Ep 212: Switches, Knobs & Chaos: How We Actually Set Up Our Radios

[00:00:03] Hello, everyone, and welcome to the RC Plane Lab Podcast. I’m Ron.

[00:00:15] Oh, I’m Tom. Boy, somebody’s out of practice. And I’m Dave.

[00:00:20] I was wondering, I just heard gear up, gear down. I was like, what is this?

[00:00:25] Yeah, my bad. Sorry.

[00:00:28] So that’s kind of giving away a little bit of what we’re planning on talking about today is we did get an email from somebody asking about switch assignments and setups and all that kind of stuff. So we’re going to talk a little bit about that. But first, Tommy’s back. Tommy’s, well, I shouldn’t say back. Tommy’s on here again. We are trying a little different setup than last time. I don’t know how well this is going to work. But we’re going to give her a go.

[00:00:56] We’re going to give her the old college try.

[00:00:59] And so if you want Tommy back, you’re just going to put up with this for a few months.

[00:01:02] Deal with it. It’s this or nothing. And this is better than nothing.

[00:01:06] And we love having Tommy back.

[00:01:09] I mean, yes.

[00:01:09] It feels good to be back, actually.

[00:01:11] Well, as close as back as we can be. Yeah.

[00:01:14] Yeah. So anyway. Yeah, we’ll see how this goes audio-wise. We did get Tommy a new microphone. And it has done a good job of preventing us from cutting out when we talk over each other. So Tommy can interrupt me more easily now.

[00:01:36] I think it was more the board than the microphone. But either way.

[00:01:40] Well, yeah. There was no way to plug the microphone into the computer when the ones you have were for the board. But anyway, so you sound a little bit different this time, though, because there is a little… Is it sexier? No.

[00:01:54] Would you say I sound sexier?

[00:01:58] Smarter? Has it been that long? Do I sound smarter? No, you sound… No, I said, do we need to bring Laurie in on this? You sound crackly. Crackly? You sound more witchy, like a Halloween witch with a crackly voice and…

[00:02:13] Yeah. Okay. I’ll take it.

[00:02:16] So, I mean, if you’re into witches and stuff, maybe you do sound sexy. I don’t know.

[00:02:21] I mean, there’s probably people out there that’s into that. I don’t know.

[00:02:25] People are into a lot of stuff. We’re boring Dave. He’s already yawning.

[00:02:29] Dave’s had a long day.

[00:02:31] We are just doing our best here.

[00:02:35] So, anyway, Tommy? Well, I’m going to apologize right off the bat. Good. Because it’s been super, super hot here. And if you recall the last episode, I was going to go do some night flying, and that unfortunately got canceled due to the heat and wind. And they have canceled that particular event until… I postponed it, rather, to October. So… Is that a fire hazard for you guys as well out there? Well, the… Yeah. It for sure is, because it’s pretty dry.

[00:03:06] And the field I fly at… Speaking of fire hazards, I’m going to go off on a random topic, but they don’t allow jets at the field that I fly at for just that reason, actually, which is interesting. Anyway, so I’ve done almost nothing RC-related, but I sure have thought a lot about it.

[00:03:27] Well, that counts. There you go. Tell us all about your thoughts.

[00:03:31] Well, I’m thinking about, like, we talked last episode about, you guys have the slow ultra sticks, and, it’s kind of a joke how, I don’t have one yet, and, I’ve crashed several that aren’t mine. So, I actually went to the place here locally to get one, actually, and they were sold out. So, I’m like, that’s a bummer.

[00:03:58] So, I went ahead and, said, okay, well, next time you guys get a batch in, put one aside for me, I’ll grab it. So, I am making progress on acquiring my own slow ultra stick.

[00:04:10] So, it’s on the wait list.

[00:04:12] Okay. Yeah, when they get them back in stock here locally, I’ll, I’ll grab one, and then I’ll have one, and then we can, the joke’s over.

[00:04:20] So, we all got a text from our buddy Terry Dunn from the RC Roundtable podcast, and I think I was impressed that he actually found one used for sale.

[00:04:31] Yeah, I know. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen one for sale used.

[00:04:35] Yeah. Never, in all of our goings-on, on different swap meets, and even Facebook Marketplace, that kind of stuff, I’ve never seen one used.

[00:04:45] I think mine was the closest to being used of the whole batch. It was a box damage thing that we got at Toledo.

[00:04:50] Yeah, but it’s still new.

[00:04:51] But it was brand new. So, yeah, mine’s the closest we’ve got.

[00:04:54] Yeah. But, yeah, that’s definitely something you need to get. I’ve been saying that for literally years now. That’s true. You need to do that, and you need to make it a night flyer, and add some LEDs, and just enjoy the snot out of it.

[00:05:10] And that’s the plan. So, as soon as, like I said, as soon as they get one in stock here, I will join the club, so to speak.

[00:05:20] Mm-hmm.

[00:05:21] Move the CG back. Yeah. Yeah, definitely going to do that. Maybe I’ll fly it once stock. No, I’m going to go ahead and move the battery tray back like, I think, Ron, you did that to yours, right? Nope.

[00:05:34] Mine is fully stock. Yeah, Dave did it to his.

[00:05:36] Yeah, it’s just a few screws. It’s no big deal. Yeah, and then I’ll have to do whatever you guys did to the receivers to allow the separate left and right aileron thing with the AS3X.

[00:05:51] Yeah, I haven’t done that either. That’s also mine. I bought the stuff to do it, but I never did it.

[00:05:57] So, you get the one AS3X floppy aileron, but the other one doesn’t do anything. So, yeah, you can program because you’ve got your radio that can do that.

[00:06:06] But there’s really no reason. Like, that does not need flaps. No, it doesn’t. So, it flies just fine the way it is without all that.

[00:06:13] Well, but it adds to the interest, right? It gives you something to play with. I guess.

[00:06:16] Yeah.

[00:06:17] Yeah. So, anyway, so that is on the way, I guess I could say, on the way. Eventually, it will make its way into my hangar, along with a, when they get them back in stock, I’m going to get a UMX Viper.

[00:06:30] Oh, I’m looking at mine in the box right now.

[00:06:33] Yeah, I can’t, I can’t, but that I’m really actually looking forward to because I miss my Vipers.

[00:06:40] I’m not going to lie. This is going to sound really bad. Like I’ve said before, we don’t use our basement very often. So, right now, just to make it easier, we kind of have all the recording gear up on the other side. So, Tommy, where it is, like up by the TV and stuff.

[00:06:56] Oh, yeah.

[00:06:56] And so, I walked down here tonight to set up everything and make sure the computer was on and all that for recording. And I looked down and saw the box of my UMX Viper that I completely forgot about. And I was like, oh, that’s an awesome airplane. I’m glad I have it. But you haven’t even taken it out of the box yet? No, I’ve flown it already. These are broken. Oh, okay.

[00:07:16] Yeah. Thanks, Dave. You broke up. That’s right.

[00:07:20] It wasn’t bad.

[00:07:24] They’re easy to fix. It’s kind of dead to me now, though. No, I’m kidding.

[00:07:27] They’re so light, though, that even when they’re damaged, the damage is really not that bad. Well, and you really can’t. The UMXs, I mean, yeah.

[00:07:34] Yeah, you really can’t see it. It’s just, like I said, landing and then getting caught in the no grass grass spot that we have with the field. So, it happens. So, by the way, way off topic, but I just want to say I’m looking, I see your waveforms here where we’re recording on the computer. And you’re clipping, which means you’re talking too loud for the way the microphone is.

[00:07:56] Wow, okay. Well, here, let me back up a little bit. Is that better?

[00:07:59] That’s better. Let me turn you up. If you’re going to do that, keep talking then.

[00:08:04] Okay, I’m talking. Okay. And you’re making adjustments.

[00:08:07] There we go. So, we’re going to make this work. We’ll be fine. But let’s try it like that for a while and then we’ll see.

[00:08:13] Yeah, we’re sneaking up on it.

[00:08:15] Yeah.

[00:08:16] It sounds definitely better.

[00:08:17] Yeah. We’ll get this figured out one of these years. About the time you get back. Yeah.

[00:08:21] Yeah. And then we’ll have to figure it all out again.

[00:08:23] Yeah. No, I lost.

[00:08:25] I just like to record. You have to dust his mic.

[00:08:27] I know I do. Actually, why the heck is that even still up? Oh, for somebody else. That’s right.

