Am I doing this correctly? (flight modes and throttle cut)

[trillian]

I have read lots of threads, watched a lot of videos and all that stuff. I think I have my flight modes set now in a way that both works and is logical. But I just want to confirm I am doing this right and that I am not forgetting about anything.

At the moment I fly mostly electric, so the TH switch can just cut completely, I still like a 'normal mode' for hovering and a little extra safety of seeing the throttle stick is down etc.

So I currently have, on the three position switch:

FM1 - 'hover'
FM2 - idle1
FM3 - idle2

Then the rear right switch is set to throttle cut.
I use the same linear pitch curves for all flight modes.

(I have a DS-12 with the added flight modes, but it seems I may not have needed more than 3 anyway)

[Thunder Fighter]

I also have Throttle hold as a flight mode, and use throttle cut as an arming switch on a locking switch. This lets me setup autorotation bailout if the TH needs to be above zero and also let’s me run flat line throttle curves for all of my flight modes as the extra switch for throttle cut gives me a zero throttle without having to have low stick as 0.

//Dennis.

[Andy from Sandy]

Don't you actually need a throttle hold with a percentage of throttle for ESC bailout and not 0 as in throttle cut causing a slow spool up?

[trillian]

If you're asking me, then no, because I do not setup any ESC bailout.

[Ah Clem]

Originally Posted by trillian

I have read lots of threads, watched a lot of videos and all that stuff. I think I have my flight modes set now in a way that both works and is logical. But I just want to confirm I am doing this right and that I am not forgetting about anything.

At the moment I fly mostly electric, so the TH switch can just cut completely, I still like a 'normal mode' for hovering and a little extra safety of seeing the throttle stick is down etc.

So I currently have, on the three position switch:

FM1 - 'hover'
FM2 - idle1
FM3 - idle2

Then the rear right switch is set to throttle cut.
I use the same linear pitch curves for all flight modes.

(I have a DS-12 with the added flight modes, but it seems I may not have needed more than 3 anyway)

Trillian,

Although I do not fly Jeti, what you described is the way I have set up my radios for decades. I still use a Normal mode (although there is a lot of controversy over this these days). This is a holdover for me as I learned to fly before there were dedicated helicopter radios and long, long before there were electric machines, governors, or good soft starts.

I think if I were learning now, I might take a different route (no Normal mode) but it is ingrained after 47 years or so. I still have quite a few machines which lack ESC's or FBL units with governors and good soft starts, so the Normal Mode is necessary for those.

I have Throttle Hold set to cut the throttle completely as well.

I also use the same linear pitch curve for all three flight modes.

[JimJW]

Best I can figure out is there is at least 2 ways of doing it.

The first is to use Flight modes only:
FM0 : Throttle Cut
FM1 : Throttle ‘Hold’ (for auto’s)
FM2 : Headspeed 1
FM3 : Headspeed 2
FM4 : Headspeed 3

The second is to use the built in Throttle Cut / Hold functionality. Then only three Flightmodes are needed (same as FM2, FM3, FM4 above)

I think the Spirit utility (on the Jeti) sets up a throttle hold using the built in function. (It took me a while to figure out why my autorotation bailout didn’t work right when trying to use the first option with 5 flight modes!)

[trillian]

Originally Posted by Ah Clem

I still use a Normal mode (although there is a lot of controversy over this these days). This is a holdover for me as I learned to fly before there were dedicated helicopter radios and long, long before there were electric machines, governors, or good soft starts.

Yeah, I started in the nitro days. But I also used that 'normal' mode for my attempts at F3C hovering, and I often also had a special pitch curve for it as well. These days I don't spend much time hovering, but I simply have no good reason not to have a throttle down / hover/ normal mode.

[Thunder Fighter]

Originally Posted by trillian

Yeah, I started in the nitro days. But I also used that 'normal' mode for my attempts at F3C hovering, and I often also had a special pitch curve for it as well. These days I don't spend much time hovering, but I simply have no good reason not to have a throttle down / hover/ normal mode.

The main reason for not having a normal mode is so that you don’t flip inverted in normal mode accidentally. If you don’t fly inverted then there is probably little reason to change.

I utilise all 3 flight modes for 3D flight, and it gives me the ability to have a low headspeed for graceful slow 3D, a mid headspeed for normal 3D and a high headspeed for when I want to rip the heli around. I guess this could be done along with having a normal mode using an extra flight mode but as all my helis have soft start and I also use a sprung collective stick, it doesn’t give me any benefit.

One other thing to look at is if your FBL has banks. I always map a bank to each flight mode this lets me tune the gains for both head and tail for each headspeed, as well as any other settings like precomp that might need some tweaking as the headspeeds change. With most FBL you can just map the channel to the flight mode switch, but with the flexibility of Jeti you and also do some additional things like forcing the FBL to a specific bank for autos.

//Dennis.

[trillian]

Thanks Dennis. I have heard that before, that the reasoning for not having a normal mode is to not accidentally flip inverted in normal mode.

I have to just speak for myself here, but I simply could never just forget to switch to idle-up, absolutely never. Just like I never power up the heli before turning on the TX, (and making absolutely sure the switches are all in the right position, etc.). I have never plugged in a LiPo reversing the polarity, never started an engine at high throttle. Sooooo, yes I fly inverted, but there is still no reason to change.

There are so many things that, and again speaking for myself and the RC culture I came up in, we just got drilled into certain things as a very strict routine.

I use my normal mode for hovering, as the default state of the TX before powering up, and for landing. I do most of my flying in idle-1 which is the slow-mo 3D mode. Then idle-2 is a bit faster. But I generally settle on the headspeed I like best for all-round flying in idle-1.