Radian pro
01-06-2011, 05:29 AM
#2
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RE: Radian pro
This video gives a brief explanation about halfway thru.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDVpYsK9kww
ALT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDVpYsK9kww
ALT
01-06-2011, 01:13 PM
#4
RE: Radian pro
This is for all you new Radian Pro owners who are trying to get your mind around all of these settings, mixes and switches for and camber, reflex, crow, flap to elevator and the like.
Let's walk through a thermal soaring flight - I am going to discuss mixes and where to use them.
You launch your Radian and climb to 400 to 600 feet, 140 to 200 meters, power off and go hunting for thermals. Make sure the prop is folding. If the prop keeps spinning, wind milling, it will put a huge drag on your glider and your glide performance will be awful. Once you power off you will not touch the motor again.
Be sure your glider is trimmed and balanced so that it glides smoothly without porpoising. Until you have your plane trimmed properly hunting for thermals may be challenging. I don’t even think about thermal hunting till my glider is properly trimmed. What follows assumes you have your plane trimmed in this fashion.
You are gliding smooth and straight, probably traveling up wind, when one wing lifts a bit. This could be a gust or it could be a thermal lifting your wing. The only way to tell is to do a smooth turn toward the lifted wing and circle in the area.
A 50 to 100 foot circle is probably a comfortable size as you can do it smoothly without losing too much altitude. You are looking to see if the glider holds altitude or if it starts to rise. You may see that the glider rises in only part of the circle, this is good. What you are seeing is where the thermal is and you can start to tighten your turn to focus on this area. This is called “coring” the thermal.
Also note that thermals often move with the wind, so if you find a thermal “over that set of trees” but then it is gone, it may have drifted with the wind. As you circle you should probably plan to drift with the breeze as you do your thermal turns. You may pick up the lift over the trees but ride up the lift as you cross the field while you circle. Most thermals don’t stay in one place, or at least they will tilt with the wind, so as you get higher you will need to drift down wind.
Now to using mixes. This assumes your motor is always off.
Once you confirm that you are in lift, you can circle in your normal cruise position, or you can flip on camber to bring the flaps or flaps and ailerons down slightly to get a little extra lift while you are in the thermal. This creates a bit more drag but you can afford this when in lift. Keep your turns smooth as possible and avoid stalling. If you turn too tightly or let the plane slow down too much it will stall and you will lose altitude. Enjoy the ride up using the natural forces in the air.
After a while, you lose the lift so you turn off camber and go hunting again, motor off. Most of the time you do your hunting in “cruise” or normal setting.
You hit some falling air which we call sink. You want to run through that sink quickly so you flip your reflex preset on, flaps or flaps and ailerons move up a little with maybe a little down elevator, and the plane moves quickly through the sink. When you are in more buoyant air you flip this off and go back to a cruise setting, your normal setting.
You cruise along and suddenly the whole glider seems to get lively and perhaps you notice the tail is up a bit. Chances are you flew right into the center of a thermal. Again you circle to try and find the size and boundaries of the thermal so you can keep the glider in the lift area. This is called “coring” the thermal.
You confirm the lift and as you circle up you turn on camber to rise in the thermal more quickly. You have been in this thermal for 20 minutes or so. You hit about 1000 feet altitude and have ridden the thermal about 1/3 of a mile down wind. Time to head home and prepare to land.
During your return run you will fly in cruise or you might turn on that reflex preset again to help penetrate through the head wind. Remember you are not using the motor so you are flying upwind in a glide. You are trading altitude for speed to come back against the wind.
Whether you fly in cruise or reflex is a matter of experience. Reflex will penetrate better but will lose altitude faster. You can also stay in cruise and just give a little down elevator to pick up speed and get better penetration.
If you make it back to the field with a lot of altitude, you may wish to bleed off that altitude without picking up a lot of speed, so you can deploy flaps or crow to change the glide angle of the Radian Pro. This helps you lose altitude quickly without going into a screaming dive. Note that you will likely turn this mix off once you are at a more comfortable altitude and start to set up for your landing.