[00:08:33] Make it feel like he’s still here. Yeah.

[00:08:36] I’m going to print a full-size picture of Tommy and just sit him on the chair.

[00:08:41] Don’t they call that like a flat Stanley or something like that?

[00:08:43] A flat Tommy.

[00:08:44] A flat Tommy. But I mean, isn’t a flat Stanley a thing? Flat Stanley was a book.

[00:08:49] No, a flat Stanley was tiny, though. Flat Stanley fit in like books and that was the thing. He slid underneath the door. Well, both of my kids had to make one and then you had to send them to people you knew and had to have them take pictures and stuff. And then it was the whole story. Yeah.

[00:09:07] Okay. Yeah. All right. So flat Tommy then.

[00:09:09] And way off topic again, but so you were obviously gone for this last Christmas when we did the, or we didn’t, we canceled it, but when we were going to do the cookie day thing and I had a full-size picture of you I was going to print holding the cake or holding cookies. I’m sorry. Yeah. That would have been awesome. Yeah. I was going to print that, but like I said, then we canceled it.

[00:09:32] Yeah. We just canceled it in general because of the snow.

[00:09:35] Yeah. And it’s not the same without you. So, so get your, I think, get your ass back here anyway.

[00:09:43] Okay.

[00:09:44] What’s next?

[00:09:45] Yes. I don’t know. Do you want to talk about the, the message we got?

[00:09:49] Sure. Let’s talk about switching.

[00:09:52] I’m going to dive right into airplane stuff. yeah, so, so Alan, reached out to us, I’ll, I’ll read his message real quick. I’ll start with the best part. It was great to hear Tom on the latest podcast. During that episode, you discussed getting a lesson from Miguel and, touched on switch versus knob control for gain adjustments.

[00:10:12] I’m not a beginner pilot, but I’d love to hear more about the most common or traditional ways people assign functions to switches on spectrum radios. I realize there are many radio models and everyone develops their own preferences, but I’m perfectly happy to follow the conventions that experienced pilots tend to use. Right now, the only assignments he says he uses consistently are throttle cutoff on the H switch and safe when it’s available on the A switch.

[00:10:38] Beyond that, I’ve never felt completely confident about which switches are typically best for functions like flaps, retracts, thrust reverse, lights, gain adjustments, and so on. For example, he says, which switches do most pilots use for flaps and gear? If a model has thrust reverse, is there a commonly accepted switch assignment? If adding lights to a model, where would most people put that control? What is the knob most commonly used for?

[00:11:08] When assigning a switch, is there a convention for whether the activate position should be forward or backward? Currently, he’s flying with an older DX6 after his, DX8E started acting up. So, limited to basic setups and doesn’t even have a knob available. he says, as I eventually move to a newer radio with more switches and features, I’d like to build good habits and keep my setups consistent from model to model. And that’s a point I want to key in on in a minute.

[00:11:37] One thing I’m also wondering about AS3X Plus. Since the A switch on his DX6 is only a two position, will a three position switch become more important as he moves to newer radios and more advanced setups? He says he’d be interested in any tips, conventions, or lessons from Miguel that you all picked up over the years, and he says, thanks, Alan.

[00:12:02] So I’m going to first off start by saying I am not the best at setting every radio up or every model up the same. I need to get much better at doing that.

[00:12:10] Yeah, that, that’s the, the, really the, the point I, out of all of this, no matter, no matter what setup you choose to go with as far as switch assignments, just make it consistent. Like, I think, I think that’s really, I’m not sure that there’s a convention, like for what flap switch or what switch to put flaps on or what switch to put gear on. Like I use whatever switch I can remember, what I mean? And I keep it, and I keep it consistent across all of my models.

[00:12:41] Now, that’s not to say eventually you may not have to adjust that because if you start off with models, for example, that, that don’t have lights that you want to turn off and on, let’s say via, via a remote, channel switch or, the little device I’m talking about, you put in the plane. So if you’ve already set up your convention, then you may have to get comfortable with putting that switch someplace you may not be conventionally used to.

[00:13:09] So I guess what I’m saying is try to, try to imagine every scenario or scenario, every available option that you might need a switch to use and then assign them so that they make sense to you. Like me personally, I have my gear on switch A.

[00:13:30] Well, hold on. Let’s, let’s, let’s, let’s all kind of go through, and say what we have on each one. Do you think? And then we’ll kind of, we’ll kind of go from, from there. no, I will say Dave’s is number different than ours.

[00:13:46] Yeah. There’s, it’s similar, but not exactly the same as far as the, the naming of the switches. Right.

[00:13:53] So plus his is not a spectrum. Right. And that’s, yeah, that’s correct. So nobody really cares about that. But anyway, we’ll let him talk anyway.

[00:13:59] I wasn’t going to say that.

[00:14:02] So, I will give, or Tommy, you can, I really don’t care the layout of our IX series radios.

[00:14:10] Yeah. You first, that way I can say you’re wrong.

[00:14:13] No, I’m talking layout, like physical layouts on the actual controller. So people kind of know. Oh, okay. Yeah. Go ahead. Okay. So I’m going to start, when you’re looking at the radio, left hand farthest back on what you can see. Okay. Yep. So I have switch A. And my radio is a switch F. And I said, I’m going first. I’m just comparing. Okay. Well, I guess we can do it that way. So A is the back left. And then we come forward to B. I thought Dave was talking. And that’s E.

[00:14:42] Okay. And then, coming forward to the front, we’ll stick with switches. I go C, D, and then D2. And then I go E.

[00:14:55] And that’s going across the radio from left to right.

[00:14:57] Yeah. This is going across left to right. Now this is just switches. This isn’t trimmer switches or anything. These are just the physical toggle switches. so anyway, C, D, and then D2. What’s interesting?

[00:15:09] You have three switches on the face of your 20. I only have, well, you have six total, right? Three on the left and three on the right. Correct. I only have two. Okay. Each. Which one’s yours? I do not have the D2. I have an IX14. 14. Okay.

[00:15:25] Okay. So then you just have C and D.

[00:15:27] Okay.

[00:15:28] Correct. So yeah, C, D, D2. And then moving over to the right, I have E2, E, and F. And then moving towards the back on top of the, on top of the radio, I have a G switch. And then the very, back right that’s kind of off on its own little plateau is an H switch.

[00:15:48] And that’s where ours match up.

[00:15:51] So H is the same on ours? G and H are the same on mine. Okay.

[00:15:56] Sweet. Across the front of mine, though, from left to right on the front of the radio, it’s A, B, C, D.

[00:16:05] So you only have four on the front of yours, too, then?

[00:16:06] Yeah, I’ve got A, B, C, D. Gotcha. And then for some reason or another, then they switch back to E and F on the left back and G and H on the right top back.

[00:16:18] Weird.

[00:16:19] It’s weird. It’s like, it’s like the same people number the doors of my office.

[00:16:23] Yeah, okay. So then, like, on ours, it’s, it’s starting on the left back, coming around, wrapping around, and going to the right back for spectrum. That’s how they’re numbered. Yours, quite frankly, makes more sense. I would completely agree. Okay, so then looking at the very top of mine. So next to the B switch, I have an LTT trimmer switch, which is the plus minus. I have a push button, I switch, just momentary contact.

[00:16:53] Then moving over to the right-hand side, I have the right knob, which is a knob. And then, I didn’t have more to say about that. And then the RTT trimmer switch on the very top right.

[00:17:09] And on my IX-14, mine is identical, minus the two rockers. I do not have those on the top of mine.

[00:17:16] What do you mean, rockers? The two RTTs, or the LTT and RTT? Correct. Okay. Which would be trim switches? Yeah.

[00:17:23] Well, I’m sure they could be assigned to something else, but typically they’d be used as a trimmer.

[00:17:29] I would assume so. And then, let’s go to the very back of our transmitters. On the very back, I have sliders on the left and a slider on the right. Same. Dave?

[00:17:42] And mine, once we get past, the switch is on the top and doesn’t match any of this.

[00:17:48] Okay.

[00:17:49] I’ve got face of the radio. I’ve got left at the top. Who’s beeping?

[00:17:54] Sorry, that’s for you. Stop it. I’m down now.

[00:17:56] Sorry. I turned the volume down. It should be.

[00:17:58] Yeah.

