Happy Halloween - Spooky Specials at 3DH


Since Reaper Brushless has a spooky name/logo, it seems right to do a Halloween special based around the Reaper motors. So, we have two specials going:

3DHS Extra SR 47" ARF + Reaper GR35 motor - $189.99

This reaper is a perfect fit in the SR. Use a 14x7 prop on 3S or a 12x6 prop on 4S and a 45-55Amp ESC.

3DHS Yak 54 55" Purple ARF + Reaper GR60 motor - $239.99

Lots of power here. The GR60 produces over 1,000 Watts on a decent 4S pack wuth 14x7-15x7 props. Perfect for the 55" Yak.

Limited quantities on both. Happy Halloween!

Fly Low

Basher

Books you need.

Warning - RC airplanes are addictive, fun, and complicated.

Just about any other hobby, besides creating a lifelike robotic companion to keep you company, is easier and simpler. However, for those of us who love it, RC flying is what we want to do, no matter what it takes.

So, we need to educate ourselves! We need to study, to become experts at this, so that we can extract the maximum enjoyment for the minimum investment of money and time. Some of us have a mentor, a friend or relative who knows everything about RC and is willing to teach. These saintlike individuals do exist, but unfortunately, most of us don't have one in our neighborhood. For the rest of us, the mentor-less, we need resources. Let's talk about the best ones:

Books on building

There are a lot of skills and techniques to learn in this hobby. With the advent of really, really good ARF aircraft, many people think building skills aren't needed any more. Not true. Now, they are repairing skills. Repairing takes even more skill than building, because you have to invent just the piece you need to fill in whatever is missing. So, to be able to maintain your fleet of 3DHobbyShop over the long run, a little building skill goes a long way. Here are the books I recommend:


There Are No Secrets by Harry Higley

The title sounds like something out of the X-files, and the book is massively out-of-date...but you need to read it! This is the book on basic woodworking and basic covering/finishing. If you absorb the relevant sections of this book, I guarantee you will be able to handle all the typical repairs on balsa ARF aircraft, and they will look right and fly well afterwards. Ignore the sections on glue, thankfully we now have a wide selection of CA and Polyurethane adhesives that solve all of those problems.


Tom's Techniques by Tom Ingram

The book for teaching basic covering techniques. Absorb this, and you will be able to re-cover an ARF in a factory-quality color scheme of your own, and easily handle any covering repairs you need to. These Higley books are printed very cheaply, but chock-full of good stuff.


Building Techniques by Randy Randolph

A great collection of, exactly as the title says, model building techniques. Absorb this, and you'll be ready to build new sections and structures when you need to. A great confidence-builder for flying low!

Book on flying

Before we can learn to fly a maneuver, we need to understand that maneuver. If you don't have a personal champion aerobatic coach, a good book is the place to start.


RCPilotGuide by Scott Stoops

There are other books about learning to fly RC...but if you want to progress from soloing up to advanced aerobatics as smoothly as possible, get this one. Scott knows what he's talking about, and knows the pitfalls you'll encounter. Get it, you won't be sorry.

Fly Low

Basher

Planning a Freestyle - Music

So, in addition to running 3DHobbyShop, I occasionally get to fly, too.

I started flying in 1979 (thanks to my Uncle James W) and progressed through what I call the "RCM Program" of trainers, sticks, pattern, and scale (like everybody else). The last several years, however, have been by far the most fun I've ever had flying, with always-improving aircraft, really good small practice planes, and my ever-improving thumbs.

I've been trying to become more disciplined in my flying, and have set a goal of being able to competently fly a competitive 4-minute freestyle routine during 2009. I probaby won't ever get to use said freestlye routine in any competition, but I want to do it just because I think it will be super-cool. I'll be documenting the steps in the blog here and hopefully show some actual progress.

So, in this first post about it, I'll go over the process I'm using for music creation. A freestyle should demonstrate at least a couple of different musical tempos/styles to allow the pilot to fly both graceful and high-energy maneuvers. 3 songs in the 4 minutes appears to be the concensus. Therefore, we need to create a 4 minute long piece of music out of three existing songs. I'm using a techno song, followed by a classical piece, followed by a rock song (I may change my mind along the way).

