Hi, I'm about to maiden my first build (72" Cub E) and I've notice that on the sim it takes a long time to slow down after touch down. Well, this has caused a bit of anxiety as I surely dont want to crash into something after a succesful first flight (assuming that it is succesful, of coarse ). I

have also noticed that some folks land and then turn sharply to scrub speed but this seems like an advanced maneuver and i'm not sure if i can pull it off.
.
Any advice on how to proceed would be helpful. Thanks!

If you've got separate servos on each aileron, then program a switch on the transmitter to signal full up elevator and full "up" on both ailerons (spoilers).<div>
</div><div>Once the plane's on the ground rolling, flip the switch, and you'll be surprised by how quick she'll stop.</div><div>
</div><div>One word of caution : Probably ought to make SURE you're on the ground before throwing the switch...don't ask me how I know. </div>

On the outside of the wheel you can place a washer, then a 1/4 inch piece of neoprene, then add pressure onto the fuel line with the wheel collar. The pressure acts as a slight break. Adding toe in on the LG also helps slow them down. If you have the room then doing shallow turns in an S will eat up more runway but if done too sharp you will be ground looping and hitting your wing tips. A Cub floats in for a landing so the landings should be slow enough that run out isn't a problem. A Cub takes some getting used to but after a few flights they are really easy to figure out.

How would I program this on a DX7?
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Are you flying off of dirt, pavement, grass? If it is grass dont worry it will slow rapidly. If it's a cub learn to land three point and keep full up elevator and it will slow quickly. As Gray Beard said a little toe in will help with both takeoff and landing. The tubing trick works great, but don't put too much brake in as it may nose over. You may find it will slow quickly on its own if it has the cheap foam wheels that come with many of the new planes. One last thing, if you can program the ESC make sure you can set it so the prop will free wheel with the trottle off and soft brake with the trim down. A free spinning prop will have a lot more drag than a stopped prop.

I blew right past the E part. Doesn't really mater if it's E or G, it will only take about three landings to figure out a cub. I had more problems taking off then I did landing with mine. I was the ground loop king!! That's when someone spoke up and told me about the toe in trick. Once learned, often used!! Every time I tried adding elevator it would take off again. It was at about that time I learned about ground speed and elevator. I also tried mixing tricks but discovered it was a lot better to just learn how to fly the plane. I had a take off switch that added rudder and elevator as I rolled on the throttle, sometimes I would forget to switch it off. Thrill!!! Ask me about my switch for flaperons sometimes. The learning curve has some very funny stories to it!

First, you need to set up the aileron servos oer the DX7's instructions for flaperons. (Page 45 of the manual.)

Left Aileron Servo in AUX1, Right Aileron Servo in AILE
In the Wing Type menu, turn FLAPERON ; ON and in INPUT SELECT move to FLAP TRIM and set it to "ACT"

Now :

Go to the "FLAP SYS." menu, You'll have 3 positions : NORM, MID, and LAND. On the 3-position switch labeled "FLAP MIX", 0=NORM, 1=MID, and 2=LAND. Use the select button to move the cursor to the "FLAP" setting for whichever position you want to be your "slowdown position" (I chose 2/LAND), then increase/decrease it (depending on whether servos are reversed) to 125% (full throw) in whatever direction necessary for both ailerons to deflect up. Then use "select' to move to the ELEV side, and do the same. In my case FLAP is "DN125%" and ELEV is "UP200" for LAND, and 0's everywhere else.

Ta da

By the way, I said before that activating this mix before landing was a bad bad BAD idea.  And it is.  Activating this mix a foot or so off the ground, trying to hurry things up, will result in a VERY unhappy airplane at best, a pile of splinters at worst, depending on just how much of a hurry you were in. <div>
</div><div>Having said all of that...</div><div>
</div><div>Once you're comfortable with unusual attitude recovery with the airplane, this is a REALLY fun bunch of settings to play with at altitude.  Mix in some crazies in the MID position (or even try your slowdown position) and climb to 3-4 mistakes high, and see what happens.</div><div>
</div><div>I've made some airplanes do some REALLY strange stuff.  It depends on the airplane, airspeed, amount of throw, you name it.  </div><div>
</div><div>So hey, once you figure out the programming, have some fun with it. After all, what are computer radios for?</div>

Point the nose into the wind and you'll have no problems landing or stopping once on the ground. Cubs are very slow landing airplanes.

The sharp turns you described were probably the beginning of a ground loop that the pilot could get out of.

Stick man, my Cubs have slowed and stopped no problem. Takeoffs are a much different story. This post by Grey Beard is right on.

You may want to shift your thinking to concern regarding Cub takeoffs rather than landings.

Here's the bottom line about many Cubs: Depending on the Cub and the engine it's usually better to give half throttle and with very little elevator input, let the airplane find the sky.