[00:17:59] So, the top face of the radio, I’ve got two trimmers, knobs, or just the knobs. Okay. and at the bottom, I’ve got a slider. Bottom middle is a slider. And I’ve got six assignable momentary switches that can also be assigned as locking switches. So, they can actually be three-position switches, even though they’re buttons. It’s kind of weird. they’re completely programmable. So, there’s six buttons that can be programmed to do a variety of different things.

[00:18:33] The side of the radio, I’ve got two, what do we call these, sliders? Yeah, I think they’re about the same.

[00:18:39] Well, they’re sliders only because they don’t fully rotate. So, it’s like a rotating switch that only moves, what, 30 degrees?

[00:18:47] It’s a knob without the knob.

[00:18:48] Yeah. But, but there’s limited movement. Yeah.

[00:18:51] And the back of the radio, I’ve got two momentary contact switches. Hmm. So, quite a bit different once we get away from the traditional switches at the top.

[00:19:01] Yeah. And then, on the very front of mine, underneath the switches, I have the left trim and the right trim on top. And then, I have the, obviously, the normal trim switches for your controls. And then, everything else is touchscreen.

[00:19:19] So there, right there, consistency is not going to run across brand, because what I set up on my radio is not going to work on your radio. As far as being consistently being able to put the same function in the same spot,

[00:19:31] But you can get it close. I can get it close. And really, get it to wherever it’s comfortable for you.

[00:19:39] That’s the key, is consistency.

[00:19:40] Yeah, keeping it the same across the different airplanes so that you’re not fumbling like I did and trying to find a setting that was incorrect.

[00:19:51] Worked out for me. I got an F-18. Yeah.

[00:19:53] So, I do feel better, though, knowing what it was. I just, it’s a learning lesson. It’s a lesson that you have to take away.

[00:20:03] That’s why consistency matters.

[00:20:06] Yeah. It’s a timing issue. I should have, I should have gone back and reprogrammed after I learned the correct ways of doing things.

[00:20:15] But there is no right or wrong way.

[00:20:17] No, there actually is. I’m sorry. Like on this one, when you, okay, so what we’re talking about, in case you didn’t hear the last episode, long story short, I ended up crashing my F-18 because after I, after I hand launched it, it got into a nasty oscillation and I could not turn.

[00:20:34] The gyro was set too high.

[00:20:35] Yeah. So, I could not turn the AS3X down. Nasty oscillation? Oscillation. Oh, oscillation. Yes. So, when you just go back and forth, back and forth. Quickly. Yes, yes. Quickly. and so, post-mortem crash investigations, whatever you want to call it, I found out, when I first started setting these up, I would use the knob as the gain adjustment for, the airplanes.

[00:21:06] The lessons from Miguel part comes in as, when he was showing me how to set up AS3X Plus on, I think it was the F-22. he told me, you’re better off putting them on these. Like, for me, it’s the RTT and the LTT switches on the very top.

[00:21:23] Yeah, I think they refer to those as trimmers.

[00:21:26] It could be. I don’t know. Well, we’ll call it that. Tremors just for now.

[00:21:31] Yeah, because it’s like a trim switch.

[00:21:33] Yeah, that just sounds weird, but we can go with that. So, anyway, we use the trimmers on top, and the reason for that is that stays locked in to what the values are for each airplane. So, when you change it, whatever the value is for that airplane is what gets loaded into it. With the knob, that doesn’t stick with the airplane. That sticks with the value on the actual knob itself.

[00:21:58] So, what I did, I originally had it set up on the knob, which, I mean, it makes sense if you’re….

[00:22:04] That’s actually the way that Freeze Guy tells you to do a gyro. It’s set it up on the knob to start with.

[00:22:10] Well… Get it where you want it. There you go.

[00:22:12] And then take and transfer those values into a switch. Yeah. And zero out the knob.

[00:22:15] There’s the, there’s the catch. So, yes, you’re supposed to, after you get it set, lock it in on the,… You’re supposed to say, you’re supposed to fly it and get it how you want it on the knob. Capture. And then land, capture those gains into the, into the receiver, and then the knob’s not used anymore. Right. Hence, another mistake I made, which is cool.

[00:22:39] Whatever.

[00:22:40] It’s whatever.

[00:22:40] Well, but to be fair….

[00:22:41] To be fair.

[00:22:42] To be fair. The, a couple of, I think it was a couple of instructional videos from Spectrum when they were, I think maybe when Synapse first maybe came out. Might have been before that. That’s, that was their, that was their technique for doing gains also. Do it on the knob, capture gains, save them, and then, and then you’re, you’re done. So that’s, that’s why I started using the knob initially for gains.

[00:23:07] And then, obviously with Miguel’s lesson, I don’t do that anymore either. But, like, it’s not, it’s not our fault that we started using the knob. So that’s kind of how we were instructed to do it, but instructed to do it by that little wikis that Spectrum was putting on early on when we were, being able to adjust gain remotely.

[00:23:29] Right. The, yeah, I understand. But I didn’t follow that final step of locking it in. I didn’t either. I don’t think a lot of people did. And, and that’s, that’s what bit me. so once again, by using those, and we can go here just really quickly over what we use each switch for, because this wasn’t supposed to be like a programming for AS3X episode, but I, I think, I think that’s a, a good point to make. Like, I don’t use my knob for anything anymore. Do you guys?

[00:24:01] I use a knob to turn the, the lights up and down on the radio. Oh, okay. Your back lights? It’s a dimmer switch, yeah.

[00:24:09] Okay.

[00:24:10] I use the knob on mine on, I think, just one airplane, the, the night radian to adjust the, the wingnut RC. Yeah. It’s a pattern. Yeah, and I don’t have that. I use mine for.

[00:24:25] I don’t have that anymore. So I got, I got rid of mine, so I don’t use that at all.

[00:24:30] Yeah. okay. So shall we just kind of go through our switches and see what we use each one for?

[00:24:37] Yeah. I think the problem will be fairly similar.

[00:24:39] I think so. Cause we’ll, since this is, he was asking the question about spectrum, we will start with what we call the switch and then you can, Dave, tell us what your bastardized switch naming convention is when we’re talking about the same switch. Okay. Okay. Tom, you want to start with a switch A, what do you use? And we might not even be the same on this. Like, I don’t know what you guys use. I don’t think what I use. So this will be interesting.

[00:25:06] So obviously just like my radio announced, switch A is across, across all of my airplanes is gear. And then my, I just want to touch on this real quick before we really dive in my default, if you will, switch positions. And I, so that I know where I’m starting with every single airplane. And I, I put the radio away with the switches in these positions is up and back, if that makes sense. So all of my switches, in like what I would call like a normal mode, if you will.

[00:25:40] So that would be gear down, throttle active, pretty much ready to fly. all of my switches on the face are up and all the switches on the top of the radio or back are back or down. If you’re looking at it, horizontally.

[00:25:57] So on ours, on ours, that’s all set to zero.

[00:26:01] Yeah, exactly.

[00:26:03] Yep. Dave.

[00:26:05] Same.

[00:26:05] You agree.

[00:26:06] So everything high rates and zero is up or away from me on the radio.

[00:26:13] Yeah. I still hear Tommy playing with his radio. Playing with my radio. I was going to say you need to clarify.

[00:26:20] So that’s what I use switch A for. It’s gear.

[00:26:23] Same back is, yeah.

[00:26:27] Down is down. Yeah. Down is up.

[00:26:29] Yep. So now I will say I do use switch A for something different, on different airplanes. So I don’t have many set up with student instructor control, but the ones that I do have, obviously don’t have retractable gear. So I use the switch A for a student slash instructor control. Same.

[00:26:51] And I’ve not got a instructor set up on this one. So.

[00:26:56] So if you did, let’s imagine, to be determined, probably it would be the momentary at the back.

[00:27:04] Let’s see. I don’t like our I switch.

[00:27:08] Actually it’s H.

[00:27:11] Yeah. He’s weird. No. So on his Tommy. So we have the H switch on the back or the back, right? That’s a two position. His is momentary.

[00:27:21] Oh, I gotcha. Okay.

[00:27:22] Weird. I know. I was thinking the same thing.

[00:27:25] So that’s probably where I’d put it.

[00:27:27] So here’s an, since we’re talking about student instructor control and I don’t know how yours works, Dave, and you obviously don’t either if you haven’t set it up with, but with ours. So I, I do use the switch that way I can completely give control to the student. The way this works though, is anytime I move any of my controls, it gives me control back, even if the switch isn’t flipped into my position.