A buddy suggested using YouTube to identify pieces of music. Perfect. It seems that virutally every song ever recorded is posted as a music video or live performance on YouTube (at least for the moment). After identifying a candidate song, if I'm serious about using it, I need to purchase it, so I use iTunes. 99cents a song seems fair, I only need 3 of them.

iTunes uses a weird file format, .mp4 I think, which nothing else recognizes. Thanks Apple for making my life more difficult. So, in order to actually USE the iTunes song, we must convert it. This is a weird process, but Apple is a weird company. In iTunes -

1.Create a new playlist with the songs you want to use for your freestyle.
2.Right click on the playlist and choose "burn to disc" to burn it to a CD-R
3.Close iTunes, go to "My computer" (on PC) and open the disc you just burned
4.Open a track from the disc in Windows Media Player
5.Choose the "Rip" option in Media Player to transfer the songs to your hard drive.
6.They will be brought in as "Unknown Songs" since iTunes does not save the titles (thanks Apple) so you have to re-name them.

Whew. Finally, now, after wasting a CD-R and 10 minutes, you can actually use the songs you already paid for. Last time - Thanks Apple.

Now we have to mix them. I use a piece of software called CubaseLE. This is the "Lite" version of a very big and expensive music creation software package. It is often sent free with a variety of audio gear, and people often put it up for sale separately on Ebay. I got mine for $29. There are several other competing packages that do the same thing, but this is the one I know. I've even seen Cubase offered as a free download lately, but haven't investigated.



On Cubase, it's really easy. Select a new project in "16 track audio" format. Under "File" choose "import" and "Audio file". Your song will show up in one of the tracks. In the image above, the orange track is a song in stereo (notice the two jagged white paths in the orange trackbar - that's the right and left channel of a stereo song - that's what your songs will look like). It's intuitive, move it left to make it appear sooner in the mix, move it right to make it play later in the mix. We have to trim each song to length - again really easy. Double click on the song you want to trim, it opens in a new window. You can listen to the song while the progress bar moves across the screen. Hit "stop" when it's at the correct point (you can move the progress bar with the mouse to get exactly the right point) and highlight the part of the song you want to get rid of. Right click on the highlighted portion, choose "Edit" and "delete". Your song is now trimmed.

Trim your 3 pieces of music, slide them together on the screen, and hit play to listen to your freestyle. After a few tries, you'll see what it takes to make them end up close to 4 minutes long (or however long your routine will be). To make it sound more professional, you'll want to have a faded transition between songs. Double click on the song you want to fade out of to open it in the detail window. Highlight the last few seconds of the song, right click on the highlighted portion, choose "process" and "fade out", click the "process" button in the fade out window. Done. Go to the next song, highlight the beginning few seconds, and this time choose "process" and "fade in". Done. You now have a faded transition.

There's a LOT more power and features even in one of these "Lite" audio programs. If one of your songs is significantly louder or quieter than the others, bring that track up in the detail window, highlight the whole thing and use the "process" and "gain" command to make it louder or quiter. There's a whole lot more, too. Some pilots use their own personal sounds (like a tape rewinding or other effect) between songs instead of fades. These types of things are added just like a new song, trimmed, and put into the right location. You can also overlay sounds. A few pilots have used Nasa countdown recordings, sirens, and other effects over their songs. Just add your overlay sound and put it on a different track, slide it left or right to make it play at the precise time you want it to.

When you are satisfied that you have a freestyle mix worth flying to (you can always do it again, better, later), use "File" "Export" "Audio Mixdown" to save your mix. I save it a couple of different ways, as a Windows Media File and as a .wav file. That way I can use it anywhere I want, import into iTunes and onto my iPod, on an audio CD for the car, and for sim practice I play it as a "loop" in Windows Media Player.

There are, I'm sure, better ways to accomplish this. However, I'm not a pro musician or sound engineer, and this system works for me and my slow brain. I can sit down at the PC with an idea, and within an hour have a finished mix ready to fly to (assuming I had a good idea and the three songs actually sound good together and can fit into 4 minutes!).

Next time, I'll pass along some good coaching I've gotten about how to plan your maneuvers and the single best tool for the aspiring freestyle pilot.

Fly Low

Basher

Katanas and more Katanas


We still need to make more room in the warehouse - 87" Extras are inbound (the white/blue scheme) and are expected to arrive within a few weeks. Shortly thereafter, we expect 89" Slicks...big boxes that take up a LOT of space. So, it's time to close out the 55" Katanas as well.

