How Many Channels?
 

Fairly new to helis and have a six channel. Was thinking of buying a new radio and my question is can you use more than six channels for an electric and what would they be used for?

RE: How Many Channels?
 

Hi

Apart from the minimum of six needed to fly a heli. More Channels can come in handy if you say, fly scale heli's. An airworlf for instance you would need another channel if you want to use retracts, another on if you want add landing lights that can be switched on and off during flight etc.

You MIGHT go over to Nitro Heli's one day, then two additional channels come in handy if you want to use a governor and mixture control for instance.

Believe me, you can never have to many channels :D

RE: How Many Channels?
 

Six is enough,other subfunctions will affect the flying sometimes

RE: How Many Channels?
 

What is the govenor for on a gas job?

RE: How Many Channels?
 

What is the govenor for on a gas job?

RE: How Many Channels?
 

A governor basically regulates and keep the head speed constant no matter how muchy throttle/pitch you apply. Without one you need to take particular care to set up a proper throttle curve, specially in IDLE UP mode.

Without a governor you might find when you do some hard 3D manuevres that the head suddenly speeds up after you have applied full throttle/pitch and go back to zero pitch such as a fairly violent stall turn or doing tick-tocks.

It basically has 2 magnets on the engine fan and a sensor, and then you set the head speed that you want on the governor and it will keep it there no matter how you fly.

RE: How Many Channels?
 

How so?

7 is the minimum you will want if you plan on getting into nitro because you will want an rpm governor at some point if you stick with it.

Add flybarless and they use two channels for gain one for the tail gyro and one for the head.

Get into scale and your options are limited only by your radio, budget, and imagination.

RE: How Many Channels?
 

im thinking a 8ch would be best all the way around that way you can do pretty much anything i shoulda bought a 8ch when i got my 7ch didnt really think about it but there again the price i got the 7ch for was hard to pass on.

RE: How Many Channels?
 

I did not read in detail all the responses here, but I'll add this..... DO NOT look at radios based ONLY on number of channels. Look at the programming features provided. It is a good advise to buy as much radio as you can afford. If you can swing a 12 channel radio, go for it. The flexibility provided by the programming features is un-equaled by any other radio. Since most of us cannot afford a radio that expensive, we have to settle for less. Just make sure that you are not cutting yourself short, if you can go for more.

And to debug a myth. YOU ONLY NEED 5 CHANNELS TO FLY A HELICOPTER. Channel number 6 is for remote gyro control which is not really needed depending on the gyro installed. So ABSOLUTE minimum is 5 channels. More than 5 is just icing on the cake.

Rafael

RE: How Many Channels?
 

Listen to Raphael23c & BarracudaHockey they are giving you a lot of good advice.