A week or so ago, I post the email (below) regarding the JR-9303 and got
almost no response, so I thought that I might try again. Specifically, is
there a way to implement reverse differential in landing mode?
One of the responses that I did receive, said something to the effect,
if you need to turn that much on final and you don't know how
to use the rudder, landing may be the least of your problem I
really appreciate critical humor and have been known to practice it a
bunch myself, but as I said, the plane is a 60 with no flaps, using
spoilerons for glide path control, and the v-tail only supports pitch
(one servo driving both surfaces). Further, I also mentioned that the
pilot is new to gliders, so I would really like to provide him with
sufficient control when landing. Thanks!
Hi All,
Although I'm a very BIG Airtronics Stylus fan, I have also been flying JR
since the X-347's debut. Along the way, I purchased the X-388, then a
couple of 8103s. I have used my JR radios primarily for handlaunch
because they are lighter and have longer run-times than the Stylus for
the same sized battery. Consequently, I came up with the modification for
the 388/8103
(http://www.silentflyer.org/articles/8103-launch-switch.html)
or
(http://www.hoopesdesigns.com/)
because of their lack of free-form switch assignments as
found on the Stylus.
The JR radios (10X excluded since I've never bought or owned one) have
never measured up to the capabilities of the Stylus or the Vision for
multi-servo wings, in my estimation. One of my biggest complaints was
that the JR radios lacked the side sliders. Instead, two functions
(landing and camber) were placed on the flap stick resulting in potential
pilot overload by requiring the correct position of the
Butterfly switch for the appropriate flight mode.
I have switched from the Stylus with the Advanced Helicopter card to the
8103 for electric helis because I think that the 8103 has
superior pitch and throttle curve mixing and its software has a nicer
feel than the Stylus.
With all of that said, I was anxious to get my hands on a 9303 to see if
it really measured up to the Stylus, as some have stated. A local heli
pilot, new to gliders, asked me to setup his 60 moldie with his new
9303. I have a mantra that I constantly share with the engineers in my
company that if you have to crack the manual to figure out to
power-up the product, it is too complicated. I applied the same
test to the 9303 and in a couple of minutes, I was boatin' around without
too much difficulty.
I spent about an hour setting up the plane so that it had speed, cruise,
thermal (aka reflex, normal, camber) flight modes and spoilerons for
glide path control with elevator compensation. Certainly, not very
complicated.
I couldn't see an easy way to add reverse differential when the
spoilerons were deployed so I uploaded all of the support documents from
Horizon's site. Still no solution. Along the way, I read through Joe
Wurts' setup recommendations and was surprised to see him suggesting that
one cut and swap the leads on the D/R switch to enable it for Launch
mode. A short time later, I found Hank Shorz's thoroughly documented
modification information, much of which involved a lot of cutting,
swapping and soldering. This doesn't scare me, but I was left thinking of
the average guy being told to hack up his new $600
radio.
Although I spent most of the hour learning and understanding the changes
and new additions, this same task would have taken me 10 minutes with the
Stylus and I would have had reverse differential on the spoilerons, with
no compromises.
Why would JR overlook free form switch assignments? The
Graupner MX-22 has got them (same radio, different software). Why aren't
the mixers symmetrical in function? They never have been on JR, for
example Mixer A or #1 is not the same as Mixer C
or #3. Further, if a null function were added and allowed to
be in the Master selection of the mixer, one could easily support presets
in every mixer. For this plane's setup, I used FMOD, but didn't get a
clear picture whether this would cause other problems.
So what do I think? JR has great quality, nice gimbals, desperately
needs free form switch assignments, match the documentation's
nomenclature to the radio's nomenclature, convince Airtronics to squeeze
their 92185 PCM receiver to the same size as JR's R770...yea like that'll
ever happen ;-) , stick with the nice click wheel, and knock the
sharp edges off from the software.
I didn't get a chance to look at the 9303's heli software and I would
have liked to spend more time with the radio than I did. Also, it would
be nice to know whether the radio's program memory can be re-flashed
through the DSC port or some internal connection for future updating,
thus alleviating a potential buyer's concern of being stuck
with older or buggy software.
Stylus Boy,
Tom Hoopes ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Tom Hoopes ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