When the 55" Kat was designed, motor choices were more limited than they are now. The best power setup was the Torque 4014-T570 on 5S. This is still a good choice, it gives the Katana a massively overpowered feel that personally I like a lot. However, now we also have the Reaper motors - the GR-60 can do on 4S what the Torque does on 5S, giving us extra flexibility...and the cool little GR-45 can haul the Katana around just fine for 3D on cheaper, smaller packs. So, lots of options.

The 55" Katana is a fun airplane. Very happy to chase its tail and do wild 3D, it's also fast, especially on the GR-60 or 4014 w/ a 13x8 prop.

So, more closeout craziness! We also have a pre-Christmas sale coming next month, but you'll have to wait for details on that one.

Time to let the Katana go... (and other news)



Well, the time has finally come to phase the 47" Katana out of our lineup. It's been a great plane for us, but we need the room (both physically in the warehouse and in the website lineup) and so we're closing it out, starting today. To lower the price as far as possible, the closeout ARFs do not include printed manuals (.pdf is on the Katana ARF product page), nor decals, nor velcro, nor our super-cool wheels axles (regular 3mm bolts are included in the boxes). But, the upside is the price, only $79 + shipping. Let the craziness begin.


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This week we rec'd a small shipment of airplanes, and were able to put the RED 55" Yak 54's back in-stock, but they're close to selling out again already.


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We're getting ready to test Scott Stoops' new 103" Precision/3D plane. It's intended for 85-106CC gas(Single or Twin) or as an electric with the Reaper GR-85 or the Hacker A80 or A100.


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More news to come.


Fly Low!




Basher




My first podcast

Last month, the guys from THE RIGHT STICK podcast had me on as a guest. They're good guys, and it was a lot of fun. To listen to me make a fool of myself in front of an audience of dozens, click here to listen. We talk about aircraft design, the ARF business, why we like airplanes (we have no idea, BTW), RedBullAirRacing and lots of other stuff. Good way to kill an hour when you should be working.

Fly Low!

Basher

New planes?

OK, this is a short post, but we get asked pretty constantly "What's coming next?". The answer is - we don't always know which one we want to produce next until our developers pronounce a plane "ready". So, I thought it would be helpful to make a list of what's in development, knowing that the production order is not set in stone.

On the water:

55" Edge
47" Edge
40" Edge
47" Extra SHP
87" Extra SHP (White/Blue color)

In production:

46" Aspera V2
89" AJ slick 540
47" Velox (Blue)

In development:

40" 3D scale
42" Precision/3D
45" Precision hybrid
47" Scale
55" Profile
56" Precision hybrid
60" Precision
70" 3D scale
78" Precision
86" 3D scale
103" Precision/3D
123" Precision/3D

Some of these are flying, some are only lines on the screen, but all are in the pipeline for '09.

Should be a great next year!

Fly Low!

Basher

3DHobbyShop ARF lineup 40-53"

We've been asked on many occasions to write an article detailing the characteristics of our various ARFs. Here's a first attempt at that:

40" Edge


The 40" Edge is a next-generation mini-3D/aerobatic plane. It has no wing rock upright (when flown correctly, of course), very good pitch rate, very low KE coupling and is basically capable of anything its 47" brothers can do. It features carbon-fiber gear on a strong plate that won't break out on the first landing like so many 40" planes. This plane is tremendous fun. My current favorite setup for it is a 3S 1500 20C pack and a Torque 2830-1095 or Reaper GR-25 motor. 3S 1320 prolites and a 20mm motor make for a light setup, but I like the higher power on this one. Available in November '08 in Red/White and Green/White schemes in lightweight film.

47" Extra SHP


Friendliest scale balsa 3D plane in the world. Developed by Scott Stoops. If you are new to 3D or just want a no-stress plane with lots of performance to keep in the trunk or backseat, the 47" SHP is it. Now in its 5th production run, the Extra sells out too quickly! Very little wing rock upright, none inverted, very little or no roll coupling, and easy-easy-easy post-stall flight...the Extra is very confidence-inspiring. Don't overpower it, it likes to be under 500 watts. 3S 2200mah packs are perfect. Available in Blue/White and Yellow/Black schemes in lightweight film.

47" Extra SR

A development of the 47" SHP for more power. Clear to go all the way up to 800 watts. Can also fly on the same power system as the 47" SHP. Like the SHP, but stronger and more responsive, at the penalty of an extra ounce or so of total weight on the same power system. Very versatile 3D and precision plane. Adds SFGs to the wingtips for better knife-edge performance. Use either 3S 2200 lipo for a 400-450W system, or 4S 2200 lipo for a 550-650W system. Fun either way. I prefer the Reaper GR-35 motor on either pack. Available in Red lightweight film.


