.

[unknown speaker 00:49:48] And having fun.

[00:49:49] Dave: And no one thinks flying a bigger airplane is cheating.

[unknown speaker 00:49:52] Right.

[00:49:53] Dave: So. Exactly. Yeah. If you're making the small airplanes just fly like bigger airplanes, I don't. Yeah. I mean, not everyone's going to change their mind hearing this, but you know, this is. Give it a try. This is the perspective. All of us.

[unknown speaker 00:50:05] It's a perspective that they can listen to if they so choose.

[unknown speaker 00:50:09] So let me ask you this. So Synapse, when it first came out, it seemed to be AS3X Plus before it was on all the lower end receivers.

[00:50:19] Dave: It was the debut, I guess, for AS3X Plus.

[unknown speaker 00:50:23] So I had Ali Mishinji was the one that test flew my jet and got it all programmed and stuff for me. Yeah. And I watched him set up the three flight modes, the, you know, all that. And was very surprised how easy it was. And like three laps, pretty much, he had that plane completely dialed in and ready to fly however you wanted to. I let him deal with that. I didn't get into looking at a lot of the stuff on it.

[unknown speaker 00:50:56] Once AS3X came out or AS3X Plus came out and I loaded it on some of my older planes that just, you know, you updated from the old AS3X stuff with the firmware. when I got into, the first time set up with it, like I know there's a couple settings, the stick priority, and then there's, lock release or what, what are the other two?

[00:51:19] Dave: Stop lock rate and stop release. Those are new. Priority, priority existed before. We just changed the default value on that update. Okay. But otherwise it does the exact same thing. We just lowered it a little bit. So it was a bit more gyro.

[unknown speaker 00:51:33] What I was going to say though is, so I think best practices are usually set up, especially when you have landing gear and stuff, three flight modes. So you have, you know, completely clean takeoff flaps, landing flaps, and you get everything dialed in on that.

[00:51:48] Dave: It's, it's, it's all, it's, it's personal preference really. It definitely, it definitely helps. I think the, the one thing with setting up the flap higher gain. So like, I guess what you're referring to is you have your normal gains for normal flight. And then when you're using your flaps, your full flaps for landing, you set higher gains because you're going slower, right? Because you're going slower. So it, it, it's not going to, right.

[00:52:13] Dave: But the, the one keyword is only using it while you're flying slower. Cause otherwise the gains are probably too strong and will be unstable at higher speed flight.

[unknown speaker 00:52:22] So oscillations is what you'll be looking at then. Yeah. Okay.

[00:52:25] Dave: but if, yeah, I mean, a lot of people set it up that way, they'll assign it to a switch. and there are different ways to do it. Like you could just have the gain channel and just set the gain, like the channel positions with the switch, or you could use the flight modes in the receiver, which also goes back into set up personal preference. Cause back like older gyros, you just had a gain channel and that's it. and I think some are still that way too.

[00:52:50] Dave: It just, but in, in our case, you can set up flight modes in the receiver where you can also change various settings. Or if you had a safe mode that goes into like the whole receiver flight mode thing, but you could just have three receiver flight modes with the gains you want.

[00:53:05] Dave: so, so yeah, so you can, there's, there's a whole lot of depth, depth that you can have on your setup, or you could just have one mode with one gain that you tune with the knob in one flight and that's it.

[unknown speaker 00:53:19] And well, okay. So that was the other thing that I, I, the first time I actually went through and test flew my own airplane and I didn't feel as though I did it right because it was so simple. Like it, like, seriously, it felt like I was missing something like it flew. Okay. You know? And then I think the second time I was doing it, I was out here and you were out here at the same time. So I said, Hey, walk me through this. Yeah.

[unknown speaker 00:53:44] And then you kind of went through the, all the options that were on there. But I think the feeling of getting it set up so quickly makes you think you're missing a lot. But there's really, while you can go down that if you need to, you don't have to, to get an airplane set up and flown well quickly.

[00:54:04] Dave: Yeah. So I think a part of this could be the noticeable improvement can vary plane to plane because all planes are different aerodynamically speed, whatnot weight. The, the best way to tell how different it feels is just to turn it off and on and see if, if you feel, if you notice a difference.

[unknown speaker 00:54:26] Yeah.

[00:54:26] Dave: I, I know a lot of people would like to be able to go between old and new in the air, but that's really tricky to do and probably not worth the effort on our end. yeah, you could, you could set up your switch to just turn it on and off and you can feel the difference. what, what plane was, was this the Viper 90 by any chance when?

[unknown speaker 00:54:45] No. that was a, hold on. it was an F 18. Okay. I think which one it was though. It doesn't matter. It might, I think the FMS, F8. Okay. Okay. I think that was the one we were dealing with.

[00:55:02] Dave: Okay. I don't, I don't remember super well. I've helped, I've helped a bunch of people at this point. It's been a long time and it was a five minute conversation. Okay. Okay. So I don't expect you to remember. Yeah. So, I mean, I guess to your point, yeah, it is super simple. It's as simple as just increasing the gain knob until it starts oscillating and then go back until that goes away and that's it.

[00:55:21] Dave: But then you can get it, like I mentioned, you can get into a stop block and you can tune the stop behavior, you know, kind of balancing when the gyro kicks in versus the plane's natural response or natural stop. And that can let you also maybe push the gains a little higher, but you don't have to. And we have guides, we have guides to do that on the wiki as well, like tuning stop block and, and the normal gain.

[00:55:48] Dave: But really, I mean, just, just the gain channel from that first time setup and just tune it in one flight. And I mean, it's, it's still going to be way better than.

[unknown speaker 00:55:56] And so I also have the synapse in, in my, my, the Ranger. and that's how I set mine up, just almost identical to how Ron described how he set his up. And I had the same feeling. I was like, I got to be missing something that was way too easy. Right.

[unknown speaker 00:56:12] so then like I unlocked the receiver that's in my turbo timber evolution and, started playing and going down the rabbit hole and you can make it as difficult as you want, but it can also be, but it doesn't have to be right. Exactly. If you like experimenting, you can, if, experimenting is not your thing and you just want a basic setup, it does that great as well too. You can still get a lot of performance out of it.

[unknown speaker 00:56:35] I love, I love the whole AS3X plus, algorithms for lack of a better word.

[unknown speaker 00:56:43] The, the setups of what you can actually get to.

