Essential Guide to Flight Configurations – Enhance Your Flying Experience With These Simple Radio Setup

Introduction to Aviation Modes

By Andrew Griffith

 

At their most fundamental level, aviation modes consist of a series of configurations that can be activated effortlessly with a switch or switches to manage how a model performs in specific flight scenarios. These configurations encompass control speeds, responsiveness settings, smoothing factors, alignment controls, and control surface positions. However, this is just a basic overview as aviation modes can also be prioritized and/or structured hierarchically.

Aviation Modes for Sailplanes

Sailplane enthusiasts appreciate aviation modes as they enable precise tuning of wing curvature and elevator alignment for distinct flying situations. Imagine a sailplane equipped with flaps and ailerons on the wings. You can set up an aviation mode that adjusts the elevator alignment slightly upwards, lowers the flaps slightly, and maintains neutral positioning for the ailerons, naming it “launch mode.” With this mode activated, your settings are optimized for either winch launches or high-start takeoffs. When transitioning to thermal mode after the launch, the elevator is centered, the flaps are slightly lowered, and both ailerons are deflected downwards, altering the wing’s curvature. This enhances the glider’s ability to fly at lower speeds and locate or utilize rising air currents.
In scenarios where lift is scarce, and you need to swiftly exit a downdraft to search for favorable conditions elsewhere, switching to speed mode will level the ailerons, raise the flaps slightly, and adjust the elevator alignment downwards. This allows the glider to quickly navigate to a new location where you can revert to thermal mode, decrease speed, and recommence the search for lift. As the inevitable landing beckons, selecting the landing mode extends the flaps, raises the ailerons for crow mixing or butterfly braking mode, enabling you to precisely control the descent and execute a spot-on landing.
Motorized sailplanes capitalize even more on aviation modes. In the launch mode, the throttle stick governs the throttle, the pitch trim is typically adjusted for powered flight, along with any other optimizations. However, in landing mode, the throttle stick reverts to its conventional role for most sailplane pilots: managing landing spoilers or the crow mix to ensure precision landings.

Decoding Terminology
While offering similar functionalities, different radio brands use unique nomenclature for aviation modes. Here’s a brief overview:

Futaba: Flight conditions
Graupner: Q.Link (quick links)
Jeti: Aviation configurations
PowerBox: Aviation settings
Spektrum: Flight Configurations

Aviation Modes for Helicopters
Helicopters feature four primary operation modes: standard, idle-up 1, idle-up 2, and throttle hold. Each mode incorporates a throttle response curve managed by the throttle stick to set the main rotor blade pitch and throttle reaction based on stick position. In idle-up modes, throttle can be adjusted below half-stick simultaneously with negative blade pitch, facilitating inverted hovering and aerobatics. Conversely, activating throttle hold reduces throttle to idle while maintaining throttle stick control over main blade pitch, allowing for autorotation or torque compensation during a tail-rotor malfunction for safe landings.

Aviation Modes for Sport and Scale Aircraft
A common use of aviation modes involves adjusting elevator compensation for wing flaps on fixed-wing aircraft such as jets, scale models, and other sport planes equipped with flaps.
The process entails creating three aviation modes with the flap switch dictating the mode. It’s also important to tune the elevator trim across the modes accordingly. During flight, you can tweak the elevator trim to maintain the desired up- or down-elevator alignment for the various flap settings. Most radios provide the option to set transition delays between modes to match servo speeds. (Note: Spektrum radios utilize a streamlined flap interface that aligns flap speed with elevator trim, resulting in immediate trim adjustments without matching the flap deployment speed when using aviation modes.)
Additional features can be integrated into each mode by combining settings like control rates and expo. For instance, I often incorporate gyro adjustments into the landing mode to enhance stability when slowing down for landing. This customization can be expanded to include functionalities like landing gear lights and supplementary features such as air brakes or slats. The more intricate the aircraft, the greater the potential to streamline pilot tasks by consolidating these functions into an aviation mode that can be engaged with a simple switch flick.

Aviation Modes for Aerobatic Aircraft
Despite the seemingly straightforward nature of their planes, IMAC and competition-level models can benefit greatly from tailoring diverse flight configurations to suit different maneuver requirements. Flight modes tailored for specific aerobatics can greatly enhance precision and control during complex routines.

Acrobatic aviators heavily rely on various flight configurations. No disrespect to IMAC aircraft, but these planes typically feature fixed landing gear, lack flaps and gyros, though they can indeed be intricate devices!
Upon successfully configuring multiple servos for each surface, the setup of flight modes can commence. Control rates, exponential functions, trimming, and throttle curves can all be precisely fine-tuned for specific maneuvers, like enabling maximum rates for snap roll actions or gentler rates for precise slow aerial displays. Ensuring a throttle curve with robust low and mid-range responses alongside a high idle can prevent any in-flight engine failures, transitioning smoothly to idle upon switching to landing mode.
The more sophisticated radio systems not only offer a broader array of channels but also enhance features, notably showcased in the increased capacity for creating various flight modes.

Nested vs. Prioritized
Flight modes may be arranged in a nested or prioritized manner. For instance, nesting can involve utilizing a duo of three-position switches to activate flight modes. Switch A’s first and third positions may govern different modes, while the middle position triggers switch B, offering three distinct modes across its settings, only affecting when switch A is centered. In contrast, priority setups are evident in helicopters, where the throttle hold mode supersedes all other modes, ensuring that regardless of being in usual or idle-up modes, activating the hold automatically adjusts the throttle to idle or shuts off the motor in electric models, with the main blade pitch regulated based on the preset curve for the hold mode.

Final thoughts
Do not hesitate to experiment with flight mode configurations, but always ensure to back up your model file before adjusting unfamiliar settings. This precaution allows for a seamless return to previously functional settings if needed. Start by incorporating rates and expo, gradually adding new features as you become more adept. Should something not meet your preferences, do not hesitate to reset and start anew. Before long, the convenience offered by flight modes will make you question how you operated without them!