47" Velox Revolution 1


A scale model of the Velox Revolution single-seat plane tested for Red-Bull air racing. Developed by Scott Stoops. The full-scale racer has SFG's and so does our model. Wild. Crazy. Extremely high performance 3D aircraft. Still the highest performance small balsa 3D plane around. Best powered with 4S 2200 25C to get 550-650 Watts, the Velox will do crazy high-speed climbing maneuvers, wild tumbles, elevator down without rock, harrier without rock, and hover easily...then you can shoot out of hover back into crazy climbing maneuvers. Not as gentle as the Extras, but tremendous fun and a real shock to the guys at the club field. Available in Red/White and (sometimes) Blue/White lightweight film.


47" Edge 540


A quite scale single-seat Edge developed by Scott Stoops. Perfect upright harrier. Perfect rolling harrier. As perfect as knife-edge gets with an Edge airframe. Superb tracking. Feels like giant-scale on calm days. Not quite as knock-around robust as the Extras, but more precise and lighter-feeling than the Extras. Perfect on 3S 2200 as an extremely slow, light-feeling, close-in 3D machine. Also works well on 4S 2200. I prefer it on 100-110 gram motors like the Torque 2818 and Hacker A30-16M. and 12-13" props. Available in November '08 in Red/White or Pearl Green/White Ultracote.


47" Katana


Lightweight precision plane for 3S 2200 that will also 3D fairly well. Excellent tracking, precision, and snapping performance. Hovers and torque-rolls easily, but has some wing-rock upright with most setups. No rock inverted. Virtually no knife-edge coupling. Likes a 100-110gram motor. Not for 3D beginners, but great fun for sport pilots, precision pilots or advanced 3D pilots. Available in White/Red lightweight film.

49" Sukhoi


Scale model of Scott Stoops' full-size Sukhoi SU-26MX. 500+ Watts required for good 3D performance. Very precise. Fast. Stable in harrier and hover, very stable with low coupling in knife-edge. I like it best on 4S 2600 25C and a Hacker A30-10XL on 13x6.5 prop. Lots of power. Looks fabulous. Great all around precision and 3D aircraft. Available in Scale Red/White and fantasy racing Blue/Silver lightweight film.


51" AJ Slick


Scale model of the Slick 540 aerobatic plane. A very big 51" plane because of the large fuselage. Developed by Andrew Jesky. Simply awesome all around 3D and precision aerobatic performer. Easy hover, no-rock and easy harrier, great snaps even at low speed, very precise. Does a convincing impersonation of a 100CC giant scale plane in calm air.


53" EBT Trainer


Basic flat-bottom-wing trainer. Light, strong, easy to fly, simple. Good way to continue training after planes like the HobbyZone SuperCub or the Aerobirds, etc. Can fly on any of the setups from our 47-49" aircraft, so you won't be throwing away any parts when you progress from the EBT to one of our aerobatic aircraft. Good camera plane, good float plane, good ski plane, good bomb-drop plane. Good fun plane. Available in Yellow/Blue and White/Blue lightweight film.

Setting Center of Gravity

CG has to be set IN THE AIR before you are done!

Most ARF manufacturers provide a "starting CG point" or a "CG range". Definitely, do try to get your new airplane close to this value on the bench, and it's usually better, if the maker provided a range, to be closer to the nose-heavy end of the range for a maiden if you are a less-experienced pilot.

However, realize that even among experienced builders, very few people can set CG correctly. There are many "CG machines" on the market, tools to help bulders set CG accurately...but despite this many people measure incorrectly or otherwise mess up in some way and get it wrong. It's a fact.

If you have assembled an ARF, and you find yourself adding lots of weight to the tail or nose to get your CG set, stop and look at what you are doing.

Is your motor the same size (weight) as recommended?

Is your battery pack(s) the same size as recommended?

Are you using the expected type and number of servos?

If you are doing the above and cannot get the CG set without massive modifications, you may be doing it wrong. Check your measurement, are you sure you are reading the ruler right? Some planes are sensitive to orientation, they need to be balanced either upright or inverted, make sure you are doing it the right way.

If you can find information about your plane on-line, check with other users. In my opinion, it's safer to copy the setup of a person who is successfully flying the plane than to go with your own CG measurement if it doesn't seem right.