[unknown speaker 00:56:45] Yeah. What you can get to and you can tinker with. And yeah, I've, I've made that turbo timber evolution do some really crazy stuff that just

[00:56:53] Dave: makes like a lot of planes feel like totally new planes.

[unknown speaker 00:56:56] Yeah, exactly. And it felt like flying a different plane than, than it did when it was not AS3X plus. So.

[unknown speaker 00:57:02] And I remember one of the other things you said, Miguel too. So on the IX 14, I think too, and IX 20, it has a knob on the top, but you said not use the knob and switch it to the little.

[00:57:12] Dave: I, my personal preference. So a lot of people, again, like the whole knob thing is also just people are used to that traditionally on gyros. I, I personally like the trimmers, especially if you have them because you can trim it and that's saved to the model. Whereas the knob, if you move it between models, it's, it's not like recording its position and it's way easier to accidentally move than a trimmer.

[00:57:38] Dave: so, so yeah, you just trim it and you leave the trimmer where you like it. And if you want to adjust it app, like normally if you use the knob, you're either assigning that, that channel, that gain channel to, to a switch. So it's kind of locked or you're capturing the gains in the receiver. So it's also locked. So if you want to change it afterwards, you either have to go in the menu and change it, or you have to go and adjust your switch channel.

[00:58:07] Dave: Whereas if you have it on the trimmer, you'd be like, oh, you know, today it feels a little, a little bouncy. I'm going to turn down the gain a little bit.

[unknown speaker 00:58:13] And here's another thing I like about putting it on the trimmer. Cause that's how I set mine up. with each beep, it's so many points of percentage, right? On the knob, it's hard to feel where it's at, you know? So you don't know exactly how much you're turning it up or down. Cause I mean, I don't look at my trimmer while I'm making the changes as I'm flying. So the trimmer is nice.

[unknown speaker 00:58:34] Cause if, you know, Hey Ron, can you reach over and give me three beeps of, of whatever on the trimmer, he can do that and know that I'm turning. At one degree, right? So that's another, yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. So that's like another, I think that's another benefit of putting it on the trimmer.

[00:58:51] Dave: But again, that's like a personal preference thing. I like what I usually recommend. And we, we, in the, in the wiki, and I think in David did a video for like the first time set up. And I think we, we recommend like all, I think the slider might be like the other option we maybe recommend. But I think in the video he does the knob, but like we, we point out all the options you can, or at least that we can think of, obviously the, the radios are so configurable.

[00:59:16] Dave: You could probably come up with some other, I mean, going to like John two bros RC again, he assigns his throttle and creates a mix to adjust the gain channel. So he's using his gain is based on his throttle position, which I personally avoid just because if I'm on a down, like I'm on the dive and I'm going too fast, I don't want it to go out of control. But if you're conscious of those things and, or, or if you have like an override for it, then, you know, it's fine.

[unknown speaker 00:59:45] Which he probably does.

[00:59:46] Dave: I think, I think he does actually.

[unknown speaker 00:59:48] I mean, cause like in his videos, you can hear all kinds of beeps and stuff going on that he's dealing with the transmitter while he's on.

[00:59:53] Dave: But you know, for me, like just having the one gain set up and maybe in, in some planes I'll do the, the flaps higher gain. but most of the times I'll just do a single gain. I do tune this stop lock on all of my planes. I'll assign, you can assign that to a gain channel as well. it's a bit of a process, but you can assign that. So I'll use one trimmer actually for the normal gain and another for stop lock.

[01:00:14] Dave: And I tuned those in conjunction, just to get like that perfect stop that I like.

[unknown speaker 01:00:20] So if I remember right then the, when you first start tuning AS3X is all the way down and then stop lock rate should be all the way up and then you work yourself.

[01:00:29] Dave: And you have to set the actual value for a stop lock to the max. You have to change. There's a, there's a few settings you have to change to actually make it controllable with the channel. And I only do this on roll. I leave the others at the defaults. But so I'll basically, I'll, I'll tune the gyro gain until it just gets like a single bounce. And then I bring the stop lock down until my stick inputs, that bounce just goes away.

[01:00:50] Dave: So it's just kind of that, to me, to me, it's the perfect balance. Yeah.

[unknown speaker 01:00:54] The nice crisp stop where it just looks locked in. Yeah.

[01:00:58] Dave: But again, it's not necessary. I mean, like you could just do the one gain channel and that's it. And that still makes the plane way better. Oh yeah. In my opinion, than just doing nothing and definitely way better than the old algorithm for sure.

[unknown speaker 01:01:12] So what types of aircraft benefit most from AS3X plus? is there any kind you would say?

[01:01:20] Dave: Like, and it, it, it goes beyond just like, so for example, like I have two thrust vector jets, and on the higher end receivers, starting from the 10 360 and then obviously the Synapse ones, you can do multiple gyro systems where.

[unknown speaker 01:01:35] Okay. So that was my question, by the way.

[01:01:37] Dave: So Synapse, I have that written down right here when we were talking earlier.

[unknown speaker 01:01:40] So Synapse technically has three gyros, you said, or you can do three.

[01:01:44] Dave: Synapse has, so it's, it's more a function of the power safes and the Synapse is kind of like the sensor unit. but the power safes and the 10 360, which is not a power safe. it's our, just our normal 10 channel stabilized receiver. All of those have four gyro systems. and it's the, the best way to think of it is, let's say you have your main gyro and you set up like your aileron elevator or whatnot.

[01:02:14] Dave: but then you want to set up in the case of thrust vectoring, you want to set that up, but you want totally different gains for that different gain settings, different flight modes to turn it on and off separately. traditionally you'd have to get a separate gyro unit and then connect those to that and give it then its own settings.

[01:02:34] Dave: so this is kind of doing it virtually, I guess, in a sense where, you can, create those, you know, teach it, those vector outputs, the thrust vector nozzle outputs, and then just assign those to a different gyro system and give it all its different gains, set up a separate flight mode. So you can turn it on and off independently of the, of the main controls.

[01:02:57] Dave: cause like usually I don't want to ever turn off gains on my aileron or elevator or whatever, unless like the receiver gets loose and it's bouncing over to the plane.

[unknown speaker 01:03:08] Really crazy stuff, yeah. and so does that use, so like, let's just say on the synapse then, so that is just the synapse part itself that goes in there, that is just a sensor?

[01:03:20] Dave: Yeah, it's using the same information from the sensor, but it's kind of…

[unknown speaker 01:03:24] It's looking at it differently?