[00:27:52] Exactly. I’ve gotten a habit of just holding the radio and actually letting the gravity push down on the switch.

[00:27:58] Yeah.

[00:27:59] So I’m actually not holding the switch. Just have to move my finger.

[00:28:03] You were holding the switch. I mean, I don’t know. You can play it off saying you’re not, but you are.

[00:28:08] The radio is pushing it against my finger.

[00:28:10] Oh, you’re holding it up then.

[00:28:12] And then I just move my finger out of the way.

[00:28:14] And drop the radio. So you’re holding it. Okay. I’m holding the switch. I can argue for days.

[00:28:24] I actually like the way, the way Ron and I have ours set up because you can flip the switch and then you can just hold the radio and, be comfortable without having to, Oh shoot. I’m sorry. I let, let go of the switch here. Let me give you control back. Like they have control until I move anything on my, and then that includes trims. Like if you bump a trim, you get control back.

[00:28:48] I like that because, like Ron is kind of alluding to, I don’t have to sit there and hold a switch in a certain position. I could just flip the switch and they’ve got control until I move anything on my transmitter. I like that. I like that a lot actually.

[00:29:02] Until I see something needs to be taken over. It is immediate control as soon as you move something and start to fly the airplane.

[00:29:09] And I’m pretty sure this radio works the same way.

[00:29:11] But you don’t know.

[00:29:12] But I don’t know because I haven’t tried it. I don’t have a student at FreeSky Radio to try with. I’ll have to grab Daniel’s one of these days and see if I can set up something.

[00:29:21] Yeah. That would be good to know, honestly.

[00:29:23] It would be. Yeah, I think so too. Or I just need to get more people to use FreeSky. Nah. Get the quality stuff.

[00:29:30] I don’t know about that. What about Switch B for Spectrum guys?

[00:29:35] Are we ready to move on? Yeah, we can move on. Absolutely. So I have Switch B set up with rates on a lot of my stuff. Not everything.

[00:29:44] Interesting. So Switch B for me is AS3X. Either on, off, or safe. That one?

[00:29:52] Yeah, that’s B. That’s what we call it. That one, Dave.

[00:29:55] In mine, it’s E, Edward. Okay. So AS3X for me. You and I are the same. That’s AS3X or gyro mode, depending on if it’s AS3X or straight gyro.

[00:30:08] Yep. Ron? Oh, you said rates.

[00:30:12] Yeah. And it depends on the airplane, and that’s one of the things where I need to get better at getting the naming conventions or the Switch conventions standardized. There are some, I think, if you get the Bind and Fly Spectrum ones, I think the B is the safe AS3X thing, if I remember right.

[00:30:32] I think that’s, yeah, I think that’s why I use that, is because that was kind of the default from Spectrum programming.

[00:30:38] Yeah. And that’s sort of the same for me as well, and it’s, it’s safe AS3X and off.

[00:30:47] So I like being on a three-position switch.

[00:30:49] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:30:50] Yep. And then, so for mine, off is back, and then AS3X on, essentially, is middle, and then forward is safe.

[00:30:59] Exactly the same. Okay. Cool. And same with my gyros, same setup. Yeah. Yep.

[00:31:06] I’m not the same because I go AS3X back because that’s usually how I fly off in the middle and then safe close because I don’t ever use. I honestly don’t ever use safe.

[00:31:17] I never use safe either. So. Yeah, I don’t either.

[00:31:19] That’s only when it comes with the airplane, but I guess I don’t bind with it either, so it probably didn’t even do anything if I needed it. But anyway. Probably not. So that’s my B-switch. All right.

[00:31:32] Tommy and I are pretty even.

[00:31:33] You guys want to move on to C?

[00:31:36] Yeah. So that one? For me. Yeah. Yeah, it would be top left on the face.

[00:31:41] Mm-hmm.

[00:31:42] For me, that is my flap switch.

[00:31:45] Really? Okay. Well.

[00:31:47] So for me, that’s my safe AS3X switch. Okay, so you flip-flopped those two switches.

[00:31:52] Well, no.

[00:31:54] Because you said you used rates.

[00:31:55] Yeah.

[00:31:56] And then.

[00:31:56] But he said that those are his flaps on C.

[00:31:59] No. But you flip-flopped between.

[00:32:03] B and C. B and C. Now, he said.

[00:32:06] Well, I guess.

[00:32:07] Depending on the airplane, yeah. Because you said you put safe on B.

[00:32:10] Yeah.

[00:32:12] So that kind of goes with AS3X, right?

[00:32:15] Well, no. I didn’t say safe on B. I said rates on B. But then when we were talking about safe, like how it was set up, I said my AS3X is away from me. And then off is middle.

[00:32:28] And you got ahead of yourself. You were talking about your AS3X. We were talking about switch positions, though, for safe and AS3X. We were talking about the B switch position. You don’t have AS3X on the B, so you’re confusing people.

[00:32:42] I’m confusing myself at this point. Okay.

[00:32:45] So, Ron, what do you use your C switch for?

[00:32:47] Safe and AS3X and AS3X off, yeah.

[00:32:51] Okay, cool.

[00:32:52] So, away from me is AS3X. And the position one is off. And then position two is safe.

[00:33:01] Which is also off, by the way. Okay, gotcha. So, for me, zero is flaps up. And then one is flaps mid. And two would be what I would call landing flaps or max flaps, depending on the airplane.

[00:33:12] Okay. Dave? Mine is switch A. Same switch, though. And that is my triple rates for my elevator.

[00:33:21] Okay. So, I got to ask, before we go any further, when it comes to rates, how do you guys do your rates? Do you guys do all three on three different switches? Or do you combine all of your rates on one switch? I like them completely separate, because if one’s out of whack,

[00:33:37] You’re not stuck. Daniel set up a airplane the other day, and he had everything on, it was the Bighorn. He had everything on one switch. And it’s like, man, if the ailerons are way too much and the elevator’s fine, I don’t want to kill the elevator. Once everything is set up and correct the way I like it, I have no problem putting them on one switch if I were to do that. But for initial flights, at least, I want them all on separate switches.

[00:34:04] Interesting.

[00:34:04] Okay.

[00:34:05] Yeah, I don’t actually do too much with rates. I mean, if I’m sitting there, I know, if I’m sitting there playing up, I usually will have pretty much full rates. And then just use Expo. If I am setting it up, then it’s all on one switch. I don’t separate it out. The only time it’s ever separated out is when it’s a file that comes from BNF airplanes.

[00:34:32] That’s interesting. And I just find – Go ahead. I definitely use rates for, like, a lot of different reasons. But I do rates with Expo. But, like, so, like, one reason I would use different rates on the same airplane would be if I’m, if I’m out just – well, for example, the timber. If I want to go out and just bore holes in the sky and, make the thing flip and all that, obviously I’ll fly it on max rates.

[00:35:03] But I can’t land the dang thing smoothly on max rates, so I bump the rates down so I can have a nice smooth landing. Or vice versa, if I’m flying my Ranger, in this case, if I’m looking right at it, on the transmitter anyway, if I – generally speaking, I fly it at mid-rates. I’m still kind of a new jet pilot getting comfortable with the airplane. Eventually I’ll probably, move to high rates, which really aren’t that much more than mid-rates.

[00:35:33] But if I want to do nice, smooth, across-the-field rolls, I’ll put it on low rates. That way I can really kind of feed in the input and feel the control on the transmitter as opposed to making small inputs and over-controlling the airplane and making my roll not smooth, if that makes sense. It’s just slowing down the rates or minimizing the rates when you’re trying to do precision stuff, I think is better than flying around at max rates with a lot of expo.

[00:36:04] That’s just my opinion, though.

[00:36:07] I’m trying to process. I guess I can see that.

[00:36:12] Yeah, and me personally, I generally speaking, across all my airplanes, I put all of the rates on one switch with the exception of fast airplanes, like the jets, the EDFs, the little fast prop plane, the V900. I do separate the elevator from the aileron and rudder. So on my, for example, on the V900, I have my rates, my, I’m sorry, my rudder aileron rates on a different switch than my elevator rates. Because kind of like Dave, I do like to keep those two separated just in case.

[00:36:51] And across the board on mine, and I’ve got no problem doing it the way you’re doing it, but I’ve just never get around doing extra programming. Everything on my, all my aircraft are split. Elevator, aileron, and rudder all have separate switches for rates. Yeah, and I mean, if I get happy with them, I could put them on one switch, but I just never get around to doing it. Yeah, I get it.