A war story: We went to an event in '07 and two pilots showed up with identical 3DHs airplanes. Using the recommended setups and batteries as they both were, I knew from experience that a nice CG was easy to obtain with the lipoly pack in the center of the tray. One pilot had his pack up in the very nose of the plane, the other had his hanging off the back of the battery tray. Both, of course, "balanced" their planes at the same, recommended location.

So, to sum up, if it doesn't seem right, it probably isn't. Figure out why before proceeding!

So, once you have your CG set on the bench, it's time to fly. Setting CG in the air is a process of making your airplane fly right FOR YOU (not for anyone else). The following information is right for AEROBATIC AIRCRAFT. Flat-bottom wing aircraft like trainers should NOT be balanced with the method that follows.

Here's what you need to know:

Test your CG location by doing the "roll inverted" test. Fly your plane level at 2/3 or 3/4 throttle, and use the trim knobs on your radio to trim it fly *STRAIGHT AND LEVEL* by itself. Once it is perfectly trimmed, roll it over inverted. Observe what it does.

If it DIVES inverted, it is NOSE HEAVY.

If it KEEPS FLYING STRAIGHT inverted, it is NEUTRAL.

If it CLIMBS inverted, it is TAIL HEAVY.

Move your battery pack, or add/subtract nose/tail weight as needed to move your CG. Don't change the CG much, only about 1/8 inch at a time. Fly the airplane again with your adjustment. TRIM THE AIRPLANE AGAIN for straight and level flight, then do the roll-inverted test again. Repeat as necessary RE-TRIMMING the aircraft for STRAIGHT AND LEVEL EACH TIME before rolling inverted.

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A VERY NOSE-HEAVY airplane, during the roll inverted test, will sharply dive while inverted. It will require a significant push down on the elevator stick to maintain altitude inverted. This CG is NOT good for aerobatics. It's OK for basic sport flying with many aircraft, but the airplane will not fly high-performance maneuvers well, and probably will not 3D much at all.

A SLIGHTLY NOSE HEAVY airplane, during the roll-inverted test, will gently descend when rolled inverted for the test. It will thus require a slight push down on the elevator stick to maintain altitude inverted.

What the vast majority of pilots want is a SLIGHTLY NOSE HEAVY airplane. This is where competition aircraft are usually balanced, this is where most sport aircraft are balanced. This location provides good tracking and easy landings. Most 3D aircraft will 3D well at this CG.

HOWEVER, the very best 3D performance will usually occur at a NEUTRAL CG location.

A NEUTRAL CG balanced aircraft will have lots of pitch (elevator) authority and will rotate around the wing spar very easily. It will often hover and harrier easier than a nose-heavy aircraft.

HOWEVER, a NEUTRAL CG balanced aircraft will not track very well. It is not going to easily fly precision figures. It will be difficult to land smoothly and will tend to balloon up on final approach.


A TAIL HEAVY airplane is only for experienced 3D pilots. It will NOT fly precisely at high speed. It will be very challenging to land smoothly. It may have very high 3D performance at low speeds, but be cautious with any setup balanced like this until you are experienced with it.


Experiment with different CG locations. Move your CG only a bit (1/8 inch or so) at a time, so you are not taken by surprise when making changes, but do experiment so that YOU will learn how different CG points feel and what YOU like to fly. Remember, this airplane is YOURS and it should feel right to YOU, not your flying buddies or anyone else!

Fly Low!

Basher

Setting rates and exponentials on your transmitter.

There needs to be a reason for each setting in your transmitter.

Rates:

High aileron rate (on a 3D plane) is usually chosen for low speed maneuvers where the ailerons aren't very effective, such as harrier rolls, or holding stright in a hover. Personally, I use roll rate in a harrier roll to determine my aileron high rate, so I can hold full aileron control in a harrier roll and concentrate on the other controls. Low aileron rate is typically set for all higher-speed rolling maneuvers, and a lot of competent pilots use a setting that gives about 1 roll per second, which is a nce, manageable rate for precision maneuvers.

High elevator rate is really important. On 3D planes, we typically want at *least* 45 degeees of elevator throw on high rates, so that we have enough throw to actually stall both wing halves on command and fly 3d maneuvers. If the high-rate elevator setting on a 3D plane is set at some lower value, 25-35 degrees, many 3D planes won't 3D, but will instead snap and spiral out of maneuvers. You also have to pull the stick like you mean it, to ensure that you actually get the 3D stall that you want. A weak or slow pull can also cause the spiraling or snapping out on some aircraft.