[01:03:25] Dave: It's, it's, it's own set of, of, it's basically, it's almost like it's running the gyro algorithm for different times with each time with its own set of settings.

[unknown speaker 01:03:38] But it's just, it's getting the same input, but just outputting completely different on how you have it set up to do what it's supposed to do based on, I gotcha.

[01:03:47] Dave: Yeah. Let me, I was going to say, is she, Callie seems like she's got a little tangled up. Let me go.

[unknown speaker 01:03:52] Okay.

[01:03:53] Dave: Poor Callie.

[unknown speaker 01:03:57] That's interesting because like a lot of people would assume, myself included, because I'm old and not…

[unknown speaker 01:04:05] Young? …up with technology. Okay.

[unknown speaker 01:04:08] When he says there's like four gyro systems in one, the way he described it, now it makes sense to me, but like, I'm trying to picture four individual piezo gyros or whatever they are inside the case of the synapse, well that's not actually what it is. It's one sensor, but it's running the algorithms three, four separate times.

[unknown speaker 01:04:27] Yeah. So it almost sounds like it's four different programs running inside using the same input. Right. I gotcha. Yeah.

[unknown speaker 01:04:34] That's the way that, yeah. I'm glad he explained it that way because now that makes sense to me. Yeah. It's not three. It's four.

[unknown speaker 01:04:40] I had three.

[unknown speaker 01:04:42] So anyway, I'm glad you explained it that way because now I understand it.

[01:04:48] Dave: I mean, that's kind of the goal. It's just because, I mean, I also at the time when I was working on this, I was like, if I get a jet, it's going to be thrust vectored and I don't want to buy an extra gyro for it. Yeah. And that goes again into the whole, if you're using Spectrum, you should have no need to buy another gyro. Yeah. Or at least that goal. So, yeah, I mean, that kind of fulfills that goal.

[01:05:11] Dave: And yeah, the best way to explain it is same as if you got four different receivers each with its own gyro setup. Yep.

[unknown speaker 01:05:20] So this kind of goes into it then. What sensors and data streams does the AS3X Plus rely on to make corrections?

[01:05:27] Dave: So AS3X Plus specifically uses a, well, the sensor as a whole is a six-axis IMU, but the six-axis, three of those is just gyro data, which is rotation rate on three different axis. And then it has an accelerometer for acceleration in three different axis. But that part applies more towards the safe for like…

[unknown speaker 01:05:52] Like hand launch assist.

[01:05:53] Dave: Yeah. So it's hand launch assist uses like, yeah, literally the raw acceleration to determine that you threw it along other conditions. And, but also to calculate and estimate attitude relative to the horizon, which is how safe works. And that's its own set of challenges because obviously you're pulling high Gs when you're

[unknown speaker 01:06:17] flying the plane and stuff.

[01:06:18] Dave: And when you switch into safe, you're, you're hoping that it, it still knows what level is. Right. so, so yeah, it's a, it, that safe or that attitude estimation is kind of a combination of those two, but AS3X specifically only uses the gyro information, which that's how it knows, you know, if the wind moved it, then, you know, resist, basically resist that.

[01:06:43] Dave: That's a very oversimplified, explanation of what the, what a gyro does on a plane, but yeah, that's what it is.

[unknown speaker 01:06:51] So you said level and stuff. So that's the other thing with safe, with all that is when, so obviously when you set it up, you have to have it level and with the AS3X plus, you can adjust like degrees on how you have the, receiver mounted, correct?

[01:07:07] Dave: The, the, the, the degrees is, that's still on the safe part because it's relative to that. cause just, I guess just to like reiterate separation, AS3X is just resisting outside forces and safe is like actually controlling the angle of the plane. Yeah. so that, that offset is not compared to what it thinks. Yeah.

[01:07:28] Dave: We still expect the receiver to be mounted relatively square to the axes of the plane, but that, that angle, the, the attitude trim, which is what we call it is specifically for safe to account for minor offsets in the, the angle of the receiver mounting in the plane. So that when you switch into safe mode, it's actually flying level.

[unknown speaker 01:07:50] So how does it know, say, and I've wondered this several times, taildigger aircraft, when it goes into safe mode and self levels itself, to me, it's going to see that the nose is up and it, is it memorized that? Or have you guys got an offset built into it because of the tail drop?

[unknown speaker 01:08:05] So, and also to add onto that, sorry, cause that kind of goes on with this. Yeah. When you turn it on and it goes through its little, you know, beep sequence and it's, it's booting up, does that have to be level or is that stored in the initial setup?

[01:08:17] Dave: That, so that, that was something, I guess, let me start with Dave's question. So I guess it's not the same thing.

[unknown speaker 01:08:23] I'm sorry.

[01:08:24] Dave: So, I thought it was close. When, when, when you do the first time safe setup, there's a attitude trim section where you're supposed to set the plane level for a tail dragger, you should lift the tail up a little bit. Cause you, it, I, I believe the, I don't remember the wording we have in there, but I think it tells you to set it to level flight. which would imply that you lift the tail a little bit so that it's level for level flight.

[01:08:51] Dave: and you can, you can go back and adjust those trim values. If the plane's not flying quite level the way you want it to, like if it's, if it's pitching down a little bit or up or rolling a little bit, if, if the plane is trimmed and it flies fine in non-safe mode, but the angle's off in safe mode, then you should go and adjust those attitude trim values, not try to chase it by trimming the plane.

[01:09:16] Dave: Cause then when you go into ASGX mode, now it's going to be, and your, your question Ron was, if it has to be level on startup, that was something specific to the original, like 636 receivers and some of the, those older bind and flies, that's not a requirement anymore. In fact, on really windy days, cause the gyro has to calibrate on startup. Sometimes I find it easier to boot up the plane upside down.

[01:09:43] Dave: Cause it's kind of like more rigid and the wind doesn't knock it around as much. Yeah. I've done that. You can do that if you want to.

[unknown speaker 01:09:49] I actually did that earlier with a slow ultra stick, but I wasn't, I knew I wasn't using safe, so I didn't know if that had anything to do with, with.

[01:09:56] Dave: Yeah, no, it's, it's just not, not a requirement anymore.

[unknown speaker 01:09:59] Okay.

[unknown speaker 01:09:59] Yeah. I've had my sit there and not bind and not bind and not bind. And what's, what is it doing? Yeah. Cause it's moving. So I have to go grab a wing and hang on to it from bouncing around and then it does its thing.

