Sounds like you are new to RC an got yourself a pretty high end radio, or you moved up from a standard transmitter and are not really familar with comptuer radios. I see you have only made 6 posts, so I am going to assume you are new to all of this.

The dual rate questions were answered, so let me address the "stuff ..." . If this isn't the "stuff" you meant, then just skip the post.

Here is a short discussion on surface/channel mixes. I invite others to
clarify or correct my comments and add where these mixes, or others, are used.

First, there are three primary control surfaces:

Elevator - Pitch or attitude control - nose up and down - usually part of the
tail

Rudder - Yaw control - nose left and right - usually part of the tail

Aileron - Roll Control - usually on the trailing edge of the wing

If you are not familiar with these surfaces, this site might be helpful:
http://www.rcezine.com/cms/article.php?cat=&id=54

There are two secondary control surfaces, usually used in landing but not
always.

Flaps - These are a moveable part of the trailing edge of the wing that you
lower to slow a plane while adding lift to the wing and lowering the stall
speed.

Spoilers - Typically used in landing gliders or sailplanes, these are on the
top of the wing. When these are raised, they reduce, or spoil the lift of the
wing in that area. They can help slow a plane down and raise the stall speed
of the plane causing it to descend from lack of wing lift. These can also be
helpful in getting sailplanes out of strong thermals.

Surface mixes

V-Tail mix - comes from the fact that on a V-tail plane, you do not
have a separate elevator and rudder. The two V surfaces are mixed to perform
these functions.

If you hit up elevator, both move up. If you hit right rudder AT THE SAME
TIME as up elevator, the tail surfaces move some more moving the nose to the
right as it moves up. So you have mixed the rudder in with the elevator
input. V-tail mixing. For this reason, the surfaces on a v-tail plane are
called rudervators; rudder/elevators

Elevon Mixing - Typically used on a flying wing, like my Electrajet or a ZAGI,
they do the same type of thing only this is elevator/aileron mixing; elevon
mixing. The surfaces are referred to as elevons.

Many of the newer non-computer radios include v-tail and elevon mixing now
whereas it used to require a computer radio, or the addition of a special
mixing device in the electronics package.

There are other mixes as well. Using a computer radio or a dedicated mixing
device, you can coordinate all types of combinations for different effects.
These are often controlled with the switches on the top of the radio. Flip a
switch and you will get a different behavior from the control surfaces for the
same stick input.

Coordinated Turn - On power planes and on sailplanes, it is normal to add
rudder to aileron input. This is called a coordinated turn and is common to
do manually on non-computer radios, but computer radios can be set up to do
this automatically.

Coordinated Flaps - You can add the flaps to the ailerons so that the flaps
move with, and coordinate with the ailerons The flaps become extensions of
the ailerons for more control surface movement. This takes 4 servos, usually
in the wings. I think this is called aileron/flap coordination, or
coordinated flaps.

Likewise, the ailerons can be made to follow the flaps to multiply the effect
of lowering flaps. This requires a minimum of three servos, two on the
ailerons and one on the flaps.

Flapperons - Ailerons can act as flaps, if you don't have flaps, for landing
control. These are known as flapperons which is a change in assignment of the
surface from aileron behavior to flap behavior. This requires two servos for
the ailerons.

Flapperons - flaps act like ailerons. Found this idea being used on a R/E
Flap sailplane. If you hit this link and read from post 49, you can see how
this is used. Interesting idea.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showt...6&page=4&pp=15

Differential Spoilers - You can take spoilers, these reside at the top of the
wings, and tie them to the aileron function. Now you have your spoilers at
different heights causing a roll effect. Not as effective as ailerons, but it
might be useful as a landing aid. To do this your spoilers require two
servos instead of one.

Camber Changing Trailing Edge - On sailplanes they use a mix where the
ailerons follow the flaps to move the whole trailing edge down for a camber
changing effect, since you essentially change the shape of the wing while it
is flying. By lowering the flaps and ailerons together you create a more
under cambered wing. This changes the glide characteristics of the plane.
Again, a minimum of three wing servos is needed to do this. I don't think
this is used on power planes. I don't know if you would ever move the trailing
edge up for a change in top airfoil profile.

Sailplanes also have a set-up called "Crow" where both ailerons go up while
the flaps go down. This really slows the plane down to help with precision
landing.

With the right computer radio you can mix all kinds of combinations. Flaps
tied to ailerons with rudder input would be a flapperon coordinated turn, I
guess.

Imagine the fun you can have changing between different launch modes, or
moving from launch to standard flight mode to several enhanced flight modes, to a camber change to
3 different landing modes.

Think of how long it would take to set this all up for each plane.

Think of all the mistakes you could make with the flip of a switch!

Well, this is what computer radios do. Not all computer radios can do all of
these mixes. However when you read the spec sheets, they will usually list
Fixed Wing Mixes and Sailplane Mixes. Some also do mixes for helicopters.

You will also hear about mode 1 and mode 2. In North America, Mode 2 is the
standard. More on modes can be found here.
http://www.flyingsites.co.uk/newcome.../radiomode.htm

Read this only if you like to dabble in deeper technical stuff. This article
is on advanced set-up of a full house sailplane. Definately not something a
beginner, or even many experienced sailplane pilots need to do. This is more
for competition pilots, but if you like to look at some of the advanced stuff,
this might be fun. It is a translation, so take your time as you read it.
http://www.gliders.dk/triming_and_se...der_wi_eng.htm

Is this a fun hobby, or what?

If all this talk of sailplanes has you interested, you might find this thread
of value:
http://www.rcezine.com/cms/article.php?cat=&id=23