[00:37:12] Okay, so is that everything for the C switch? I think so. Or the H, is it for you, Dave? A.

[00:37:19] Okay, so moving to D on the spectrum or B on the frizzle sky, so on mine. I don’t have that currently assigned to anything on any of my airplanes.

[00:37:34] So for me, D is where I have flaps.

[00:37:38] Is it because it’s longer and easier to reach? You betcha. Mine’s flaps as well.

[00:37:43] Mine, it’s barely longer, but I guess so, yeah.

[00:37:47] Oh, well, it’s, I only have the two switches on the face of mine, whereas you have the three, Ron. So mine, that’s how mine are, half a short and a long.

[00:37:54] Mine are directly different. One’s a stubby and one’s quite long.

[00:37:58] So my, my middle one that we’re talking about now, D is probably an eighth inch longer. And then my D2 is probably an eighth inch longer than that. Would you agree with that? That’s a rough estimate, Dave. Yeah.

[00:38:10] Yeah, yours are, they’re different sizes, but similar.

[00:38:16] I think, comparing mine to Dave’s, so take out the middle one. So if I just compare my C to D2, I think the…

[00:38:24] Yeah, I think we’re about the same difference if you skip your middle position.

[00:38:26] Yep, on the, on the lengths on them. So tell me how, what’s the difference in your, in the length in yours?

[00:38:33] It’s about, I’m looking at it, it’s about a half an inch. Okay. Maybe three eighths. Yeah, it’s quite a bit different.

[00:38:39] Yeah, so I think that’s, that’s probably what the, the difference is. The, your D2, or your D is my D2, lengthwise. That’s confusing, but yeah. Okay, so Dave, what do you use? If Tommy uses nothing, I use it for flaps. And I use it for flaps. And you use it for flaps also. And flaps are away from me, up.

[00:39:03] Flaps. Flaps away from me is up. Gotcha. Up towards the top of the radio.

[00:39:08] Mm-hmm.

[00:39:09] Middle, and then, yeah.

[00:39:10] Middle is take off, and down is. Full flap. Full flap deployment.

[00:39:13] Yeah.

[00:39:14] I would agree on that one. That’s how my flaps are set up to.

[00:39:16] And sometimes I will take and set up the flaps on a knob to get them where I want, and then I flip them over to switch. That way I can hit the same flap every time.

[00:39:26] Okay.

[00:39:28] Mm-hmm.

[00:39:30] So I’ll go next, because nobody else has a D2. Correct. But my D2 is what I have set up for my lights. D2 on these, or on this, is just a simple two-position switch. So, on-off.

[00:39:45] Mm-hmm.

[00:39:46] Yeah. Okay, then I’ll go again, because I have an E2, which is nothing. Blank. Yeah. Not set up for anything. So then we’ll move to E. What do you guys have set up on E, or Dave’s? Is it this one? The long one on the right. Yep. Yep.

[00:40:08] Okay. What’s yours, Dave? It’s C. C. Okay. So, for my E switch, it would be my elevator race.

[00:40:16] Okay.

[00:40:17] Router right.

[00:40:19] Okay. And honestly, the only one that I have this used on, that I use an E on, is the jet, and that’s the gyro gains for normal, medium, and high.

[00:40:36] Ah, okay. Okay. I see. That’s something I have not set up on, on, well, any of my jets yet, is multiple gain settings.

[00:40:44] So, I’m going to, I was going to say, I’m going to be honest, I have not either, but when Ali set this one up, that is how he did it, and I have not changed it off of, like, everything just flies, flies up. So, when that is in position zero, that’s how I fly it. Gotcha. Yep. Makes sense. Now, mine, mine does have different gain settings based on flat position, and I think yours is probably set up the same way, Tommy.

[00:41:12] It is. Yep.

[00:41:14] Yeah. Because you want, you want higher gains when you’re flying slower with. Yes. So, it can control it better. But anyway, okay. Yep. Cool.

[00:41:24] So, shall we move to Foxtrot?

[00:41:28] Or D for Dog?

[00:41:31] So, that on mine, the F switch, is my aileron rudder rates. Same.

[00:41:38] Nothing. I don’t have it set up for anything. And that’s Dave’s D.

[00:41:45] Cool. Do you want to talk about the rocker switches since we’re on the face, or do you just want to go ahead and go all the way around?

[00:41:50] What rocker switches? You mean the trim switches?

[00:41:53] Yeah.

[00:41:55] Well, those aren’t, those aren’t the ones I, yeah, but not the one I use for my gains.

[00:42:01] Oh. Well, I use the right trim switch, rocker, trimmer switch thing, which is next to my E switch to the left, and that is my, that is my gain adjustment.

[00:42:12] Okay. I don’t use that for anything.

[00:42:16] Do you use the left one for anything?

[00:42:18] I don’t.

[00:42:19] That’s this one right here, Dave. Okay, so in the place where you’ve got switches, I’ve got my knobs.

[00:42:26] He’s got his tune-in, never mind, his knobs. Tune-in Tokyo knobs? I didn’t know if that was okay to say, so.

[00:42:33] Well, there’s no bad words in that, tune-in Tokyo, there’s, I mean.

[00:42:37] Well, I know what I know that as, but I don’t know what the actual.

[00:42:40] Imagine, imagine turning, well, a lot of people probably don’t, younger folks probably don’t get it, but we used to have to tune radios to bring in radio stations, and there were knobs on the front of the radio, and you tune in, radio station. I’m trying to clean it up, Ron.

[00:42:54] Okay, well, I was just making sure. Maybe I didn’t know.

[00:42:56] No. Anyway. I’m just trying to clean it up. My right one is the one I use for the dimmer, for the backlit screen, and the left one is used for gyro setup.

[00:43:12] When you say gyro setup, do you mean gains?

[00:43:14] Yeah, gyro setup gain. Okay. And once I figure out what gains I want, then I move it to a switch. Gotcha. Okay. Which I haven’t got around to doing at this point. I’ve only got one airplane with a gyro, so it’s still on the knob, but it will be moved to a switch when I decide, A, which switch is going to be, and B, get around to doing it.

[00:43:34] Okay.

[00:43:35] So. Okay.

[00:43:38] Next.

[00:43:39] Are we on the G?

[00:43:41] Yeah, I’m at G for groovy.

[00:43:44] Which is the same as mine.

[00:43:46] That’s the same as Dave’s. So we’re all on G. Do we use G for anything? Yes. Oh, I don’t.

[00:43:52] I use it. Yeah, I don’t use it either. I use that as my throttle safety or throttle kill. Really? Yeah. It’s a three position switch. I wish it was actually a two position switch on or off, but I can get into this radio and move switches around and tell it it’s a two position or a three position. I just haven’t got around to it.

[00:44:11] Yeah, I don’t use that switch for anything.

[00:44:13] So towards me is throttle armed. Good to, throttle works. Away from me. I’m sorry, the other way around. Throttle, the switch away from me is throttle live, armed. Yeah, okay. And when I flip the switch towards me, it’s throttle safety. It’s off. It doesn’t work.

[00:44:37] Yeah. It’s always confusing when you name that switch. Yeah. Because mine’s throttle cut on.

[00:44:43] Or it’s throttle cut, depending on if it’s gas or electric.

[00:44:46] Yeah.

[00:44:48] So I got a throttle safety on or off or throttle cut on or off.

[00:44:55] I just call everything throttle cut. Same. But not for that switch.

[00:45:00] Not that switch, right. Right. Yeah.

[00:45:03] And that’s just what I’ve got that one set up for. Okay.

[00:45:07] And then the H switch is the one that I use for throttle cut or ignition on, off on the gas airplanes. That’s what I use that switch for. And down is off or disarmed, if you will. And up is armed or ignition on.

[00:45:24] So we’re the opposite on that.

[00:45:27] Oh, really?

[00:45:28] So for me, throttle cut is up. So when it’s close, when it’s…

[00:45:33] What? Maybe I’m backwards.

[00:45:35] When it’s position. So when I’m flying, everything is away from me.

[00:45:39] Ah, yes. Okay. Yeah. You and I are the same. Back. Yeah. Down or back is… Back and to the left. Yep. Is off or disarmed and then forward is armed or on.

[00:45:53] And I gave that a lot of thought on my radio before I ever started to sign it. So that switch towards me is everything’s off. Yes. Nothing works.