[01:10:10] Dave: And I remember on some of the older planes where I would like, I remember this on the Visionaire specifically having to stick my foot under the, the, the tail wheel to get it level enough to where it would initialize. cause it was out of, out of, cause it had to be like super close to level, I think for, yeah. So, but yeah, yeah, now it can be upside down anything. And that was, that was a big complaint from, yeah, from that stuff. Well, it's, but it's fixed.

[unknown speaker 01:10:36] That's better for all of us.

[01:10:37] Dave: That one was developed before me. So no blame.

[unknown speaker 01:10:41] No, it's okay. so how does the receiver distinguish between pilot input and external disturbances, I can't read like wind.

[01:10:53] Dave: So this kind of goes back to the, the priority setting I mentioned earlier where it doesn't like, I mean, that helps distinguish it, but obviously you're setting it's, there's still a degree of correction. It'll do if you're not applying that much stick input. And that just depends on what your priority setting is at.

[01:11:11] Dave: But on the default settings, if you have a little bit of input, it's kind of half doing what you're saying and taking some gyro away, but it still has some to keep some stabilization.

[unknown speaker 01:11:21] So it would roll smoother because it's still like, if it gets, if wind hits it or something, it's, it's going to prevent it from rolling faster than what you're telling it to roll.

[01:11:32] Dave: Right. Or like, it was like, you know, like if let's say you're flying a straight line and you hit turbulence and it kind of like jiggle, like jiggles around, like rolls a little bit or just offsets the plane, with the gyro on, it's going to resist that and it'll offset less or maybe not even at all.

[01:11:47] Dave: And I guess the same applies if you're rolling slowly and it hits it, it might, it'll help resist that a little bit as opposed to totally throwing it off your, you know, the, the rotation you're currently, applying, I guess. Commanding. Whereas, but if you're applying a full stick input, like you're probably rolling so fast that even if you hit turbulence, it doesn't matter. Like you don't need stabilization at that point. Like it's, it's going, you want it to roll.

[unknown speaker 01:12:12] Yeah. If you're flying at the extreme limits of travel, your, your last concern is stabilizing. Yeah.

[unknown speaker 01:12:18] It's just going to punch right through that turbulence. Yeah. Right.

[unknown speaker 01:12:21] Yeah. So what's new in the new AS3X plus algorithm versus the old?

[01:12:27] Dave: Yeah. So, so this is, this one's a, a tricky question to answer because obviously there's proprietary, stuff in the algorithm. the, I guess the, the best, the best way to describe the improvement is what it handles better. I think one of the main thing it handles better, which actually might be seen as a downside is, turbulence. I think. Yeah.

[01:12:52] Dave: I think it, I think it flies straighter through turbulence without, you know, normally people maybe if they wanted to fly really straight, they'd have had heading hold, but that's almost kind of like that gets into that gray area of like, Oh, well that's cheating. Right. But again, if you're having fun and that's fun to you, then who cares? Right.

[unknown speaker 01:13:10] And like, not to interrupt, but like for me, fun for me is doing a slow roll or a four point roll without, I mean, cheap.

[01:13:20] Dave: Yeah. I want it to look nice.

[unknown speaker 01:13:22] I want it to present well in the air and I want to provide the basic inputs, but if the gyro can, can help me maintain straight and level while the thing is on its side, I'm

[01:13:31] Dave: all for it. I'm here for it.

[unknown speaker 01:13:33] The idea is obviously not everybody feels that way, but the new AS3X can do that.

[01:13:37] Dave: Right. It'll, it'll, the four point roll, the AS3X plus might make it feel more like heading, but it's also because you, the, the, some of the changes we made allows you to use effectively twice the gains if you're comparing with the old AS3X, which inherently that kind of holds angle a little better, but it's still not totally heading hold either. Right. Like full on heading hold.

[01:14:05] Dave: So, it might feel like it helps on four point roll with less input, but you still have to apply the inputs. Exactly. Just maybe less. Whereas if you had heading hold, you could probably just hit the roll and it'll keep it straight throughout the whole thing.

[unknown speaker 01:14:19] And I'm okay with that. That, that's fun for me in the hobby and I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to be a competition pilot or anything like that.

[01:14:25] Dave: It just shades off the rough edges.

[unknown speaker 01:14:26] But yeah, if, if it makes it an easier workload for me to make those maneuvers look good, I'm all for it.

[01:14:32] Dave: Yeah. but yeah, so, so, like, so I, I would say it handles turbulence better. Or at least it helps it track better without having to have that heading hold. It allows higher effective gains. and, and again, like this, I don't know if this really fully describes like what's different. A lot of times people hate this answer, but it's like, you just have to feel it. Like it's, it's something like, and even, even other pilots that have tried it and described it.

[01:15:02] Dave: Like, I don't think anyone's like fully described. This is technically better here and there. It's like, it's just like, no, it just feels so much better. It's so much more locked in. The plane feels bigger. You just have to try it.

[unknown speaker 01:15:16] that's kind of where I am too, because once I updated the new algorithm and stuff, it does, it just flies better, but you can't, like, I can't put into words what I actually am trying to say with that. It just feels better. Right.

[01:15:29] Dave: And even like, yeah, like if I'm trying to describe what it does better, which I guess I kind of did without giving away what's different technically. It's still tough to explain because it's, it's such a feel, such a feel thing. I had an analogy for this almost that I, I forgot. I forgot. Yeah. Oh yeah. No, I remember.

[01:15:53] Dave: I remember like if, if you try to describe someone what a roller coaster feels like, if you guys have ever been on a roller coaster, like it doesn't matter how you describe it. Like you're not going to, you, you, you're not going to be able to prepare someone for what that feels like until they actually try it. Yeah. And that, that applies to a lot of things in life, I think as well.

[unknown speaker 01:16:12] I, for that one, I like to use, if you've never been to a top fuel drag race, have no clue what that's like until the cars go down the first time and you're like, Oh, okay. Yeah.

[01:16:20] Dave: That's what, yeah. Cause even seeing someone fly a plane on AS3X plus, I mean, like this happens even in development, like someone, David will tell me it's doing this and this. And I'm like, I don't know like what part of it, this is you applying the stick input, even though you're telling me exactly what you're doing and what the plane is doing. So I have to actually fly it.

