Scott's RC Goals for 2015

Hi Everyone -

As I continue through my RC flying journey, I of course am always striving to be a better pilot, I think we all are.  Unless a person competes and is judged in competition on their skills however, much of that is just based on how you feel your confidence and skill level is progressing.

I certainly know that my skills and confidence are better than they were two years ago when I started and even a year ago, but improvements are very small and only through hours and hours of stick time.  I have become a bit stagnant and I think it is time for some real quantifiable changes.

Since Stephan has been sharing some of the ideas from a book/manual called Airplane and Radio Setup  http://www.rcflightschool.com/Setup_Manual.asp he purchased from 1st US RC flight school http://www.rcflightschool.com/ and also from some of my poking around on their website, I've bought in to trying to become a more "precise and honest" pilot (not that I'm dishonest, in this context it means stripping away a lot of bad habits, mostly in my thinking).  The manual is written by a gentleman named Dave Scott and is very current, it was published in 2014.  Dave Scott is the chief instructor at the RC Flight School and has had over 1600 students go through that establishment.

So I have my own copy of this manual on it's way in the mail and will be using it as my guideline to work towards becoming a more precise and honest pilot in how I set up my planes, my radio and most importantly myself... :)

This is a quote directly from the RC Flight School website from the manual link above

"While modern technology has expanded airplane capabilities, declining emphasis on the fundamental setup principles that are essential to achieving a great flying airplane in favor of emphasizing advanced programming to solve deficiencies and improve performance has made the setup process exponentially more complex and subject to error."

So when I read this and other excerpts from the manual, I realized that I was in that mode, I had been balancing my planes based on trying to achieve zero trim on a CG marked on the plans, not by finding the true neutral CG point on the plane.

I also have been using and preaching tons of expo (50% or even more in most cases) to make up for the fact I wasn't balancing or dialing in my planes properly.

I also have been stuck in a rut thinking "I am a thumbs only pilot and will die a thumbs only pilot" because I wasn't really willing to make a change.

So therein rested my biggest problem, and that was to change my way of thinking first, not always an easy task for those of us the wrong side of 50... :/  But after reading Stephan's post here http://migsrus.blogspot.ca/2014/12/trimming-rc-airplane-determining-cg.html, I started thinking about this a lot more and after he shared some more of the info from Dave Scott's manual, I decided it was truly time to make a change.  No point in letting fear and common sense hold me back!

Stephan also produced this excellent video that helps better understand the arc test and other methods to truly assess best neutral CG for your park jet or any other RC plane.

So while my main goal is to become a better pilot, I am going to try to do that by striving to be a more precise and honest pilot and here are what I think will be the main cornerstones of that process (this is probably not an all inclusive list, but very doable and achievable for now).

1. Balance all my planes on or as close to neutral CG as possible;
2. Set up my servos and linkages to optimize precision of control;
3. Reduce the amount of expo I use in transmitter setup to again optimize precision and feel for my plane; and
4. Learn a better way to handle my transmitter and sticks to maximize my feel for the plane and increase precision in my control inputs.  Essentially use the "two finger" or finger/thumb method of flying.

So the first two points are pretty straight forward, based on the sciences of aerodynamics and physics, not too much room for argument.

The last two points from my experience tend to have much more emotion tied to them for most folks.  Look through any forum, RC Powers, RC Groups, etc and you will find strong arguments for all kinds of theories about expo, throws, how to hold your transmitter, etc.  However, I am going to go into this with an open mind, try what Dave Scott has written as close to the letter as I can and see where I end up.

I plan on writing separate articles discussing my progress on each of these points, but for now, let me go a bit further just so you know where I am heading.  

Since reading Stephan's post above, speaking about it with him in more detail and watching his excellent video, I am already balancing all my planes as close to neutral CG as possible, using the arc, glide and inverted methods and truly evaluating what my plane does.  Sometimes this does require me to carry around a bit of trim input in order to accomplish this, but seeing how exponentially much better my planes fly, I am fine with that.  It certainly gives me a much better balanced, maneuverable and easier plane to fly than using the method of balancing with zero trim using the CG marked on the plans.

On the second point, I need to pick a plane out of my fleet and make the appropriate changes, experiment with that and then start setting up all my planes using this method.  Essentially, it is moving all my control linkages as close to the servo as possible, rather than at the end of the servo arm like I normally do.  This gives best precision and smoothness from any servo as the further away from the servo the connection is, the travel can be jerky, especially in some of the "less expensive" servos that I like to use.  So more to follow on that.

For me thus far, points three and four are already working hand in hand.  My last couple times out to the field, I have been using the "two finger" or finger/thumb approach to handling my sticks.  Essentially, this is what it looks like.  Obviously when I'm flying I would use both hands, but needed my right hand to hold the camera.  I will be shooting a video showing the different hand positions I experimented with and what I now find to be the best for me.

So essentially my thumb is still on the top of the stick, but by using my index finger as support and guidance, my touch is much lighter and more precise and overall my grip on the radio is much lighter rather than feeling like I was wanting to crush it in my hands.  Again, more to follow on this in another post.

What this more precise form of transmitter handling has allowed me to do is comfortably drop my expo down from 50% in the pitch and roll to 20% which is in the ball park of what Dave Scott recommends to still keep things smooth, but makes for much more direct and linear control inputs.  Which have already saved my plane on a couple of occasions because my plane responded much more quickly to control inputs in a "self induced emergency situation"... :/

So I am excited to continue along on this journey, as I mentioned, I am already seeing immediate positive feedback and improvement from balancing my planes properly and handling my transmitter in a more precise way.  I am on my way to being a more precise and honest pilot already I think and as I add in all the parts of the formula together and get lots more practice, I know it is going to make me a better and more confident RC pilot.

More to follow... :)

Cheers,

Scott