[00:46:05] Yes.

[00:46:05] And that’s because I think it’s much more likely if I were to set this radio down. Exactly. And it may, something may hit it and hit the switch. Well… So it’s got to turn it off. So I can’t accidentally turn my motor on on the workbench. If I had it so that on was the other way around, it could be I hit a switch or hit something and then it would turn on the motor. And chop your fingers off. And chop my fingers off. So that’s the reason…

[00:46:33] Yeah. I gave it a lot of thought too. And that’s why I set mine up that way. This was hours and hours of thinking. I didn’t think twice. I was just like, oh, away from me when I fly. Towards me. No throttle.

[00:46:46] I’ve also dropped my radio once. And that… Yeah.

[00:46:51] Yeah. I’m probably going to do it because I’m going to say this now, but I’ve never dropped any of my transmitters.

[00:46:57] Oh, you should not. I know. That’s why I said I’m probably going to do it now. I actually fell. Oh. And that’s when I dropped my transmitter. So… I mean, that’s… That turned the throttle off as me grabbing it.

[00:47:07] That’s more traumatic for the transmitter, but probably a funnier story.

[00:47:13] It was a paramotor. It wasn’t too bad. It kind of just drifted off on its own for a while. Oh, it’s flying away. Hold on. I got plenty of time. I got 30, 45 seconds here before anything happens.

[00:47:25] All right. So, while we’re on the top of the radio, top right knob, if we’re talking to knobs, so on mine, I use that, like I said kind of earlier, I use that for the radium, night radium with the wingnut RC board. And that’s all I use it for. I used to use it for rates, but I don’t do that anymore.

[00:47:46] Yeah. We learned and decided not to do’s it anymore.

[00:47:50] Yep.

[00:47:52] Yeah. I don’t use the knob for anything.

[00:47:53] I don’t got one.

[00:47:55] Dave don’t got one.

[00:47:56] And then, so the… I’m moving over to the left-hand side on the top of the transmitter, my I push-button switch.

[00:48:02] Mm-hmm.

[00:48:03] I will use that on my Nitro airplanes as a throttle cut.

[00:48:07] Oh, okay. I don’t have any. I know you don’t. I use that as a thrust reverse.

[00:48:18] As do I. On EDFs.

[00:48:22] Yes.

[00:48:23] Well, actually, I have that set up on my turbo timber also.

[00:48:26] Oh, well, yeah.

[00:48:27] I forgot about that.

[00:48:28] But that way, it’s a momentary contact switch. You can’t accidentally flip it while it’s in the air. Right. That one, I did give a little bit of thought to. Yeah. That way, you can’t, like somebody else we know, flip the switch. While you’re flying and put it in reverse and crash.

[00:48:47] Well, isn’t there, like, correct me if I’m wrong. We’re getting off topic. But, like, on the thrust reverse, I think on the, at least on the spectrum speed controllers, don’t you have to go to idle first?

[00:48:59] No. Not all of them. Okay. Because I have some that you don’t have to.

[00:49:04] Just go straight to it? Okay. Well, disregard. Let’s move on.

[00:49:07] That’s something else you can program. You can program, like, speed, how long it takes to slow down and then reverse so it’s not, like, instantaneous, like, throwing off the nuts on the motor, that kind of thing, holding the propeller on. Right. Yeah. Cool.

[00:49:26] All right. What about the shoulder sliders on the back of the transmitter? You guys want to talk about those?

[00:49:31] Well, hold on. I’m talking about my RTT switch on the top. This is also the trim switch and then the LTT. So, the way I have stuff set up now is the RTT switch gives me the gain control for AS3X. And then the LTT one gives me the stop lock release or whatever that’s called control. Oh, okay. That way you can…

[00:50:03] Nice. You have that set up. You can adjust on the fly.

[00:50:05] Yeah.

[00:50:06] I’ll have to copy that probably.

[00:50:08] Yeah. I mean, I don’t really know what it does. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but when my plane was set up with Miguel, that’s what he set it up, and he tried to explain what I was looking for. He’s like, okay, now look, and when I do this, see the difference? No. Yeah. Big difference. No.

[00:50:26] I mean, actually at the time I could tell what he was talking about, but it’s been a couple years since we’ve done that and at this point I don’t even think I’d remember what to look for.

[00:50:38] Now we can move on to the back if you want to.

[00:50:41] Okay. Sure. So the one controlled by my left hand, which would be on the, I guess, on the left side of the transmitter?

[00:50:48] That’s usually how it works if you’re holding it right.

[00:50:50] All right. So that is my volume, my volume control.

[00:50:54] Same. Davis? Oh, sorry. Continue, Tommy. I didn’t think there was more to talk about volume, but sure. Yeah, that’s it.

[00:51:02] That’s it. Sorry. My rotary sliders, whatever you want to call them, are not on the back. They’re on the side of the radio, and neither of them do anything, because your radio is weird.

[00:51:15] And the one on the right, I use for brakes.

[00:51:18] Mm-hmm. Proportional brakes.

[00:51:20] Yep. Which would make sense.

[00:51:21] Mm-hmm.

[00:51:23] And probably if I had proportional brakes, that’s where mine would go as well.

[00:51:26] Well, you need to get a jet, Dave. Yeah.

[00:51:30] Yeah.

[00:51:33] No, no.

[00:51:34] And that’s it. That’s it for the switches on my transmitter.

[00:51:37] Yeah.

[00:51:38] I got more.

[00:51:39] Oh, you do?

[00:51:40] Yeah.

[00:51:41] I got push buttons.

[00:51:42] I got push buttons on the back. Nice.

[00:51:45] They’re momentary contacts.

[00:51:47] Currently, they’re not set up for anything, but they will be set up for telemetry readouts. So I just push button, and it’ll tell me voltage or speed or altitude or whatever, just by tapping that button. That’s what they will be set up for, but they’re not currently.

[00:52:03] Nice.

[00:52:03] And there’s two of them, so you can do two different ones.

[00:52:07] That reminds me, Tommy. So before we started recording, before you were on, I was talking to Dave about transmitters, obviously. And I remember on mine, and I don’t know if you can do it on yours or not, they have the, I think they’re called capacitive switches, capacitive touch switches or something. So you can set up just to touch the switch, not change it, but just touch it, and it will tell you what its function is.

[00:52:31] Yep. Callouts.

[00:52:32] Yeah.

[00:52:33] I have a couple of those set up on a couple of different models, but I’ve only really kind of just sort of, well, before I came here, had just sort of tapped into that. So I was still kind of trying to figure that out. But yeah, eventually I would like to explore that further. And like, so for example, like you can tell it, like by touching, let’s just say, a switch I’m not using. Well, it can be even a switch that you are using.

[00:53:01] But switch E, for example, on mine, it’s the long one on the face, on the top right. I can touch that if I’ve got a receiver that is, well, telemetry capable, and then also has the variometer. Anytime I touch that, it will tell me what altitude it is at, at that given second, which is kind of neat. So you’re basically using it like my touch switches in the back.

[00:53:24] Yeah.

[00:53:25] Sounds that way. Yeah. Mine are not capacitive, which.

[00:53:29] Yeah. You just have to go click, click, click every time you push it. These are. A little jealous. These don’t. But. Yeah.

[00:53:35] Like I said, I’ve only just sort of started exploring that. So I want to get more into that eventually.

[00:53:43] Looking at Dave’s controller sitting over here, though, he could not do that with any of them because all of his are covered in rubber covers. Little rubber caps. Yeah.

[00:53:53] It makes for a nice touch feel when you’re, especially when your hands are a little sweaty.

[00:53:58] Yeah.

[00:53:58] Mm-hmm. I get that.

[00:54:00] So one thing I will absolutely say between any of the controllers that we use is we probably don’t touch 10% of what they are capable of. Oh, no.

[00:54:16] True statement.

[00:54:17] We don’t, we don’t know everything that they are capable of and what all the programming and stuff is that you can do with them.

[00:54:24] So what we’re taking away from this is there is no right or wrong. It’s just whatever works for you and just stay consistent within what works for you. And that’s. Or your flying friends if you swap radios back and forth.

[00:54:35] Yeah. And that’s a lesson I need to learn is to stay consistent with all the airplanes.

[00:54:42] So we have a lot of consistency amongst ourselves, but a lot of differences as well.

