????

NOW you're opening a can of worms [8D]

Some. Depends on the pilot and how "hot" of a set up. generally speaking the more throw you have to use for your pattern, the more expo you're likely to use to make it less sensitive around neutral.

Goofing around with a lot of "top" pilots, some use a good bit and some use very little, if any. There's no correlation between the amount of expo and the skill of the pilot, it's a personal thing.

Set the plane up to have enough throw for your manuevers, but not much more. It's ok to have a little extra in reserve, but don't have it at 25 degrees of travel when you only use 12 to fly your pattern.

After you have your throws dialed in, then crank in some expo (to be softer around center) to feel. Too much and it's like flying a sluggy pig, and too little and hitting your marks smoothly becomes very difficult.

-Mike

Interesting question, I have been thinking about this recently as I have bought a Pinnicle off an experienced Pattern pilot and copied his settings to my radio.
I never flew with any expo on my last pattern model and did suffer some days with wagging wings an I used the throttle. With the Pinnicle, his set up had 100% expo, I found this VERY hard to fly with. So I took off the expo and reduced the throws, I'm back to wing wagging though. Another experienced pattern pilot suggested that 25% would give a more linier feel, while still making it "soft around the centre". I will give this a try next time I practice. Matt

I personally have to agree with Mike above. This is a feel thing. I don't fly with any. I have played with it, and didn't like it, but I fly with VERY stiff stick springs instead. Mike's setup above is probably best. Set the throws for how you need the plane to fly depending on your class and dial in expo to get the "feel" you want. I think the switches and such you flip during flight for rates are just distractions, but in some cases it is necessary, but less is definitely better. So find some rates that allow you to get through the sequence you are flying comfortably and dial in expo to get the feeling of how you want the plane to fly. Set your rates to what you need...as Mike said, don't set 25 when you use 12. One thing with lots of expo is that it can make wind corrections more difficult, if you setup is too soft around neutral as the plane might get bounced around on a windy turbulent day, you will find yourself having to move the stick fairly far to compensate and can actually end up chasing the plane. I think if you get more than 30-40% you will start having problems with this.

Arch

I tend to fly with a lot of expo on my rudder (but a design change of adding some trailing edge strips to the rudder to make a fish tail have reduced the need for it, but I tend to fly with more than most. It is a feel thing, but I think that for some, they fly with too much throw, and overcompensate with bags of expo.

Speaking of throw. I have troubles entering snaps with my general flight mode setup and have to switch into a higher throw, to snap properly. Does anyone know of a way to have the increased snap throw kicked in ( think the 14mz does it) on a JR 9303?

I personally around 15-20% on elevator, 25-35% on ailerons and 40-50% on rudder. Like everyone said its a feel thing, and depends on how much throw you have on each surface. I think the main thing is to keep the feel sharp enough to maintain definition in your flying, but soft enough so that you can remain smooth in the flight.

I know that there is quite a variation between pilots, so ultimately its really what you feel most comfortable with. Its good to get some setups from others, and try them out to get a sense of what you like, then fine tune it to where you are most happy.

Renegade, you can usually activate rates with stick position, so for instance you can probably have full aileron stick activate the rates for your snap. I don't know for certain the 9303 can do it, but that functionality has been around for years on other radios so I would expect that it can do that.

As has been said it vary's by the pilot so basically it's a try and feel thing. I personally like anywhere's from 50 to 90% on most of my planes. Maybe that's because I'm An OLD fart.

I don't use expo since I got a 14MZ. I use the line function or whatever it is called and make my own "curve". It includes plus and minus .5% deadband so the stick always comes back to the exact same neutral and also minimizes the chance of getting elevator into aileron or vice versa. From .5 to 2% of stick travel AFR goes from zero to .5%. From 2 to 12.5% of stick travel AFR goes from .5 to 2% which is very soft but linear. I then approximate an expo curve from there out to 100% of stick travel. So far I haven't needed any rate switches which was the objective. Sooner or later a rate switch would be in the wrong position so I eliminated the potential problem.

Jim O

Okay ... can I take this in another direction? When you set up a pattern plane, how much stick do you give to get her to roll or loop? Example:

i. a stall turn, how much rudder input on the stick? 50% 75% 100%
ii. a half roll on Cuban 8 or Top Hat, how much input on the stick?
iii. a Top Hat ... how much elevator input as you pull up?

Maybe this can give us newbies some idea of how much throw to set and expo to use. For me I am thinking that for F3A you want to use as much of the stick as possible so that you have a better 'resolution' and not to use that much expo. Anyone may assist?

Here is a video we took of my sticks one flight of F-09 to see what it looked like, might give you an idea of how much stick movement I use.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXGNk-gJl5g

Another method I have seen another top pilot use is as follows.

Adjust throws so that you have enough throw to perform the manouvers required at that particular rate switch setting. Once that is done adjust expo so that you have 50% throw at 50% stick travel and do that for all functions. This should give a good linear feel across all different rate switch settings.

