We have been playing around with a vectored thrust Rookie II, great fun, but now it is time to improve and upgrade. So 2 questions.

Has anyone used gyros to improve 3D handling, how were they used?

What aircraft have been converted to vectored thrust and how did they perform?

Cheers

I had a gyro on Pitch and Yaw on the Rookie II with thrust vector. After a hundred and fifty flights or so, I removed them. I have put another 150 flights since then, and I like it better without.

When you get up and start doing some tumbles, the gyro system (for whatever reason) exaggerates movements so that when you are trying to get out of the tumble, it's sometimes nearly impossible because you end up fighting the gyro system.

After 30 flights doing radical tumbles there was one so close to the tree line, I just quite doing the sequence at all. Then one day of clarity and a lot of beer, decided to take the gyros out of the equation. Now it comes out of the tumbles no problem.

Mileage may vary, but that's my experience with more than 300 flights on thrust vector.

Sean, what is it like to hover with and without the gyros???

Couldn't you switch off the gyros for tumbling and on for hovering, the only time they should be needed?

Mark P,

Even with all the power of the 10x, I could not figure out how to effectively do that.

Mark Pokwlzikiachuckamanic (wocket),

I'm not that good a pilot

But for the few seconds that I accidentally got it to hover, those that had good enough eyes to have seen it do it, told me it was awesome!

I don't know how Wolfgang was getting the airplane to do what it did in that video, and that video was only a few seconds long. I tried a few times, and the system with gyros and without is so unstable, that hovering did not seem to me to be something that was repeatable.

I still fly the airplane on occasion, and with over 30 lbs of thrust, it is a rocket ship no doubt.

for hovering you need allot of tail heaviness..........and tail heavy jets just aren't that enjoyable to fly.

The research I've been doing they use 2 servos 1 ruder and 1 elevator. JR gyro G500A airplane rate gyro for airplane use only JRPG500A
Hope this helps.

[link=http://www.horizonhobby.com/ProdInfo/Files/JRG500Agyro.pdf]JR AIRPLANE GYRO [/link]

I forgot you need 2 gyros one for each surface.

Sean,
If you did it once, even by accident, then it's repeatable.
When I first tried to hover a prop plane (no gyros), I thought that maybe it was just the plane that wouldn't hover. Then after persistance and practice I realized I could hover almost any plane if it had enough power, including Cubs and 3 channel Kadet Seniors

Thanks for the information Sean, interesting that the gyros had a negative effect, something I had not considered.

Has any manufacturer other than Com ARF priduced aircraft that readily accept the Tam Jets or Zimmermann vector unit? I have seen the Euro Sport and will give that a try later.

I think the vectored thrust 2-axis units were produced for the comp-arf jets.

I have seen tumbles and inverted flat spins on a Eurofirebird with thrust vectoring vanes behind the turbine. One time the jet did not come out of the inverted flat spin. It landed flat just 10 feet in front of the pilot. The turbine was shutdown by the pilot when the jet passed the "breakout altitude" for spin recovery.

My thought is keep your jet flying. I have a Roo with canards I added to it and I will not do the infamous "chicken flop". The 3D planes have propwash on the tail for control and nearly instant throttle response for pulling out as needed.

Since this thread is dated 2007 turbines have now got to the stage that near instant throttle responce is available, well at least as fast as my petrol engined 3D Yak, so this needs updating for the type of gyro that is required to allow full use of the dual vectored thrust units, anyone have anything new to add?

Mike

just a thought, you might lurk in the eauro 3D threads...? There should be some current info there, I think.