We fly with no expo and no mixing.. You just have to really be.... very... percise with your thumb movements..

EXPO is nice to have to.. since I stepped up to a 1.20 sized bird it's very hard to fly on high rates with no expo.

Also with the 1.20 I set it up with flaperon mixing.. This way I can experiment with short fields and such...

So NO you don't HAVE to have mixing and expo but boy it sure is nice.. Just save up some cash, sell some stuff.. and get yourself a nice 6-7 channel comp. radio