[01:16:39] Dave: And once he, like, there are things I don't notice, but once he tells me they're there and I look for them as I'm flying it, then I can feel it. There are things that you have to be on the sticks to just, like understand and experience. Yeah. I, I know it's not like the best answer, but that's like, that's kind of the best answer

[unknown speaker 01:16:59] we're going to get. And that's fine. so how does it handle like sudden gust of wind versus if you just have, like we have now, we kind of have a, a constant wind.

[01:17:10] Dave: Yeah.

[unknown speaker 01:17:10] What are the differences?

[01:17:11] Dave: I think in a constant wind, you're probably not going to feel it as much. Well, okay. I guess there's, there's two parts of it, right? There's the, how it handles through turbulence or just unwanted movements and how it improves the stops when you release the stick. Okay. So from a stops standpoint, that's going to be good or improved regardless of whether there's wind or not.

[01:17:35] Dave: Usually, if you have a constant wind, as far as like flying in a straight line, I don't think you'd feel it as much, except maybe it might, resist like some drifting tendencies depending on like, you know, like if you're flying crosswind, it's going to push your rudder a little bit and it might make you turn. It might resist that a little better. but it's not going to be as noticeable in that situation compared to like actual turbulence. Right.

[unknown speaker 01:18:02] well, and that's not what it's for. I mean, it's for, like you said at the beginning, it's, it's for what you want it to be for at

[01:18:09] Dave: the end of the day. Right.

[unknown speaker 01:18:10] That's true. but if you're, if you're, if you're not talking about like heading holes, if we're stick, sticking just with, just with the gyro, you know, the AS3X portion of the AS3X plus it's really for bottom line, you know, resisting those sudden gusts of wind or sudden changes in direction or rotation. Mm-hmm.

[unknown speaker 01:18:34] So what, you know, what you're asking is, you know, a steady wind, you know, heading hole is probably going to be more your friend if you're wanting to keep it in a straight line down the runway, then, you know, then setting up or messing with the AS3X setting.

[unknown speaker 01:18:46] Keep in mind, this isn't just my questions. These are ones that have been sent. Okay. So just making sure, just making sure.

[01:18:53] Dave: but yeah, it, it definitely. Was the question about how this handles those two? How it handles sudden gusts versus just normal, gradual. So yeah, I, the, the, the effect is noticeably different between the two. It, it helps with both to a degree. but yeah, like, it's also like in any situation, like I said, it helps the stops, the feel of the plane, as far as like user input versus off that kind of transition.

[01:19:23] Dave: cause like I said, I tuned the stops to be just like a perfect crisp stop when I let go of the stick.

[unknown speaker 01:19:29] And that looks nice when you're flying.

[01:19:30] Dave: I like it. It looks, it looks good. Some people like having a little bit of a bounce, believe it or not. yeah. And that's, that's fine too. Like I've seen that.

[unknown speaker 01:19:38] Like I, I've seen some pilots, they, they prefer it to give it a little, you know, shimmy, if you will. Like when it reaches the stop. And then I like, I've seen other pilots where it just comes to a complete lock.

[01:19:48] Dave: And this, this part of it, you can tune out that stop by adjusting stop. Like if you set stop lock to zero, that might be a little too low, but if you set it lower, you're basically letting the plane stop more naturally. And then you have the gyro again when you're just flying in a straight line, but you can, you can adjust that balance between, I want the gyro to help the stop versus I want, the plane to stop naturally, such as like 3d planes.

[01:20:16] Dave: Like when you want it to carry the momentum from a maneuver or something, you might be don't want it to interfere, interfere right away when you let go of this or center the stick. and I've also seen like some 3d pilots where they're used to counter counteracting when they stop. So it hits that crisp flop. And then they think there's something wrong when the gyro stops it for them. And because they're used to adding that in themselves. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:20:40] Dave: I kind of got a little off. That question, but yeah, there's some things that come to mind.

[unknown speaker 01:20:46] what's the best way to set up AS3X plus? I think, am I correct? And the only way now is for programming.

[01:20:53] Dave: That is the only way. yeah. On the old AS3X stuff, you used to have to use the PC, which.

[unknown speaker 01:21:00] And I didn't like that very much.

[01:21:01] Dave: You know, and, and it's, it was nice in the sense that the UI is nicer and more spacious and you can see more settings at a glance, but no one wants to have to take their laptop out to the field to do stuff. I mean, like you can literally with, with the forward programming, you can just land, not even come into the pit and leave it on the runway. Adjust the setting real quick.

[01:21:22] Dave: As long as no one else is trying to fly too, but make it change and then go straight back up without even swapping the battery or something.

[unknown speaker 01:21:29] I don't, I don't miss tuning them with the PC. No. I don't miss that at all.

[unknown speaker 01:21:33] I actually had one airplane that I know of at least that I needed to retune because it was way too bouncy when you stopped. And I just, I never did it because I was too lazy. Got rid of it without the receiver. So, well, I'm just saying like I didn't sell lemon or anything. I pulled it out. So, what are the key parameters pilots should understand when tuning AS3X plus?

[01:21:54] Dave: it, you know, it kind of depends on the goals of the pilot, how in depth they want to get. I mean, the main thing to understand is what the primary gain does, and how it affects, you know, what the risks involved with like overtuning are and stuff. So like if you set your gain too high, the plane will enter in an, you know, unstable, I guess, oscillation where it just induces oscillations on itself.

[01:22:19] Dave: and you want to avoid that, but that's why we always say like start from zero gain, start flying at your max speed and start creeping up and inducing movements on the plane with the roll until it starts bouncing and then creep off. And that's it. I mean, like from a, from a basic standpoint, that's all you have to do, to get, that's one thing, a good amount of gyro improvement.

[unknown speaker 01:22:40] Yeah. When, when, when I got started with, with spectrum gyros, there wasn't a lot of information out there regarding, here are the things that you should understand before you start modifying your settings and things like that. That information would be helpful to have out there, you know, and I still, I mean, I haven't been in, in the wiki for a while. but I think that information might still be lacking, you know what I'm saying?

[01:23:08] Dave: Yeah. I mean, I, I, you know, I always ask whenever people complain about the documentation, I usually ask what they think is missing. And the nice thing is since, since we kind of own that more or less on the engineering side, like we can make changes relatively quickly and add them if we think they make sense. I mean, like, obviously we don't always agree with everyone, unfortunately.

