Since the info on BVM's website concerning is a bit dated, being the JR gyros are hard to find. My question is what make and model gyro are you using? and in what application?

Roy

most of us are using gyro's on nose wheels and some are on the rudders. A cheap rate gyro works great, Do Not use a heading hold gyro on any surface control or nose gear. even the cheap $35.00 GWS brand works just fine.


Mark

I use the ACT Fuzzy Pro SMM on the elevons of my Eurofighter Typhoon. It is very good because it has 2 inputs and 2 outputs, so you can use 2 aileron/elevon channels into the one gyro, and it outputs to each separately. You can manually adjust the gain, and the fade-out so that it doesn't fight against you when you want to roll. The gain also can be adjusted by radio.

Harry

+1..guy at my club told me this exact thing yesterday..Uses the cheapy GWS's for 35.00 on the nose wheel of all his jets, he is putting one on a brand new ultra flash...Some people use em, some dont

Mabey you guys can set me straight here on this one. I have noticed that most flyers install a gyro on their nose wheel. What does this help? I can (in most cases) hold my jets straight down the runway for take-off and line it up with the runway to land. I would think that it would depend on the jet you are flying but would not a gyro be more effective on the ailerons???

Cheap gyros may offer good dampening performance in our jets, however i would be concerned of the possible quality issues with the really really cheap ones ... especially if a servo is powered directly through it (inline between servo and power source ) .. I like the futaba GY240, and also have used their multi-axis units, however even these I had always ran into some sort of power box or bus, isolating the gyro unit itself from any electrical loads demanded from the servo Gyros can be great to dampen any control axis, and provide you with a lot more scale flight characteristics .. ( lessens bouncing and bumping around with wind gusts and such ) ...



~V~

Hooker, having a gyro on a nose gear , is like training wheels on a kids bike. meaning, it just helps you to keep your aircraft straight on take off and landing, when the wheels are on the ground. I had a gyro on a few of my jets, but no longer do. reason I took mine out was I had a more expensive gyro fail on me at a jet rally and had a mind of it's own and had minor damage to my aircraft.

Back taxi'd out for take off, steering felt kind of weird, but I let it go and decided to fly. Full power on the Boomerang XL and down the runway it went, about 100 feet down, the nose gear turned hard right and into the 10 foot tall corn stalks. had some damage, but after looking at everything, I found the nose gear Gyro failed on me. Servo is still working great, and when I plug the gyro back in it's all over the place. I took the gyro's out of my jets and and just rely on my thumbs on the sticks instead.

Mark

Harry has hit the nail on the head here. The Fuzzy Pro SMM Jet is the gyro of choice for those wanting that rock solid "on rails" look. It is also, however, the most expensive toy plane gyro you can buy. I import them from Germany and sell them on my site, but there's no softening the blow of the price.

Please let me know if you have any questions about them.
Chad

Hi,

Some jets just need gyros to taxi straight. Other jets (wink, wink) don't need gyros at all.

I need gyros!

I should have mentioned that i am using a gyro on the ailerons because my Typhoon rapidly rocks from side to side quite a lot - very highly swept models and deltas can be prone to it. It just looks poor, and fitting a gyro stopped that and makes it look "real" again as it flies level instead of rocking. It has also, as a side benefit, much improved the handling since rolls now stop dead and lock into level flight again, and steep turns have become smooth because when it rocked from side to side in a turn with a lot of up elevator, the bank angle was increasing and decreasing so it would climb and dive as the bank angle wobbled.

I would not hesitate to use a gyro again but the thought of it failing and causing loss of control has occurred to me, in future I will be getting the ones built into the Weatronic receiver system that I use.

Harry

I have seen a couple of these cheap GWS gyros fail. They were both used on the nose steering. The problem was, when they failed, they caused the steering servo to go hard over & the jets went off the runway.
I do not use gyros. I do use exponential to smooth out movements.

I've used many times gyros on ailerons, in particular when it's a jet which tends to 'wobble' (like an Avonds' Rafale) or which can handle the slowest possible speeds and high AOAs (SpiderJets F-16,... of course ! )

I've always been most pleased with the ACT gyros - but never used them in Heading Hold mode.

Can somebody give me some feedback on using a gyro on elevator ? Does it make sense ? Or is it really overkill ?

Nicolas.

Hello

I have also had some of the low cost gyro that did not work so well, so I would also caution use of those even on steering.

Let me say that I know that some pilots shun the use of gyros and believe that they are for sissy pilots . Ok I was one of those at one time, but I now like my planes in one piece most of the time and if I can put a gadget in that the similar in function to what Full scale jet fighters, and airliners use all the time I say why not. RELAX YOUR SUPPOSE TO HAVE FUN WITH THIS!
Ok enough bs.