OK, time to land. You fly a standard landing pattern; make a turn on final and set up for an approach into the wind. You want to have more energy than you need, to insure you can make it to the landing mark because a gust might hit your glider and rob you of energy causing you to fall short. (You want to avoid any motor use.)
If you have a landing mix on a switch or a stick this is where you will use it. Whether you use flaps with manual elevator compensation, flap to elevator as a landing mix or crow to elevator as a landing mix, the goal is to make the landing zone without using the motor. You will practice over time to see how much to apply and when. If your mix is variable, then you have finer control than if your landing mix is on an switch.
As you approach the landing zone and are confident of making the landing zone, you can start to use that landing mix (flaps, flap to elevator or crow) to slow down for the landing while keeping the Radian Pro level or slightly nose down. The goal is to touch the ground slide smoothly into your target landing zone and not overshot the mark.
And, that’s how it is done. With more expensive sailplane radios you can have multiple thermal settings, you might have different expo settings in thermal vs. no-thermal settings. You might have multiple reflex settings with different throw rates. You could have different launch settings, have the aileron to rudder mix on a switch, have flaps follow ailerons sometimes or all the time, and do other cool stuff. But it is all about how to find and work those thermals.
Slope Soaring
On the slope you may use your mixes differently. You likely will have some different mixes. Here you might employ elevator to flap mixing to get create tighter loops or faster turns. You might have a more aggressive landing mix to help you land in a very tight landing area. You might use flaps tied to ailerons to get a more aggressive roll response. Your camber and reflex mixes may be used differently or not at all.
Slope soaring is typically more aerobatic than thermal soaring and higher speeds are often employed to support these aerobatics. If the lift is good you may add ballast to make the glider faster to support these aerobatics rather than for wind penetration as is done in thermal soaring.
The Radian Pro should do fine slope soaring as well as thermal soaring but the flying style can be quite different, so the mixes are likely to be different too.
Other Resources
A sailplane in lift
If you are not familiar with thermaling, take a look at this thread.
Finding elusive thermals
The Soaring Methods of Birds
What do thermals look like?
Sailplane terms - Useful reference thread
01-07-2011, 11:34 AM
#5
RE: Radian pro
i know i will not catch a themeral on my first flight, the only one i ever got was using a cox fomie flown from the airport tarmax and it was hot and nearly lost the aircraft, it was hgh and a sweet flight. have several gliders and most are hanger queens,olimpic 2 flown a lot but 60 sec of up and down top flight andles when in on 1st flight, have, spectra, legend,and several others not flown , i talk to much, my other question when i fly the rad pro how will i know how much battery power is left in the pack to land safe and sound,thanks to all frank
01-27-2011, 09:35 AM
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RE: Radian pro
I am new to gliders and also bought a radian pro after some flight on an ascent. Is their a downloadable set-up program for a JR 9303 or 11x. I bought the radio clinic DVD and am learning but what to fly now with crow, camber, flight modes etc. Any help would be appreciated, thansk.
02-09-2011, 01:28 PM
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RE: Radian pro
Hello can you help me I have a new parkzone Radian Pro. Can you take the old Radian motor out and put it in the new radian pro it should give more power . thanks for your help[>:]
02-12-2011, 07:59 PM
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RE: Radian pro
ORIGINAL: zzz12
Hello can you help me I have a new parkzone Radian Pro. Can you take the old Radian motor out and put it in the new radian pro it should give more power . thanks for your help[>:]
Hello can you help me I have a new parkzone Radian Pro. Can you take the old Radian motor out and put it in the new radian pro it should give more power . thanks for your help[>:]
02-13-2011, 06:07 PM
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RE: Radian pro
Need some help and understanding please... Trying to set up Radian Pro with Futaba radio.When we go to lowthrottle the motor stops, if we shut the transmitter off the motor starts again at very low RPM.Is this normal, seems dangerous?!
Admittedly do not understand the ESC very much, have not had this issue with (basic) Radian... flying that glider for two years.