[01:23:27] Dave: Well, like, you know, like, and you know, a big, a big part of this, just, just to like, some people wonder like, why don't you add this and that? Like the more information is on there, the also more convoluted it gets. And that also becomes an issue when you have more information than what people really need and organizing that in a way that is practical is also tricky. Sure.

[01:23:52] Dave: so, but yeah, if there, if there's anything you guys think is not explained well, or is just straight up missing, like I'm, I take feedback all the time. I'm happy to do so. as far as the game stuff.

[unknown speaker 01:24:06] Like just a basic list of, you need to understand, you know, these three things before you start adjusting the gyro. One thing. I don't know what those are.

[01:24:13] Dave: Yeah. I think, I think the approach we have on the guides currently is more of like, if you want a basic setup, this is what you have to do. We try, we, and there, there is a list of parameters that we have in the wiki that are relevant to the guide that explain what the parameters are. I don't know if we explained the gains. I, I think we do.

[01:24:33] Dave: I, I don't remember because it's been, that would have been like the first thing I would ever put in there, which is a long time ago now. Sure. If it is there, but like, I know stop lock is there. Priority is there and it explains in detail, like what they do. but it, the guide also tells you how you should approach adjusting them, I guess. And we have like literally like a basic tuning guide of just set the gain, adjust the knob and that's it.

[01:24:58] Dave: And then we have an advanced tuning guide, which goes into like, this is how you can tune the stop lock rate in conjunction with the gain and do it for each individual axis. so we kind of tried to cover both ends. And then I think we have a heading hold tuning guide as well. Okay. If I remember correctly, it's been a while since I've looked at that guide.

[01:25:18] Dave: I've mainly gone back to it and just added whenever we add new parameters in an update, I go in and I add descriptions for those. And we, and I also add the location, like how to get to the setting. So like I, just as an example, like a recent update we added, it used to be where you had to add throttle for the gyro to arm. which I don't know if you guys are, yeah, even like if that consciously like comes out

[unknown speaker 01:25:41] or not, but yeah, cause nothing jiggles until you do that.

[01:25:43] Dave: And then so there's a, the default, it doesn't do that anymore. The gyro's on automatically. but if you're updating a existing model, there's a setting you can go to turn that off in and that's in the wiki now and it tells you where to go to set that. So yeah, so if there's a setting you're looking for or something like that, I highly recommend the wiki. Usually it is somewhere in the relevant guide. And if it's not, you can let us know.

[01:26:08] Dave: And it's probably, we just forgot to add it if it's not there.

[unknown speaker 01:26:11] Cool. What are the most common setup mistakes you see?

[01:26:16] Dave: Hmm. I don't, I don't know if I would say I see them, but I know people ask a lot, what gains did you use for this model or what gains people ask me a lot? What do you recommend starting at for this model? And I tell everyone the same thing. If it's like a not 3d plane, just use the defaults and crank the gain until it's good. And if it is a 3d plane, half the multiplier and then do the same.

[01:26:48] Dave: And there's some other recommendations, but, I think people kind of just want like an answer and, and not like it's, it's really, cause like, okay, I guess actually this is a really good detail to point out when you set up a plane yourself, when you're setting up the travels for your ailerons, for example, the gains that you then add to the model are based on that travel range.

[01:27:12] Dave: So if you had like a default gain of 40 and on one, on one model setup for the same plane, you had your ailerons at 50% travel as your max. And on another, you had 150% travel. The one with 150% travel would actually have three times the gyro responsiveness. Cause it's, it's applying that to a large, it's scaled based on that range.

[01:27:35] Dave: so even if you share your gains with someone, if your travels don't match, or you have different servos or different linkage setup where the surfaces move differently, those gains might not actually be relevant to your setup, unless it's exactly the same from a hardware standpoint and a radio setup. Yeah. And a lot of times it might not be an issue. It might, if it's just minor differences, might be close enough.

[01:27:59] Dave: But that, that might be something that people aren't aware of that they should be conscious of when they're copying someone else's settings. Right. yeah, I, I would say that's, I don't know if that's necessarily something I noticed people making a mistake with, cause I haven't heard of someone copying someone's settings and then crashing the plane cause it was over tuned. Right. but it's something to definitely keep in mind.

[01:28:23] Dave: It might not be one to one if your servos are different or if you're taking a bind and fly, which obviously the hardware matches between them, then it's less risky. But if you're built, like you're buying a plane and you're putting your own start, like mostly on the higher end stuff where you have to pick out your own servos and all those things and and different arm lengths, maybe, you know, it's something to look out for, I would say.

[01:28:46] Dave: but I don't, I don't think I've seen anyone make a absolutely critical mistake that, that crashed your, I'm sure it's happened, but not that I've seen personally.

[unknown speaker 01:28:59] Okay. So this next one, actually, we don't have to get into it too much cause this opens the whole door to a whole other side of things, but how does AS3X plus integrate with telemetry and flight logging and what, so just from my knowledge, what all information can I pull off of, what all can I pull off of the synapse and that kind of stuff, flight logging wise?

[01:29:27] Dave: so the, the flight logging telemetry stuff doesn't apply to AS3X plus necessarily, but you do get gyro telemetry, like rotation rates and you get accelerometer data. in Gs, so you could see how many Gs you pulled, you can, you can see how fast the plane rotated. So actually, so have you, have you pulled like a telemetry log off the radio and looked at it on like a telemetry viewer on the PC? I have not.

[unknown speaker 01:29:57] Okay. I want to, but I never think about it when I can. Does that make sense? so yeah.

[01:30:02] Dave: so I mean, the main time we look at it, look at those things, unfortunately, is when people have crashes or issues and we're helping them try to figure out what went wrong.

[unknown speaker 01:30:13] Cause I think that's one thing that brought it up. Like when Tommy had his flame out, we didn't know it was a flame out. We didn't know what caused it. You pulled so much information off of that. It's like, I didn't realize all that was being kept.

[01:30:24] Dave: Like, and that part was on the, the turbine itself, so it wasn't tied to the spectrum. Although if you had the telemetry module and you had that hooked up to the receiver, you could have had all that data as part of the whole spectrum telemetry log, which included, it would include other stuff like altitude, your stick inputs, like you could correlate all that together.

[01:30:46] Dave: so just to give you an example, whenever we're looking at people's logs, I mean, you know, the, the first thing people want to blame is the radio when they lose control of something, they just, Oh, well, the radio stopped work. I got fail safe. And a lot of times, like 98% of the time, probably that's not the case. and the, the logs help us help people see what else could have gone wrong or what could have happened.

