gbarnes

I've had a skydiver for a few years now and not done anything with it. Now with all the downtime, I have had an opportunity to complete it. My question is....how do you program the radio properly? Ar you flying it with the throttle stick so there is no center spring in the stick? Are you using mixes to make this happen? A little help would be appreciated. My intent is to use a small 6ch. spektrum receiver.
Thanks,
Gary

pietermu

Hello Gary

Here my attempt to help.

As you do not mention the size or make of jumper I will assume it be a 1/4 scale jumper.
First, do make use of a long range receiver especially if you are going to drop far away from you. Parkfly receivers is ok only for the small skydivers up to avaerage of 1000ft.

Decide which way you would like to steer:
Some people prefer to control each hand with one of the main control gimbals. Others like to steer by separating (throttle/elevator) and (aileron/rudder). Then again there is a set-up employed [(Mixer) and not recommended by me] that allows you controlling all the different functions with a single main gimbal.

So it´s a good idea to control one arm with the "rudder" gimbal and the second arm with the "aileron" gimbal. If you connect the two gimbals with a rubber band, your transmitter is set for "hands up“.
I myself prefer to use the "throttle“ and "elevator“ for the hands with a rubber band to each pulling all the way up.
With these methods you can easily make use of the full servo throw, which you usually need to move the hands from the fully "up“
to the full "down“ position.
See to it that there is not one of the servos that bind in any way of your setup.

gbarnes

Thanks for the response. That is the way we used to set them up years ago. I just thought maybe will all the programmability of today's radios there might be a better way.

airsteve172

As a real full scale skydiver (myself), I can say that the method for setup described is the most natural in relation to the real thing.
Parachute controls work somewhat differently from the way aircraft control surfaces work. Pulling on one toggle increases drag on the side that the toggle is pulled causing the parachute to turn in that direction. Pulling both toggles simultaneously however, not only produces drag, but increases lift that can literally bring a parachute to a complete stop in the air just before it goes into a complete stall and falls until regaining airspeed. It is therefore very natural to have both sticks on the transmitter to be in the default up position.
Of course, this applies to ram-air (square) canopies and things don't work quite the same way on round canopies, but I suspect you already know about this.

gbarnes

I was thinking that it might be easier to use just the throttle and rudder to control it all with one stick. Not needing to strap the sticks up with rubber bands. I was just having some issues programming the radio to work this way. Seemed like it was going to require several mixes to make this work. Simpler is sometimes better. I'll stick with the KISS process.
Thanks,
Gary

GaryV

My Feedback: (1)

Some guys use the one stick control method, I'ts basically the same setup as a paramotor. I tried it years ago but went back to the 2 stick setup I could control it better that way. Hacker sells a device to achieve this on a standard non computer radio.
https://hackermotorusa.com/shop/rc-paragliders/parts/para-rc-mix/
I bought one for a Hobby King paramotor, But I figured out the radio setup before it got here, so I haven't tried it yet.
The device is designed to give more servo movement, on a non computer radio. That is also the reason for the rubber bands on the control sticks.
A lot of times you can achieve the full arm movement without the rubber bands with computer radios, this also depends a lot on the mechanical setup of the skydiver.
Such as moving the connection at the servo farther out you you can get more throw, but you then can loose the needed torque to get the arms to deflect under load.