Thanks, Mike
02-14-2011, 06:36 AM
#14
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RE: Radian pro
I have one of these radian pro's and mine for some reason was either molded heavy or something odd. Mine was the PNP version and was terribly tail heavy if you assembled it per the intructions. I had to move the lipo battery all the way forward and even add 3 ounces of lead in the nose.. to balance it. There are molded cavaties for evereything so really there should have been no changes needed.
02-14-2011, 07:10 AM
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RE: Radian pro
ORIGINAL: BarracudaHockey
Is the fail safe on your radio set properly? Though you really should be in the habit of transmitter on first and off last.
Is the fail safe on your radio set properly? Though you really should be in the habit of transmitter on first and off last.
Andy,
Thanks I'll check the failsafe, had not thought of that.
Agreed on Transmitter... first on/off last, as we were trying to set the controls my Father (85) and I had some miscommunication and turned the transmitter off, that's how we found this issue. Went through the directions a couple times and cannot see itaddressed.
Thanks again for the idea.
Mike
L57532
Mike
L57532
02-14-2011, 07:19 AM
#16
RE: Radian pro
Well you didn't say what radio you installed other than it was Futaba.
I know for example if this was a Spektrum you would simply bind it at low throttle but if I remember correctly, the spektrum recievers won't put any signal on the throttle channel until they have a good RF link and remove it completely if it looses RF link.
I know for example if this was a Spektrum you would simply bind it at low throttle but if I remember correctly, the spektrum recievers won't put any signal on the throttle channel until they have a good RF link and remove it completely if it looses RF link.
02-14-2011, 08:15 AM
#17
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RE: Radian pro
ORIGINAL: BarracudaHockey
Well you didn't say what radio you installed other than it was Futaba.
I know for example if this was a Spektrum you would simply bind it at low throttle but if I remember correctly, the spektrum recievers won't put any signal on the throttle channel until they have a good RF link and remove it completely if it looses RF link.
Well you didn't say what radio you installed other than it was Futaba.
I know for example if this was a Spektrum you would simply bind it at low throttle but if I remember correctly, the spektrum recievers won't put any signal on the throttle channel until they have a good RF link and remove it completely if it looses RF link.
Well now that was what I was thinking on the RF link portion. The receiver is not getting a signal since the transmitter is turned off, it is A Futaba T7C 2.4, as shown by the red light in the receiver. There is a couple second delay, maybe three seconds from when the transmitter is turned off to when the motor starts and runs at reduced power.
We'll try it this afternoon and report back.
We'll try it this afternoon and report back.
Thanks.
02-14-2011, 09:06 AM
#18
RE: Radian pro
On that radio I believe you have only throttle channel fail safe. You have two choices, NOR and F/S NOR holds the servo at the last position (or throttle channel output in this case) and F/S sets it to a pre-determined position.
Set it to F/S and pull the throttle to idle (motor off) and press and hold the wheel till it beeps to set the position.
(I'm going off memory here)
Set it to F/S and pull the throttle to idle (motor off) and press and hold the wheel till it beeps to set the position.
(I'm going off memory here)
02-16-2011, 08:21 PM
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RE: Radian pro
ORIGINAL: BarracudaHockey
On that radio I believe you have only throttle channel fail safe. You have two choices, NOR and F/S NOR holds the servo at the last position (or throttle channel output in this case) and F/S sets it to a pre-determined position.
Set it to F/S and pull the throttle to idle (motor off) and press and hold the wheel till it beeps to set the position.
(I'm going off memory here)
On that radio I believe you have only throttle channel fail safe. You have two choices, NOR and F/S NOR holds the servo at the last position (or throttle channel output in this case) and F/S sets it to a pre-determined position.
Set it to F/S and pull the throttle to idle (motor off) and press and hold the wheel till it beeps to set the position.
(I'm going off memory here)
Andy,
That did the trick, Failsafe was 'set' to on.
Thanks for the idea.
Glider flies well, looking forward to enjoying the summer with it.
Mike