Stick inputs will all depend on the setup. For instance: I have 15 degrees of throw on my ailerons with about -25 to -30% expo (Futaba setting). This year I was flying Intermediate, which requires two horizontal rolls. For me the easiest way to do this maneuver is to push the stick to full deflection and use my rudder and elevator as needed while it rolls. I also had to reduce the total throw in order for the airplane not to perform the two rolls within a half second, so I set up a rate switch that changed the ailerons to 75% throw just for that maneuver. Now, I'm moving up to Advanced for next year, which will require different settings. No longer will I have to string together 2 rolls, so that low rate aileron won't be used, but I also won't be hitting the full deflection on the ailerons unless I'm doing a snap or maybe a spin. I'll be doing a slow roll and a 4-point roll, and with the higher rate settings I will probably use about 15-25% deflection of the stick in order to do these rolls. The reason I will still need to have the full 15 degree defelction available is for snaps I will now have to be doing. Now, that being said, I will answer your questions directly:

i. Stall turn - full rudder deflection
ii. Half roll as part of a maneuver - Probably 33 - 50% stick deflection (depending on how fast I need the roll to be completed)
iii. Elevator on top hat entry - 25 - 33% stick deflection, as with the roll this can depend on a lot of factors, especially if there's a strong head-wind

Stalls.....I use 100% rudder (mid rate)
Half rolls....about 1/2 stick deflection; sometimes a bit less depending on how much finnesse I want to roll with (mid rate)
Top Hat elevator.... little maybe 25% (varied depending on radius position) entered as smoothly as possible attempting to maintain radius (again mid rate)

Keep in mind that my mid rate is probably set-up differently than any one else's. Mid rate is considerable deflection, 12-16 degrees on el and ail and about 30 degrees on rudder. I use little expo in my tx.

A few years ago, one F3A pilot who couldn't bring his plane, borrowed mine. He just couldn't fly my settings so we programmed a second set of conditions and saved them as a separate model. He flew everything on low rates and added 80 or 90% expo for regular flying and he would switch to mid and high rates for snaps and spins. He beat good F3A competition with his set-up. I tried flying that set-up later and found it very tough to do. Eventually I got it but it took some flying. BUT I didn't adopt his control parameters...just too foreign

MattK

GUys ... thanks for the reply. It does give a newbie like me a baseline to refer to for starters. Pete ... trying to make it linear is good advice. Going to go to the field and try to get my throws for all control surfaces more 'balanced'. I am still struggling on that front. One maneuver seems fine then when I execute another its like too much or too little. Many thanks guys ...

Bit by expo…

I recently have been having difficulty matching roll rates in the Two 2 of 2 rev. The two half rolls to the right always seem to be noticeable faster than the left.

Since the control travel is very ‘hot’ at the 60%+ stick position with expo, matching rates can be a challenge. Pulling just a little more right (which is natural in Mode 2) is going to give a noticeable increase in the roll rate. I’ll be trying something different (like JimO described) to correct this.

Thanks for all your interesting replies.
I'm running 40% expo!! The guy that i got the pattern plane from said he used 40% so I've been using that.
Ok it feels like a wet fish but just means i have to move the stick more in either direction instead flying 1-2mm off neutral all the time, unless thats the preffered way of pattern flying but why make it twitchy for yourself.

However Im going to reduce it down alot further now but was interested in any coralation of expo and pattern moves. I mean dual rate switches are a distraction. Why not just set your mechanical throw to what you want and expo a bit in the middle. Happy days.

Chad.. We fly the same mode I think. Ailerons Throttle on the left, rudder ele on the right?

As for Expo, I use 30% ailerons, 40-45 percent ele and rudder. And I use a dual rate switch for snaps and spins.. Not a snap switch though.
And I use less throw than Chad in the video. When I'm at knife, I am at about 90% stick travel. Pushes and pulls are also at about 90% stick travel.

Chris

Something I heard in the IMAC forum (*ducking) is that it's good to have your end points setup so that you need to use the whole range of the gimbals to perform rolls, etc. Maybe less expo and lower rates?

Any thoughts from the pattern guys on that?

I am going to start flying pattern next year, and I am trying to learn all I can. You mentioned ducking when mentioning IMAC, is there bad blood there?

Also, I like to set my endpoints, so my rates are 80-100%. This helps with resolution.

No, not bad blood. I'm new at this too and not sure if what I pick up from the IMAC guys always applies to pattern, that's all. I've met some very fine gentlemen in both pattern and IMAC.

Ya'll watch out for prizzy, he is a wolf in sheeps clothing, darn good pilot and hungry for knowledge.

I flew IMAC with him this year at a couple of contests and hear me, he will move up quickly and be a contender in any class.

Chuck

As for setup and expo, I am still not convinced that I am happy with mine. In fact, I try to fly other peoples setups to see if I like them better. I am not running a full programmable radio (9caP) but have flown the 12mZ, 10X and 14 and can say they offer options that can make switch flipping a thing of the past.

I traditionally fly my rates at one setting and dial in or learn to fly the plane like that. I feel this is a disadvantage overall but that is the best I have found for me. Time will tell if I can learn new things and adopt old ones.

I personally prefer to flip as few switches as possible, and I don't even really like to use the flight modes. I set the plane up to do the maneuvers I need in a sequence and then dial in the feel. Invariably if you have a lot of switches to flip for different maneuvers, and some point it will come back to bite you.

Chuck,

We'll get together when I'm home later this month (wow, does it feel good to make that statement) and you can play with my setup and we can dial your stuff in.

Arch

Sounds cool Arch!

Yes, having you back stateside will be very cool... I know Tara is ANXIOUS to have her man back.