[01:31:11] Dave: So as far as gyro telemetry specifically, which you were asking about, I can look at the logs and usually I'll look for like, first you have to find like when the crash happened. and one of the best ways to tell that is the G readings. Cause usually on the X axis, there's a spike, right when a crash happens. And it's a very unnatural, you know, like, yeah, it's not as smooth. Yeah.

[01:31:37] Dave: I don't think you're going to pull 10 Gs just from smashing the throttle, normally. Right. and also, if people sometimes like a lot of times would be like, I lost control. usually if you lost control, if it's, if it's a signal loss issue, then you lose telemetry. So you can see that, but most of the times it's not that, but so you can see, on the gyro data, you can see how the plane is rotating on each axis.

[01:32:10] Dave: And you can also look at the stick inputs. So like aileron elevator, cause it also logs the local, like all your switch positions, your stick inputs and everything. So you can see when someone applied a roll input and what, how the gyro responded. Cause it tells you how fast it's rotating. And so you can see at what point they lost control or, or, or they didn't actually lose control.

[01:32:33] Dave: And, you know, a lot of times like, you know, adrenaline's running and you don't, you know, I don't want to like tell people they're wrong or anything, but like sometimes things happen that you don't remember exactly how they happen.

[01:32:46] Dave: And unfortunately, most of the times there's not a video to look at for these things, but you can see if it rotated, like if the movements match what the stick input is, if you stall, like, obviously you can have full aileron and it's not going to do anything.

[01:33:01] Dave: and it's not, you know, stalls aren't always the case, especially like a lot of the times we're looking at some of these logs or at least when they make it to me, it's usually like larger stuff, like more serious, I guess, things, but I've even looked at like foamies and stuff like that. so, but it's, it's things you can look at in the log to correlate, what is actually happening to the model without like having actual footage of what happened. Yeah.

[01:33:29] Dave: It's the next best thing. yeah.

[unknown speaker 01:33:31] Like a little black box.

[01:33:32] Dave: Yeah. And so on the, on the smaller receivers, there's not as much information you can use, but, on the larger, on the power saves, you can see current draw. So if you, for example, see a stick input, but no gyro rotation, you could check, well, is my current draw like spiking on the receivers, like maybe a servo stalled or something.

[01:33:54] Dave: at least like, you know, sometimes you can't always narrow down the issue a hundred percent, but you can come to some pretty definitive conclusions, based on the information available. And sometimes the gyro is useful in determining that as it mainly is very useful in determining if the user's inputs matched the plane's movements. Yeah. which is very helpful.

[01:34:18] Dave: And also, I guess the other one that I find useful is, all the power saves have a, all the new ones with the synapse have a vario built in. So you can see the altitude throughout the whole flight. so you can see exactly when they took off and when they landed. and then some of the smaller receivers have that too. So that's useful too. That kind of goes, you know, outside the bounds of your original question. Yeah.

[01:34:41] Dave: But, it's still interesting, but it's, it's, it's, yeah, the, the, gyro data, as just telemetry in a log is surprisingly useful for seeing things or just fun. And it's like, sometimes I just like seeing how many G's I pulled, but yeah. and, and I usually, I will look at, especially on new planes, I will look at telemetry logs and I will see if anything looks off, you know, like front packet losses, things like that.

[01:35:09] Dave: current draw, if it's available, you know, whatever's available, I'll see if anything seems unusual. unfortunately we don't have like a guide of like these things. It's just kind of stuff you have just like figured out what to look for over time. it might be, might be good to have a guide at some point. but hopefully at least I, I think it's one of those things where like, it just helps to look at logs and just, just see what they are.

[01:35:38] Dave: Try graphing different data side by side. And you just kind of, you just kind of figure out over time, like how it can be useful to you. Right.

[unknown speaker 01:35:46] Yep.

[01:35:46] Dave: Like I remember getting my first 3D printer just cause I wanted one and I didn't know what to use it for. And now I know all of these things, like it changes your way of thinking on like what you can do with something or how it's useful. Right.

[unknown speaker 01:35:57] Yeah. I can just make one of those then that's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And sharing the files and all that stuff is so easy to do too. Or yeah. Yeah. I have it. So, yeah. last thing I think, what's one myth about stabilization systems you wish people would stop repeating?

[01:36:14] Dave: Save the best one for last. The gyro flies the plane for you. I mean, again, it depends on how you set it up, but for most, most of what we do, I mean, if, if someone were to tell me that I'm letting, if someone told me or anyone flying a thrust vector jet that the gyro is flying it for them. I, yeah, I don't, I don't think anyone's telling jet guys that the gyro is flying them for them and you need a gyro for thrust factoring. It's almost like mandatory. yeah.

[01:36:44] Dave: So I'm, yeah, it depends on setup. I mean, as far as how we provide bind and fly setup, unless you're in safe, all our ASGX modes are meant to just fly, make the plane feel as good as possible. whether that's taking out mechanical or like maybe correcting airframe tendencies to make it better. it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, again, it's just to make the experience better overall. It's not, not to fly the plane for you. and you can turn it off if you want.

[unknown speaker 01:37:16] And yeah, if you want some, or just adjust those settings for you by Southwest, I mean,

[01:37:22] Dave: like realistically, there's, there's probably a lot of airframes out like in the market now that are just not even feasible without a gyro, especially UMXs. I mean, we covered that earlier, but like UMXs are like pretty much would be non-existent if it weren't for gyros. So, yep.

[unknown speaker 01:37:43] Very cool. So anything else exciting that it's coming up that you're excited to work on that you guys have?

[01:37:48] Dave: Yeah. Yeah.

[unknown speaker 01:37:49] I can't talk about it. Obviously. I mean, as soon as I started asking, I was like, you're an idiot. Just shut up. But I can't stop halfway through.

[unknown speaker 01:37:56] Well, just even if the answer is just yes.

[unknown speaker 01:37:58] Yes.

[unknown speaker 01:37:58] That gives us something to look forward to.

[01:38:00] Dave: It seems like such a silly question sometimes because someone will ask me like, are you working on anything new? I was like, yeah, otherwise I wouldn't have a job. You're always working on something new. It's all right.

[unknown speaker 01:38:08] And it's, it's all very exciting.