I've named my current Cub "Miss Evil Intent." Once airborne with an overpowered 91 this is the sweetest baby to fly, like a gentle beautiful woman. But giving full throttle on takeoff she bucks, lunges and heaves into the air on the verge of crashing with spasms from the devil. You can't overpower a full wing Cub into the air - it doesn't work like that.

Instead, it takes half throttle on take off. Drama is avoided. Easy as pie, even with Miss Evil Intent.

Thanks gboulton, this helps alot and I've sortof gotten it set up. BUT, when I activate the switch one flaperon moves up and the other moves down. I'm stumped because when i went to reverse the servo to try again, the servo didnt reverse. Do i need to rebind after activating the Flaperon mixer? and if so how do i get my flaperons AND ailerons to move in the right directions in each flight mode?

Update: Ok Ijust realized that my rx (AR500) does not have an "aux". Oops! sorry about that. It has 2 Aile outputs instead. Will the Flaperon setup still work?

I think you're worrying too much over something that hasn't happened yet.

Now, consider this scenario: You set up spoilers and just as you set the cub down on the runway (A critical point during the landing) you need to take your concentration away from flying for a split second to flip the spoiler switch - and in that split second, she noses over or ground loops because you were flipping switches instead of flying.

Don't expect your cub to act like the simulator. I have never seen a real cub roll out too long on landing.

Sims are nice, but they are not exactly like the real thing.

Just fly it. If it lands too hot, you probably need to move the CG back to slow it down, not add spoilers.

Stickman..... The last thing you want to do when learning to fly is remembering to throw a switch on landing. Forget the programming and concentrate on flying a nice stable approach to landing. Just keep it going straight after you touch down and like others have said, it will slow down just fine. If you don't have an instructor helping you, find a club as having a teacher could save an airplane. You will have a lot of fun in this hobby but keep it as simple as you can during your first few weeks at it.

Possible? Sure. You'll just have to mix your own. The "on board" flaperon programming in the DX7 expects channels 1 and 6...your AR500 doesn't have a channel 6, so you get to mix everything yourself. (Yes, yes, the 2nd aileron port is CALLED 6, but it's actually simply a "copy" of the AILE port...essentially, there's a "y harness" built into the receiver)

Advisable? Eh...that's kinda up to you. At this point, you're getting into some pretty complicated mixing and programming, which, unless you just happen to enjoy that sort of thing (like some nerds I know...) can keep you from flying.

If you REALLY want to try it, the process involves using 2 programmable mixes.

Mix 1 is AIL as the master, GEAR as the slave, and the switch (SW) set to ON
Mix 2 is FLAP as master, GEAR as slave, switch set to FLAP

You'll almost CERTAINLY have to dink around with subtrim to get the spoilers/flaps to sync up, and will probably find yourself making a bunch of adjustments to linkage as well.

Not exactly for the faint of heart.

===

Of course, there IS always a much easier option. Buy a 7 ch receiver.
<a href="http://www.spektrumrc.com/ProdInfo/Files/DX7_Manual.pdf">

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Stick man:

I'm glad Minnflyer posted this. I don't know the capability for the original poster, he signed in to RCU this month, and judging from his references to a simulator, well, it is most likely that he is fairly new to RC. So, adding transmitter mixes to anything for a beginner does only one thing.. it detracts from the much needed focus during the most critical part of any flight, and that's the landing.

If it lands hot, I would make the approach longer and allow the plane to slow down. Making a quick turn from downwind, to base, to final with the plane right in front of you will, of course, not allow the plane to slow down much and you will get what you get with hot landings.

Make the approach longer, and follow the normal approach to landing processes.. slow down during the downwind, turn to base, slow down more, turn to final, slow down even more.. but use the throttle to extend the approach, if necessary, and the elevator to bleed off airspeed to the point where you are ready to land. Learning to use the throttle during landing is much more efficient and important than adding mixes to the transmitter.

I practice landings by doing as many as 10 to 12 touch-and-go approaches each time I go out to fly. This keeps me efficient and current, and makes my landings smooth and picture perfect.

http://masportaviator.com/sure-start-guide/

Scroll down to landings and watch the video.
CGr.

I respectifully disagre, CGr.

I certainly accept your reasoning that the OP is likely a fairly new pilot, though he hasn't said so either way. And stick-man, if we're incorrect in that judgement, by all means, accept our apologies.

Having said that, however, I hate to say it CGr...but i think you're guilty of a bit of 'old timer syndrome" on this one, my friend.

"Adding transmitter mixes" doesn't "detract" from any part of flying at all...at least, not unless you're up there programming mixes with the airplane in the air. *lol*. So to suggest that this mix or that mix 'detracts from much needed focus" is, in my opinion, a bit closed minded.