[00:54:46] Yeah. And I still, I, I, I’ve heard you guys talk about setting up the different rates on different switches for, but I, for the ailerons or rudder or what I just, I can’t make that make sense to where I would ever need that.

[00:55:04] And I, and I, to me, a brand new airplane, I don’t want them all on one switch because oh my gosh, one is way out of whack. I’m stuck with that without changing everything else. Yeah. But you can still. So I, like, I, I guess, I guess it’s a match. I can have high rates on ailerons and low rates on elevators, which I actually have a couple of airplanes that fly that way.

[00:55:24] And then rudder. I can actually separate out because some aircraft need a lot more rudder to for ground handling, but in flight it’s way too much to deal with.

[00:55:35] Okay. Yeah.

[00:55:35] And I mean, you can use Axpo to soften that out. Yes. But I just like being able to flip switches and it’s, I line up on the runway and set my switches just like a full size aircraft and go.

[00:55:48] See, I think that’s, for me, I like the less switching, the less I have to remember what’s where. And I like to mix and match. Yeah. And that obviously has to do with different styles, different preferences on what each person likes to fly with or how they like to fly.

[00:56:05] Right. And I’m, I’m somewhere in between the two of you. Ron doesn’t use rates and Dave gets finitely detailed. He has each one on a separate switch and I’m just kind of somewhere in the middle. But yeah, you do whatever is comfortable for you at the, at the end of the day, as long as you’re doing what makes sense to you and you’re keeping it consistent across all of your airframes, I think you can’t lose.

[00:56:27] I’m going to, I’m going to caveat my comment of not using rates with, depending on the airplane. So the couple that I can think of that I have rates set up on are the more like 3D aerobatic types. But most like just foamy things that, you buy bind and fly from Horizon or Cubs and all that kind of stuff. I mean, I don’t see a reason to have multiple rates on those.

[00:57:01] It’s like my UMX stuff. I have all three rates on everything. They, they give you a high rate and low rate in the books and I just split the middle for mid rate. I almost exclusively fly all those on high rate all the time.

[00:57:14] Yeah.

[00:57:14] Same.

[00:57:16] And that’s kind of the same way I am with 90% of what I have. I’m not going to touch a rate. If I have to set it up myself, I won’t set it up because I don’t, the way I fly, I don’t feel as though I need it.

[00:57:29] I set them up just because they’re there, but I never use them. Quite frankly, I could just set them, leave them all at 100% and just leave them alone. Yeah.

[00:57:36] So Ron, let me ask you, do you, do you set up your airplane? If you’re not going to use rates, do you set up the airplane as though it was at high rates? Like, do you put max deflection when you’re setting it up?

[00:57:50] Yeah. So, and it, it depends on the airplane. I mean, once again, so if there’s a manual that says, okay, this is what the high rates are supposed to be. This is what low rates are supposed to be. If it’s not different enough for me to like notice, like, cause sometimes you see high rates and low rates that are really, there’s not much difference in them. There’s less than an eighth inch difference. Right. So no, I don’t go through the whole setup of, of that.

[00:58:17] And I will check the throws to make sure they’re what they’re supposed to be. And I will soften it up with Expo.

[00:58:22] So, but no, a lot of it’s first flights cause you don’t know what to expect. So I’ll take the recommended rates and put those usually at the mid rate.

[00:58:33] Yeah.

[00:58:33] If, if it looks soft, if their high rates look soft to me, I will put my own high rates in, because often I find the recommended rates are a little soft.

[00:58:42] Yeah.

[00:58:43] And then I will put their, they’re normally pretty conservative and then I’ll put low rates in and low. and I will usually take off in mid rate, the recommended high rate. And if I find it’s not reacting the way I want, I can flip it high or low, depending on what it’s doing.

[00:59:00] Yeah.

[00:59:00] And then I’ll find what I want and then fine tune each position to what it really needs to be.

[00:59:06] So, so here’s a, here’s a recent example that I have of, a good reason to use rates. So I put this little, this old great planes, electric cap together and I made it, as we talked about, a few weeks ago and, I use the recommended CG and everything, right? Well, you can, you can be only so perfect with your fingertips measuring a CG, right? So the airplane happened to be tail heavy, on, on its first flight.

[00:59:41] And like Dave mentioned, I normally kind of stick to mid rates, especially on a maiden, cause I don’t want too much, I don’t want to, PIO pilot induced oscillations, but I also want to make sure I have enough throw if I need it. So I took off at mid rates and the airplane was tail heavy. So that naturally, aerodynamically makes them very, what’s the word sensitive on, on the pitch axis. Right.

[01:00:09] So took off and the, the thing was almost uncontrollable, on the pitch axis, just very, very small movements on the stick. It was, making, huge changes in, in attitude, on the pitch axis. So it was nice to be able to reach up real quick and flip that elevator, dual rate switch, which is switch E on my transmitter, down to put it in low rates. So I could control the thing and get it back around and get it on the ground.

[01:00:38] Cause there is no way I would have been able to land it successfully, probably at even mid rates because it was, it was significantly tail heavy. So that’s a scenario where I like to have rates. No amount of expo would have, would have allowed me because I don’t have that sort of run. You must have more fine motor skills. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Motor schools, motor skills, to be able to do that. I would not have been able to do that.

[01:01:04] So for me that’s one of several reasons I can think of that I that I actually use rates instead of expo. I mean, I still use expo, but I also use rates.

[01:01:17] Yeah. And I, I guess I can, I could very easily be convinced I’m wrong.

[01:01:23] But I don’t think it’s a matter of being right or wrong. It’s just what you are comfortable with and what your preference is. I just try to think ahead. Like it would be nice if I could turn the rates down real quick in case, like I said, I have an airplane that is just too touchy or vice versa. If I take off in mid rates and the airplane, doesn’t have enough throw, I suppose if I set it up that way to begin with, it would be fine.

[01:01:48] But that’s where I got bit with the F-16. It didn’t have nearly enough elevator to climb, but I also didn’t have enough time to throw a switch to high rate.

[01:01:56] But I also, to caveat that I also set all of, I’m going to say all, but I’m probably just most of my airplanes up to get the max throw without putting any, putting anything in a bind. And then I’ll set that to a high rate on my switch so that if I do get into a bind and I need extra throw, I’ve got it. I can just flip it up there and I’ve got what I got. And if I need more throw, then there’s just not any more throw to be had physically on the airplane.

[01:02:24] Yeah. Well, like going back to the plane you were talking about, that is one I would have set up dual rates on.

[01:02:31] Oh, okay.

[01:02:32] Because that’s an aerobatic type airplane that you can get in trouble with very quickly. Very quickly. Yeah. And like the ones I’m talking about are, I like the Twin Otter, when I flew that a little while ago. I think that comes set up from the factory with dual rates and all that, but I have not flown anything except full rates on that. The same with any of the other airplanes of that style.

[01:03:01] I think most of the Horizon stuff is full rate is usually where you want it anyway, or even more.

[01:03:09] Yeah. But like that. I feel like we could probably talk for like an entire episode about rates, if I’m honest. I mean, we’ve been talking about rates now for, 10, 15-ish minutes on an episode where we’re talking about switches.

[01:03:25] We can quit if you want to quit. I mean, that’s fine.

[01:03:27] No, I’m just saying that there’s that much that goes into that. Like, and everybody’s going to, have an opinion or a preference as to how they set their switches up. And rates goes, kind of ties into that.

[01:03:41] Yeah.

[01:03:42] So, anyway, so that pretty much covers the switches, right? Switch that up. And we have, like, as we talked about, we’re not using maybe 10% of the capability of these radios between the three of us. And I, it’s good to actually talk about this because now I realize I have some switches open that I can start, putting stuff on like lights and, whatever.

[01:04:06] Yeah. And it’s interesting to hear what you guys use for your, because we’ve, we’ve never had this conversation before. Like, I don’t know how Dave sets his up or how Tommy sets his up. And I just know what I do and what makes sense for me. Right. But it could be.

[01:04:24] So, I do have a switch that’s set up for doing nothing but this. That’s all it does.

[01:04:35] I mean, I feel so special that he took the time to make his transmitter make fun of me. I mean.

[01:04:44] I mean, I don’t think I have a switch in his radio.

[01:04:48] No. No, you don’t.

[01:04:50] Yeah.