[01:38:10] Dave: Yeah. Yeah. Some things more exciting than others. Like, you know, sometimes I, there's things I get, I guess this kind of goes again into like a company thing. Like, why don't they make this? Or like you see on Facebook, every time a new plane's announced and people always complain about another Timber this. So like, you know, sometimes the company has to do things to survive as a company.

[01:38:30] Dave: And we don't, it's not like we just like, you know, impulsively make something we want. Like there are statistics and sales to back the decisions that are made.

[unknown speaker 01:38:43] And you guys can't just make stuff you want because it's expensive. I mean, it costs a lot of money.

[01:38:48] Dave: Yeah. And obviously, you know, the, the, you know, stuff's more expensive now than it used to be, it's, it's a, so, I mean, I, I don't, I'm, I don't make these, I'm not on the, at the par things where we make these decisions. I provide my input when it's necessary or needed. and I have strong opinions on it. but at the end of the day, you know, my job is to just make stuff work. And, there, there are things I love working on.

[01:39:17] Dave: I mean, the whole Synapse and PowerSafe development was great because I got my first jet during that development. And part of the motivation to get the jet was because I was working on that and I, I wanted to be like connected to that product. sure.

[unknown speaker 01:39:33] Makes sense.

[01:39:33] Dave: Like I want, I wanted to understand it as well as possible. And I, I mean, like, I guess, I guess that's one thing that goes for a lot of people at Horizon. Like we're also customers. there's a lot of things we work on that we personally obviously have a passion for. So, yeah. That's cool.

[unknown speaker 01:39:53] Do you guys have any questions? Mm-mm. No, no, I'm good. Dave, really? Nothing?

[unknown speaker 01:39:59] First off, I barely use a gyro unless it's AS3X stuff already pre-installed into.

[unknown speaker 01:40:04] Yeah.

[unknown speaker 01:40:06] And, yeah.

[01:40:07] Dave: And Dave's a black sheep. What's, what's happening to that Far Sky radio after this, I think he's keeping it. Yeah, he's going back home and he likes it a lot.

[unknown speaker 01:40:17] I'm kidding, obviously. I'm kidding. Yeah. Dude, that's not going anywhere. so I'm going to play with their stabilized receivers as well.

[unknown speaker 01:40:25] Cool. Well, Miguel, thank you very much for coming on. I appreciate it. thanks for shivering here with me. Yeah, sorry.

[01:40:32] Dave: It's so cold. Yeah. No, it's all right. like I told you.

[unknown speaker 01:40:35] Everyone here's got a jacket or long sleeves. I'm here in short sleeves.

[01:40:36] Dave: I, you, you're not even shivering at all. Like, you're handling it great. Yeah.

[unknown speaker 01:40:42] Well, reasons for doing things so quickly and it's okay.

[01:40:45] Dave: Yeah. But, once again, like I said, thank you very much.

[unknown speaker 01:40:48] Yep. No problem. I will give you the last word. Anything?

[01:40:51] Dave: No. I, like I said, if there's feedback on the wiki or just things in general, I mean, I'm, I'm on and off RC groups. I'm on and off different, like Facebook, our, our own Facebook pages or just like random groups and stuff. I answer questions when, when I see stuff and I want to, I try to avoid just talking with people individually all the time. Cause I, I know I would get burnt out, but I, but it, but don't take that as like, I like helping people.

[01:41:20] Dave: I just, it's, it's one of those, like, I try to choose my own time to do it. cause I don't, I don't want to get burnt out from it.

[unknown speaker 01:41:27] Well, and that's the other thing. Like, obviously when I see you guys out here and stuff, I try not to ask questions if it's not absolutely necessary because you're out here enjoying your time too.

[01:41:35] Dave: You don't want, I, if you see me out here, I, part of RC for me is helping others enjoy the hobby. I mean, like, like I said, I go to the champagne club and help teach people to fly every Thursday for free, you know, with my own planes and everything. I like helping people have success in the hobby. And if I'm at the field, I, that's, that's a time I'm more than happy to do it. but if I'm, if I'm at home and I just need to relax, you know, if I'm at home, I want to relax.

[01:42:05] Dave: And so I'll get on Facebook sometimes and answer questions. But otherwise, like, yeah, I, I, you know, we have, we have, we talked about customer support experiences and stuff, but that we have that there for a reason as well. but yeah, I'll, if, if complaints are serious enough or whatever, they usually make their way back to me if I don't see them directly. So.

[unknown speaker 01:42:25] And I, I don't think a lot of people realize when they have something on Facebook and they get answers on them, who is actually answering those questions.

[01:42:35] Dave: I've seen, I've seen people try to correct me before where it's like, I made, I made the product.

[unknown speaker 01:42:42] Like, I know, and there's a couple other names that you see on there that, you know, and it's like, don't argue with them. They, they know what they're talking about.

[01:42:50] Dave: Is there, there, there are people on social media that are sometimes confidently incorrect. And this also goes back into the whole misinformation spreading thing.

[01:42:59] Dave: And, and yeah, I, I usually am extremely active, when a new product release comes out that I work on, because I want to make sure that the information being spread is accurate from the start, because then, I mean, there's, there's a bunch of people that learn this stuff and then they go and teach other people, which is great.

[01:43:17] Dave: and there are also ways of doing things that are different than how I do them, especially with all this AS3X plus stuff that, you know, if it works, it's technically not wrong. I just have a different way of doing it. but I do try to at least make sure that the initial information that stuff sources from is accurate. because yeah, I just, I want people to succeed with it.

[unknown speaker 01:43:43] I mean, you can't fight every single, you know, so there's just not enough hours in the day.

[01:43:50] Dave: Okay. As long as people are enjoying the product, I'm happy and they're not, you know, crashing planes.

[unknown speaker 01:43:54] Well, I am.

[01:43:54] Dave: I'm enjoying them. Me too. Yeah. Happy to hear that. okay.

[unknown speaker 01:43:58] Well, thank you, Miguel, once again, for coming on. We greatly appreciate it. Until next time, I'm Ron. I'm Tom.

[01:44:03] Dave: I'm Dave. And I'm Miguel.

[unknown speaker 01:44:05] Good night. Good night, everybody.

[unknown speaker 01:44:07] We hope you enjoyed this episode of the RC Planelab podcast. For topic suggestions, to ask questions, or to give any feedback, connect with us at rcplanelab.com or email us direct at either ron at rcplanelab.com or tom at rcplanelab.com. You can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Please subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, may your landings be gentle.