Transmitter mixes are as much a part of airplane setup as installing servos, plumbing fuel tanks, or tightening wheel collars. All of these steps really only speak to one end goal: We want the airplane to do certain things, so we install and set up the hardware/software necessary to get it to do those things.

So we're left with...what...two arguments?

That "throwing a switch" is too complicated for a new pilot? So..um..how is he supposed to shut the engine off after he lands? We're talking aboiut the SAME THING here...throwing a switch, or moving a trim lever, AFTER LANDING, in order to get the airplane to do something we want.

Or perhaps that radio mixing is "too complicated" for a new pilot. At what point? Who says so? is reversing an aileron in the radio ok, but using sub trim isn't? Or is sub trim ok, but p-mixes aren't?

Sure...it's about flying, and having good, safe, enjoyable experiences each time out, especially as a new pilot. I 100% agree.

But isn't it also about learning how to make the airplane behave as we want it to? For some of us, radio programming is "easy peazy lemon squeezy", for others it's a "nightmare of epic proportions"...

But come on, man...is FLIPPING A SWITCH after the airplane is ON THE GROUND really "detracting from the needed focus during the most cirtical part of flight"?

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stick man : Despite everything I've said above...if all this mixing/servo programming wharrgarbl starts seeming frustrating or daunting, by all means, the guys above are 100% correct, in spirit anyway. Don't let complicated setup stand in the way of simply enjoying the airplane. I may have busted CGr's chops a bit above, but I respect him an awful lot, and think he's probably got the right general idea...fly first, complicate later.

And they're right...unless it's a bit of a brick glider, the cub will slow down PLENTY for landing in even a small area...so don't get too worked up about things.

However, if you're a nerd..or a wanna be nerd...then there's some suggestions for throwing a nifty mix in there that'll bring the plane to a screeching halt in roughly 2.4 nanoseconds.

I probably just get carried away on such things, since we nerds like nerdy company.

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Well, Gordon, as you said, we can respectfully disagree.

In my humble opinion.. there are way to many things for a beginner to remember, and Minnflyer pointed out, remembering to throw a switch on landing, having to remove focus from the landing plane to find the switch, throw it, then re-locate and re-focus on the landing plane is just a but to much for the beginner.

I agree that this may be a solution to someone that has "mastered" the basic flying techniques and has successfully landed a trainer, more than one time, but adding mixing at that point in time ( before learning to land ) is probably a bad idea.

CGr.

The question is, "Why are you needing to "scrub speed" after landing?"

The answer is, "You are flying your approach at too high a speed."


When you sort that out, you will find that your landing problems have evaporated.

Pfft...there'll be no respect going on around here, dangit. <br type="_moz" />

[:@] Last word freak...


(this could go on forever... )

CGr

Dick, I think all of us at some point early on want to make our life easier and just mix in some magic instead of learning to fly, I know I did. The warning has been made and the OP is going to try some of that radio magic. After the pieces are picked up a couple of times the facts will dawn on him. I have spoilerons set up on one plane, I used them twice, I have flaperons on another one, I use them when the wind comes up to help my plane fly backwards. I have been bitten in the butt a couple times with both of these planes when I forget to turn off the mix but both planes are still with me. As silly as I think this elevator and spoileron mix is, by trying it the OP will learn something. It's just a Cub and part of the learning curve. He will figure it out sooner or later on his other planes. Let the learning curve begin!!

I have to agree with thailazer there is no easier way to make a good landing then to start with a good approach. A solid stable approach give you the ability to concentrate on making easy small adjustments and helps beginners stay ahead of the plane.

learn to slideslip

You mean learn to fly!!!!!

I find this amusing. 20 years ago you were lucky to get "servo reversing" in a TX.

The best advice is this. Fly the plane on your four basic channels. Learn its tendencies. It appears to me you are trying to put the cart in front of the horse.

Most cubs I have seen stop relatively quick. Slight toe in idea is good though. More than likely you will not need to do anything else.

Simulators are different. Simulator planes do not have all the parameters that happen at the field. A simulator is great for learning left from right and some other things.

Take off problems can be easily remedied on a cub. Line up on the runway. Slowly push the throttle forward let the tail come up and slowly feed up elevator to keep the tail parallel to the runway and when she is ready it will lift off smoothly. A little right rudder might be needed to keep it straight. If you "JAM" the throttle forward like on a trainer it will be a handful. It will then jump into the air and not having enough airspeed she will either torque over or the ailerons will not be effective and many newer pilots do not know how to use rudder and you will crash.

I enjoy watching my planes burn down the runway as they build up enough speed to lift off I keep them on the ground until they are ready to fly. I then have full control of my plane BECAUSE it has enough airspeed and torque is no longer a factor. I start at idle and slowly push the throttle forward the plane will accelerate smoothly and you get a "Scale Style" take off. I don't need fancy mixes to fly my planes. I learned how to use my basic 4 channels long ago.