Low elevator rate is also critical. We typically want a low value, like 15 degrees, that is totally safe at all speeds, and a hard pull results ONLY in a partial loop, never a snap roll. We also expect to land on low elevator rate, and it need to be low enough that the pilot does not overcontrol and cause the airplane to porpoise up and down during final approach. The lesson to be taken here is "low rate usually needs to be lower".

Rudder can't be ignored either. High rate rudder should be enough to allow the rotation we want for flat spins, stall turns, blenders, etc. However, many airplanes develop a lot of bad habits in that last several degrees of rudder throw before the rudder hits the elevator half. If you ever have an airplane that develops too much coupling in high-alpha knife edge flight, try reducing the rudder throw a bit on high rates. You might find that you don't give up any noticeable KE performance, but a lot of your coupling goes away.

Low rate rudder may only be for landing or cruising around, or a pilot may choose it very precisely for point-roll maneuvers. Personal preference.

Expo:

First off, make sure your expo is going the right direction. We want the kind of expo that makes our controls LESS sensitive around the center stick position. Most transmitters that have the EXPO function also allow you to do it the other direction (have you ever actually seen anyone use expo the other way? I haven't, but the radio wil let you do it).

Expo basically has two purposes:

1.To make a high rate control more flyable without the danger of over overcontrolling.

2.To make low rates and high rates feel more similar around the center-stick position.

High-Rate ExpoExpo is a very personal thing. Some people tend to overcontrol on high rates, and therefore tend to use a higher expo value (60, 70, or 80%) other people tend to undercontrol on high rates and use less (20, 30, or 40%). The first time you flip a new airplane onto high rates, you'll know if you have enough expo or not. If you find it difficult to keep from overcontrolling the airplane on high rates, no matter how small a stick movement you make, you can bet you don't have enough expo.

Keep it straight in your mind which control you're working on. If you find the controls feel sluggish around center on high rates and you feel sort of disconnected from the airplane on high rates, you probably have too much expo on those controls.

As long as you have a low enough low rate set before you fly, you can flip to high rates, see how it feels, and flip back if it's not right. Low rate is your safety position. For this reason, many pilots prefer to program their radio to have all 3 rates (aileron, elevator, and rudder) controlled on one switch. Makes it easy to get back to the safety position in the air.

Low-Rate Expo: I set my low-rate expo values at an arbitrary value to start (for me, 25%) and tune them after I have set my high rate expos. I tune them so that, at low stick movements, I can flip the rate switch back and forth and the surfaces don't change position much. I want the controls to feel about the same near stick center on both low and high rates. Then, as I move the stick to the end of its travel, the rates feel very different from each other. For me, this keeps the amount of switch-flipping to a minimum during flight. This is a personal preference thing, and other pilots have different purposes for low-rate expo.

Specific Expo Settings:

There are a couple of expo values that, if set correctly, can be really helpful:

For hovering, if you are having problems, take note of how the airplane falls out of hover. If the airplane tends to slowly fall to the right or left, and you can't seem to get it back in time, try reducing your ridder hi-rate expo.

If, instead, the airplane is always dancing back and forth to the right and left too quickly and is never stable, try increasing your rudder hi-rate expo.

For harrier, take note of two things - If you have a very high expo setting (75%+) on your elevator hi-rate, then your elevator is very gentle around the center stick position, but is very sensitive at the end of the stick travel. It may be too sensitive in maneuvers where we're flying with a lot of stick but still need to be precise, like the harrier. If the plane jumps around in pitch while flying the harrier, and in general seems too sensitive, be sure to try the Expo both more AND less before deciding which is better.

Rudder is very important in harrier. When you turn in harrier, it's important to be very gentle on the rudder, or you will cause the plane to very unstable in harrier. One of the leading causes of unstable harrier performance is a too-sensitive rudder control which causes the pilot to overcontrol the rudder. If your plane isn't stable in harrier, try more hi-rate rudder expo, so that you can add just the tiniest bit of rudder and be smooth and gentle on the sticks...this will really improve your harriers.

The only way to have perfect transmitter settings for your plane is to fly it a lot. As you fly, you will learn the aircraft and get more comfortable with it, and you will improve your settings based upon your experience.

Fly Low!

Basher