What is said above is mostly true, a whip antenna radiates more power to the side than toward the end. However, there is still a good portion of the power radiated off the end. To check this out, just do a range check with the antenna pointing at the receiver and find where it goes into fail safe. Now do it again with the antenna broadside to the receiver. You will not notice a great deal of difference. How you hold the transmitter makes a big difference too, the human body makes a poor ground plane, if you had the transmitter well grounded you will have more range. A bare two hand hold gets a lot more RF out than a gloved hand just touching the sticks with the transmitter mounted on a transmitter held by a neckstrap and plastic tray. The old style metal cased transmitters had a big technical advantage over the plastic one of today as they provided a better ground plane.