E-Flite Apprentice S 15E

[Suenaga]

Hi all--this is my first post here but I've been lurking for a few months now
Started flying for the first time in November with the Apprentice S. Probably never would have even gotten into this without it, lol. I'm flying it now with a Dx9.
Anyways I've been experimenting with the Safe Rx in a couple of other planes. I have it in a Durafly Fieseler Storch as well as a Dynam Su26m. With both of these the Safe receiver is compensating correctly with the control surfaces. I expected to have to fiddle with the servo mounting directions, reversing, etc., but as luck would have it the directions are working like a charm. I haven't maidened these two planes yet as I want to fiddle with the control surface deflections at low and high rates to see if I can get them comparable to the apprentice (they seem to be pretty close already (at least in beginner mode). With the Dynam SU26 I couldn't get the receiver to work with the dynam esc so I put an eflite esc from a friends Visionaire and it worked like a charm. With the Storch the Safe Rx was fine with the installed Turnigy esc. Im looking forward to testing "safe" in these two planes but I want to get more experience with the Apprentice S first before I start flying anything else.

One additional thing to mention. While the SU26 is 4 channel, the Storch has flaps. As I understand it, the aux1 channel which would normally be used for flaps is used for the "oh crap" switch (button I on my transmitter), so I plugged the flaps into the aux 2 port of the Rx, then I had to reverse the aux2 channel on my Dx9. I then set the travel for aux 2 at 100 for the switch pos for landing flaps (pos 0) and 0 for pos 1 (flaps up) as I don't want 100% deployment of the flaps the first time out--with this setting they deploy abt 50%. I assigned flaps (aux2) to the 2 pos switch H and set the switch speed to 2 seconds. This resulted in nice scale like flap deployment, although I am unable to use the normal 3 position flap setting that you would get with setting the "wing type" in the transmitter to "1 aileron and 1flap". With safe rx using aux1 you have to still set up the wing type as if it has no flaps and then assign your flaps to another channel (aux2)

Thanks to all!

Jim

 

[xuzme720]

Welcome to the forum! I know you've been here awhile but since this is your first post...
This is good info for anyone trying the SAFE in other planes with Spektrum radios.

 

[Suenaga]

Hi Folks,
A few weeks back I posted that I was experimenting with the eflite safe receiver in a couple of other planes. Up until today, I spent my time learning on the Apprentice S (I've been rc flying a whopping total of just about 3 months), and fiddling with the eflite safe receiver in a Dynam SU-26 and a Durafly Storch. Well, today I got up the nerve to try out the SU-26 with the safe receiver installed. I picked the SU-26 because it seemed like a stable platform that could handle slow flight, being a sport/3D plane. I know "zip" about 3D and fly very conservatively (I am, after all, new to this). I have never flown or buddy boxed with anyone (let alone an instructor)---this has been all "solo-learning" with many of the pitfalls associated.
First off, my transmitter is a DX9. Switch B is used for the 3 modes (safe, intermediate, and experienced), dual rates are on switch A, the panic switch is the Bind button I, throttle cut is switch H. I flew the maiden 100% on safe mode from takeoff to landing. I used high rates (100%) with 50% expo on the aileron, elevator and rudder. All throws were to the mfg instructions from Dynam. You will see in the video that the plane is missing the spinner---that's because on my first take off attempt I had forgotten to ensure the prop was tightened and the darn thing went flying off before she left the ground-(I'll save that video for my memoirs, lol). I tightened the prop back on and left the spinner off for the maiden.
First off, let me apologize for the video--it was my first time trying to capture a flight with no help, so I just had my mini-dice cam velcroed to my hat--I'll try to adjust the fov better next time, but I wanted to at least capture this since I havent seen any videos out there yet showing the safe receiver in another plane other than the couple sold by Horizon.
The flight was really smooth--no issues, in fact, the plane flew really smoothly. I kept speeds to half throttle and just tried out the flight envelope in safe mode, which I found to be basically identical to the Apprentice S. I wanted to test the "oh crap" button, but I noticed that my elevator servo was acting a bit wonky after bumping the elevator hard getting it out of the car---I didn't want to tempt fate with "panic mode" until I had a better look at that servo. Getting it home, it looks like its partially stripped so I pulled it and will order another. I know the safe receiver didn't cause it because the behavior started before the safe mode or AS3X had been initialized. My landing was a little hard, as I am used to the Apprentice and cutting the throttle and the SU26 looks like it needs a tad more throttle on the final part of the landing. There was no damage or bending to the gear. Total flight was about 5 and a half minutes.
A couple of side notes---when I first installed the receiver I expected to have to adjust servo horn mountings, etc etc since it was the Apprentice S and the correcting control surface directions might be wrong for SAFE or AS3X. What I found was that (at least on the Storch and SU-26) everything worked fine and in the correct directions. On my next flight (after the servo fix) I will crank up the throttle and try the SU26 out in intermediate mode.

Again, I am a beginner pilot, learning this stuff all on my own. There is no way I could do that without this SAFE receiver, and it looks like its not just limited to using in the Apprentice airframe, which makes the benefit (and possibilities) all the more exciting.

Im sure I forgot something, so ask away if you have any questions---

(Yeah I know, fire the cameraman)

Jim

http://youtu.be/tNslj1z1JoQ