Page 13 - MFW March 2024

will be a next time but it might be a few months away make it work ! Me, I’m just a button pusher, but I have the
unless. But, ten days later….. Breaking News. right friends ! Programing the various functions, is a
matter of reading the manual and then fitting small jumper
This morning I received a phone call from a Lady in plugs on the designated pins on the encoder board and
Taradale to say that she has my Fly-away Senior Tomboy using the toggle switch to alter the settings. Sounds
aircraft in her garage in Taradale. Turns out her husband simple and it is after some instruction and reading the
was on a cycle track somewhere in Clive when the model manual several times !
whizzed past him and landed with nobody in sight ! After
waiting for some time, he decided to take it home and his If you’re interested how the S/C encoder set up and
wife put a call out on line through someone in the model programming works, this manual makes interesting
boat club. This found it’s way via Messenger to President reading……
Marty who was able to get us communicating. I’m able to https://mfhb.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Single_Channel_Encoder_03j_01.pdf
pick it up tomorrow, Whew ! That was fortuitous, I got it
back after it’s 6 K fly away with no more damage than a The proof of the pudding is in the eating of course and I
very flat battery ! have to say that subsequent flights with the Tomboy have
been a delight. I reduced the throws mechanically on the
I’m singularly fortunate in having two mentors, Barry rudder and elevator and the model is now trimmed with a
Lennox and Rob Lockyer who speak the same gobble- slight left bias under power and the glide is nice and
de gook electronic language, and Rob has now refined gradual and as the speed picks up it pulls out and climbs
the Futaba FT-3A S/C transmitter with a power light and a as expected.
beeper and built a three position programming switch and
provided lessons so that now even a lowly ignoramus like Hand launching at full power and just occasional input of
myself can program the various settings needed to refine right rudder as necessary and she climbs away nicely.
our operation ! Holding in full rudder in the glide induces a spiral dive from
which it recovers quickly once the rudder is released. So
I found one push and hold for right and two pushes and far we’re in the windy season so have only flown it in a
hold for left on the control button easy enough, but the moderate breeze and needless to say I kept it up wind.
motor control is just a very short “Blip” and the sequence The challenge is to land it at ones feet and we’re getting
better ! I’m awaiting a calm day when I can induce the
spiral dive from height and then release the rudder and
apply full power with the hope of doing a loop ! And the
maybe some sort of barrel roll, wish me luck ! I might add
a couple more rubber bands. The change to an on/off
motor setting has worked well, less confusing and it’s easy
to see from the plane’s response and attitude what’s
happening.

of one blip for mid-power, blip for full, blip for mid and blip
for off and so on, I found a bit daunting. Especially so if the
blips got a bit strong and became pushes, resulting in
“Where the hell am I at ?” Further, at a distance at times it
became a bit difficult to decide whether I had half or full
power and what stage of the throttle sequence I was in.
So the decision was made to program the mid-throttle out
and just fly with off and full. Further, we put the elevator
back into channel 2 where it’s supposed to be and zeroed
the throw and then used the programable trim function to Next on the Agenda, a
set the elevator position. Single stick, five channel
a n A C E O l y m p i c V
The programming three position toggle switch plugs into Transmitter, from the early
the lower board, and the beeper and power light that Rob 1970’s which we have on
fitted can be seen on the top left. The Lemon transmitter l o a n t h a n k s t o t h e
module is the board top right, and the Arduino encoder generosity of Graeme
board which is the brains of the outfit ( a whole couple of Rose. Rob has converted
dollars worth !) bottom right. The really clever person is the transmission side to
Mike Kitchen from the UK who wrote the program, and 2.4 using a Lemon module
also very clever are Barry and Rob who understand all the and made the necessary
electronic/computer speak and could put it together and programming changes.

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