I have used the Act Fuzzy on Elevator and aileron, works great.
The Futaba GYA 352 dual axis on Deltas “elevons� works great.
The Futaba GYA 351 dual input single axis works great for ailerons/flaperons/elevator
The Futaba GY 401 single input, single axis works great for rudder, steering, elevator etc.

The Act Fuzzy Pro is nice it has built in stick fade out. When you install gyros in ailerons it tends to make the control feel dead, as the gyro “fights you� with opposite aileron when you try and roll. Too counteract this the Act Fuzzy Pro has a built in feature that as you go away from center the gain or amount of effect the gyro has on your control is minimized so you get the full effect of the command that you are inputting.
In the Futaba gyros you have to create a mix that changes the gain “effect� channel to near zero as the stick moves away from center. I use very high exponential to accomplish this, as the stick moves away from center the gain on the gyro channel go’s to near zero very fast. However you have to be very careful not to have the mix move the control in to heading hold mode. As you raise the amount of gain you will have to change the mix to compensate, or just live with a little gyro feedback. This is not recommended by Futaba so pls program at your own risk.
I will continue with examples of gyro use in next post.

Jet Legend F-22
My friend Tim and I setup this airplane with triple axis gyros. Our goal was to have a Raptor with great maneuverability and to attempt some of the full scale maneuvers that the real F-22 does.
Pitch: Dual JR8711 servos to an ACT Fuzzy pro gyro
Roll: Dual Futaba 9156 servos to an Futaba GYA 351 gyro (gyro connected to flaps that are used as ailerons)
Yaw: Dual JR 9411 servos to a match box then to Futaba GY401 gyro
We were able to move the CG back about ¾� from the normal position and are still moving it back. It has improved the ability for the airplane to perform very low airspeed maneuvers, and it really helps making it looks smoother and more realistic during flight especially in the gusty conditions that we fly in here in Hawaii. It also greatly reduces the tendency for the airplane to wander in Yaw at low airspeeds, (Crow does this too “thank you to Len G. for this�) I will post a video of it flying later this week.
I have installed servo controlled thrust vector and am waiting on testing that.
Next post the Global F4D Skyray

I use a JR 410T gyro on all my jets for steering. Decreases my work load on take off and helps keeps the jet straight on braking. If you see a jet take off and land straight, they probably have a gyro on the steering.

And I've seen all sorts of jets veer off the runway. Mine included, but gyros help.

Raf

I am about to install a GY401 on yaw on my flash. Just want to see what, if any benifit it gives. Can someone who has used a GY401 in this application give some recomendations for initial gain settings?

Thanks!

gy-401 is a good servo, as I use them in my heli's.... setting all depend on the servo you use. make sure you have the gyro set for the right servo, ie; digital or analog. when it is installed, test run the jet on the ground and adjust to you liking. my setting my be different in your aircraft.

Mark

From 30% to 60% (N) normal /rate setting for the nosewheel... as said earlier, no AVCS (heading hold).

... try 30% first.

... and better start with low % (like 20%) and move step by step to higher % sensitivity, then the other way around !... [8D]

Sliders work well for this, and once you have found the max gain, set the max ATV on your TX accordingly (or limit it with the pot meter on the gyro).

I've only noticed Heading Hold used on some 3D jets equipped with vectoring thrust. You can notice it clearly when f.i. the canards still going slowly far off center although the plane has landed already and standing on the runway. Last time I saw it was at JetPower with the white J-10 models of the Germans. Very dangerous to activate AVCS (Heading Hold) on a plane on take off or landing, unless the plane can take it without going into a spin because of too much deflection.

Same applies for nose wheel, of course. But never Heading Hold mode here, please !

Also please make sure it's going the correct way, and you have the gyro on the correct axis. I know it sounds like common sense but Im paranoid and I check i my planes before I start after the gyros have had a chance to start up. I have seen planes with the gyros on the wrong axis take off and go wild. You just have to double check your work, if you get it wrong it will be pretty exciting at best, crash at worst.

I don't have a flash, but when we started to mess around with gyros we tried a 401 on my MB339 which is pretty stable. I found that it was easier to fly smoothly, however it did feel like in the turns the plane seemed to take a yaw track to the slight outside of the turn. It was almost like you had to use rudder to coordinate the turns. The rolls did track better with less effort also.

For less stable aircraft like my F-4D Skyray it made it much easier to fly by stopping the tendancy for the airplane to yaw tuck in the turns due to spiral instability.

For my JL F-4E Phantom I primarly use the gyros to smooth out flight, I find it easy to make my F-4 jink around the sky if your not super smooth, I get lazy and just slap the Gyros on : )