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])