[01:04:50] See? It’s pretty special. You’re special. And you guys are, like, I don’t have my transmitter on because I didn’t want to make a bunch of noise in the background like other people. But you guys have just the, the, like, twangiest Americanized voice in both of those that I can think of. That is British. Believe it or not. That is not British. That is the British setting. That is terrible. Then nobody’s been to Britain on that one. That has never been over there.

[01:05:16] That is the British setting. But that is, mine is set to the British setting and it has the, the accent to it. I just feel like I’m, I’m a little more posh when I hear a British accent telling me what’s going on. I don’t know why.

[01:05:32] Admit it, Ron. You just want to be told what to do by a British chick.

[01:05:36] I mean.

[01:05:38] I got no problem with that.

[01:05:39] Yeah. Who doesn’t? I like that you assume it’s a female voice on mine, but that’s okay.

[01:05:46] Well, I’ve heard it, so I know it’s female.

[01:05:50] Yeah.

[01:05:51] Throttle cut on. Hmm. Yours is sped up so much. It just bothers me.

[01:05:57] Really? Yeah. I don’t like it drawn out and long. I want it to, give me the information quick. Let’s be done. So. And that’s the other thing. We’re talking about transmitters.

[01:06:08] Landing flaps.

[01:06:10] Flaps up. It’s clear and I can understand what she’s saying.

[01:06:15] Okay.

[01:06:16] Just saying.

[01:06:17] I was going to say so that there’s another thing. I got into this with small airplanes, Like when I started in the hobby: smaller airplanes, nothing that was complex and didn’t have any of the voice, the voices and stuff that you can do on these radios now.

[01:06:36] Mm-hmm.

[01:06:37] How did you guys deal with, well, I guess you wouldn’t have had all these switches on older ones, would you? No. No. We had two.

[01:06:46] Yeah. Really? So there was just, there was just, there was just, before they started putting dual rates on switches. Yeah. I think we only had two and that was gear and flaps. That was, it was your options.

[01:06:56] So you, you just had enough to where you could remember what each one was.

[01:07:00] Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, yeah. that was one of the biggest pluses with the more advanced radios is it started talking to you and that it was really nice for complex aircraft like my F-15.

[01:07:12] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s very handy knowing all the call-outs and, and what’s going on just by listening to them.

[01:07:18] And sometimes you forget what mode you’re in. So you can flip a switch real quick to say, oh, okay, it is in the high rate, with high, yeah. Oh my God. I’ve had a stroke. High rate.

[01:07:32] And stay, and even, even, even though we try to set them up consistently, there you go. Sometimes we have to flip a switch to remind ourselves, oh, flaps up. Okay. Yeah. This is the up position.

[01:07:42] I know what you mean. Or if we set it up right, we can just touch it and it will tell you what it is. That’s true. But I don’t have mine set up right.

[01:07:50] Yeah.

[01:07:51] And that, okay. Not part of this, but do you guys use templates for setting up new airplanes? I do. Do you?

[01:07:59] I, that way all my switch assignments are the same.

[01:08:04] I copy and paste. So I find a similar airframe. If it’s flying wing, I’ll find another flying wing. If it’s conventional with flaps and retracts, I use a conventional with flaps and retracts. Yeah. And then tweak it from there. It saves me a whole lot of typing, especially with the, the, the call outs and all the other fun stuff. So I can, I can move a lot around. I don’t start with a fresh blank airplane most of the time.

[01:08:29] Yeah.

[01:08:30] Yeah. Me neither.

[01:08:31] Yeah. Same. I do have a file that I exported. Like after I had everything, switch assignments, all that stuff, the way I wanted it. Not for big airplanes, but just for a smaller, flaps and, and that kind of stuff. But I think it might have gear. I don’t remember. But anyway, I do have a, a template that I saved just for that, for setting up a new airplane.

[01:08:54] Yeah.

[01:08:54] And it does make it a lot easier.

[01:08:57] Yes, it does. It makes the setup quicker too.

[01:08:59] So another thing I haven’t actually done, but I, I need to, so I have not deleted an airplane out of my transmitter for probably two years. So I need to get in there and just completely revamp my menu and what airplanes I have in there, reorganize them and all that stuff. I don’t like doing that on the tiny, tiny screen. I don’t know what, it just, it kind of bugs me.

[01:09:27] I found out, and you might be able to, Tommy, also, I don’t know, and Dave, I’m not sure how yours is, but you can hook up the iX20 to a computer just with a cable. Yeah. And then the whole computer screen turns into the screen on the iX20.

[01:09:44] I don’t get the entire screen. It doesn’t duplicate what I’m looking at on the radio, but it actually becomes a file system, just like working with regular files in Windows. Oh, okay. So I just go into model files and whatever else.

[01:09:58] Okay.

[01:09:58] So it’s, it’s not hard to work with. It’d be kind of cool though, if it did duplicate the on radio screen on computer, but.

[01:10:06] Well, I’m going to be honest. The only reason I know that is because at Joan Hall a couple of years ago, the Horizon guys were doing a demo with their iX20. And I saw that David Payne just plugged it right into his computer and then it’s shown the whole thing up on the projector. I was like, that is my biggest takeaway from this whole thing. I don’t even remember what they were talking about at this point, to be honest, but that was my biggest takeaway from that.

[01:10:30] And I haven’t tried it yet. Now the screen on this, on the DX, on the DX, not good. See, you’re missing it.

[01:10:36] On the X20 RS is big enough that it’s really not an issue to manipulate the files.

[01:10:44] It’s the same on this. I mean, like this is not a tiny screen either, but I just, I find it easier. Maybe I’m getting old. I don’t know. But I find it easier to have the full screen where you can just use a mouse to move things and do what you have to do.

[01:10:56] If I were to do a lot, if I had a bunch of stuff to move around, I would do it on the computer because you can just click and, I mean, just, it works just like Windows.

[01:11:05] Yeah.

[01:11:06] And then just download back into the radio. But I don’t do that much. I mean, I took one out tonight while we’re sitting here, went, scrolled through all my airplanes and found one that I didn’t own anymore. And it took all of three clicks and it was gone.

[01:11:22] Yeah. Well, excuse me. That’s the other thing on this one. You can, you can categorize them so you can set up your own categories. I’ve got that on this as well. And that, oh yeah. So setting that up is, I mean, it just, probably it’s just me being lazy, but I think I would find it easier to do it on the actual computer screen as opposed to clicking and opening and, and fat fingering and maybe missing what I’m, what I’m trying to put it in for that.

[01:11:50] Yeah. I find it actually works better than my phone as far as typing in stuff.

[01:11:56] Yeah. Well, it’s bigger. I mean, it’s got a bigger screen than your phone. So.

[01:12:00] Well, it’s easier for guys, old guys like me to see too.

[01:12:03] I just completely lied. I don’t think it has a bigger screen than my phone. Now that I looked at them sitting next to each other. No, no. Mine are.

[01:12:10] Anyway. Mine are about the same. I mean, this one’s longer, but.

[01:12:13] Well, yeah, that’s, that’s the same. Like if you, like the height, when you hold them sideways, the height’s about the same, but it’s definitely got more of a 16 by nine screen on my phone than the transmitter does.

[01:12:25] And I do have the small phone. The guy kind of queried me. I was like, why are you getting the small phone? Cause I want the small phone. Cause it’s cheaper. Actually, it was about the same price. What I wanted is it fit in my pocket. The big one would be too big to fit in my pocket. No, I just get bigger pants.

[01:12:44] I don’t know where to go with that.

[01:12:46] Anyway. Moving on guys.

[01:12:48] Well, I think that’s about all I got. You guys got anything else you want to talk about? Are we going to just close this out?

[01:12:54] No, I think I’m, I think I’m done. We can talk about maybe modifying vehicles for airplanes on the next episode. Maybe.

[01:13:01] There you go. Put it in your pocket and think about it.

[01:13:06] I’ve been busy for three weeks doing mine. Finally done.

[01:13:09] Good. Then by next time you’ll have two weeks of use with it and you can see what tweaks you need to do or if any.

[01:13:15] Tell us what not to do.

[01:13:15] Tell us how perfect it is if you have to.

[01:13:18] Yeah. It’s not nearly as complicated as your vehicle, Ron, but that’s all right. So teaser for next time.

[01:13:23] Okay. Yep. There we go. Well then until next time, everybody, thanks for listening. I’m Ron. I’m Tom. And I’m Dave. Good night. Good night.

[01:13:31] We hope you enjoyed this episode of the RC Plane Lab podcast. 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.