CappyAmeric
Elite member
There are unsafe people everywhere, in all walks of life; and resorting to generalizations only points to a weak position.
Thumbs down, flight controllers, and club memberships
- Thread starter TheFlyingBrit
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Yeah, I will admit, even though I knew I COULD do it, it still took me a while to figure out HOW to do it.
EXACTLY! Just like there are good and bad reasons for using flight controllers and joining clubs!
tamuct01
Well-known member
I'm not for or against flight controllers and flight stabilization. They are a tool and have a place and a purpose. For multirotors and other naturally unstable craft, they are a necessity and make these unique craft accessible at the hobby level. As a safety and a learning tool they are nice and have their place, but I think where many pilots have issues with them is when beginners use them as a crutch in place of proper learning. If you want to use a FC as training wheels, that's fine. Work toward taking the training wheels off. If you keep the training wheels on forever, you'll never learn the joy of flying the craft yourself.
I'm not a fan of stabilizers for myself. I'm a terrible pilot and proud! I've been this bad at it for decades.
I usually don't recommend them for beginners. One of the reasons I don't think they're good for beginners is that setting them up takes experience. The pilot needs to know how to balance and trim a plane to let the stabilizer work properly. New pilots just haven't gained this skill yet.
Of course this doesn't apply to RTF planes as much.
Also by the comments I'm guessing people forget we have pilots out there with limited mobility or impared motor functions who are only able to experience RC flight with the assistance of flight controllers.
Everyone wants to feel good about themselves. Some do it through hard work and shared experiences. Some do it by pointing out other people's limitations. Be mindful of which one you are.
I usually don't recommend them for beginners. One of the reasons I don't think they're good for beginners is that setting them up takes experience. The pilot needs to know how to balance and trim a plane to let the stabilizer work properly. New pilots just haven't gained this skill yet.
Of course this doesn't apply to RTF planes as much.
Also by the comments I'm guessing people forget we have pilots out there with limited mobility or impared motor functions who are only able to experience RC flight with the assistance of flight controllers.
Everyone wants to feel good about themselves. Some do it through hard work and shared experiences. Some do it by pointing out other people's limitations. Be mindful of which one you are.
Monte.C
...
For those who believe no one should use a gyro until they learn to fly without it, that's elitist. If a young person asks you how to get in to flying and get good at it, recommend they don't use a gyro. If a kid got a mega-cheap Chinese 14" wingspan plastic fighter plane from Santa, let him have fun instead of looking down your nose at him. He might never touch another plane after that. It's not a crutch, it's a toy, and YES he is flying and he is controlling it, with the aid of a bit of electronics. He's enjoying the experience and it might turn into a hobby for him.
No need to judge. You can answer questions, offer helpful advice, but is there a reason you think it's bad or wrong or EVIL or stupid? That's elitist. Let it be.
No need to judge. You can answer questions, offer helpful advice, but is there a reason you think it's bad or wrong or EVIL or stupid? That's elitist. Let it be.
I get this. But what if the person gets all the enjoyment they want from flying a stabilized plane? For some the enjoyment is the constant progression of skills. Or the excitement of competition. For some of us, the flying is secondary and their pleasure is the designing and building of the aircraft.
While flying a model aircraft is a very personal activity, the fact that we often meet at shared flying sites, and we share experiences on social media and forums can make it a communal one. We're all going to have our own personal opinions on aspects of the hobby. I just suggest we take time to make sure in our rush to share these opinions we don't take away from someone else's way to enjoy the hobby.
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CappyAmeric
Elite member
The debate was lively in airliner design in the 1980s. When the Airbus A320 first was introduced, Boeing publicly mocked the "computer" flying, not real pilots. Boeing said they would never design an aircraft with "computers between the pilot and the aircraft." Well, not only did they do that, they did it very poorly with almost no redundancy. The Boeing B737 Max was designed with aerodynamic stabilization, Boeing hid some of the design from the airlines and hence from pilots, with no practical way to disable it. The results were catastrophic. As an Airbus pilot (A320, A330, A350), I can tell you that Airbus gave full authority to the pilots, and yet "normal law" still created an extremely stable platform for the pilots.
At the airline I work for, we call the "anti-flight-controller" pilots "Boeing snobs" - not because the B777, B787 etc. don't have fly by wire - but because they bought into the original Boeing lie that pilots using computers to fly isn't really flying. Of course, when we Airbus pilots are given grief from the Boeing snobs, we simply point to the two B737 Max crashes and point out that computers that could not be overridden are what did the dirt-dive, and Airbus has never designed something so stupid.
As for learning to fly with fly by wire and flight stabilization, most modern aircraft that use it, are designed by human factor experts and they fly naturally, as a pilot expects - and no, you don't need to fly a J3 cub with nothing by air over the control surfaces to know how to fly a B777 - AN AIRPLANE IS AN AIRPLANE, FC or no FC.
FlyingWithRyan
Elite member
Im an anti fc guy in my planes. I prefer to hand fly, yet does anyone know of a fc where I could get an OSD on my DJI fpv feed without needing to be hooked up to anything else?
If you're a FB user, this is the guy who would know.
https://www.facebook.com/shawnmorrison.wakeboardingfilms
JasonK
Participation Award Recipient
I am sure it could be done, would just need a micro controller with the sensors for the data you want and program it to talk to your DJI camera/TX system (IIRC it does something different then how analog does it)... however you might well be left to to do this yourself... or you could just use a standard FC and use pass-through for all your channels instead of using the FC's stabilization.
tamuct01
Well-known member
Maybe I didn't come across as I intended. I personally don't care whether or not you use a FC. This is a hobby, and do whatever it is you enjoy as long as it's done safely. If that's flying all aircraft using a FC, then do it. My suggestion and comparison is that if you only use a FC on an otherwise stable plane, it's like riding a bike and never taking the training wheels off. I personally don't believe in training wheels on a bike, but to each his own. My wife insisted and my kids had training wheels for a while, but I weaned the kids off pretty quick. For some, they will always use FC on their aircraft. There is a gentleman at my club who exclusively does autonomous flight. He can't see very well, and he uses these tools to gain enjoyment from the hobby. Happy flying everyone!
Can easily be done with the good old Minium OSD. Or you could use aN FC with raw passthrough for the RC channels. Done it both ways, up to full autonomous control. Just because you have an FC doesn't mean you have to use all the features.
JasonK
Participation Award Recipient
Minium OSD might only work with analog, DJI OSD works different [it doesn't overlay the video stream the same way an analog OSD does]
100% agreed. I fly pretty much everything from giant-scale gassers to umx's. Lots of the UMX planes have stabilizers and I really don't mind them, they can help a lot when flying in wind and make the experience more enjoyable. My Parkzone CarbonCub S2 has a full stabilized gyro system on it and I'm impressed at it's performance. I've let noobs fly it and get more comfortable at the sticks. They had a good time, enjoyed it, and it helped boost their flying skills without any crashing. To me that's a very good thing. However in most of my planes I don't use stabilizers and I'm still able to have a lot of fun with them, maybe even more than I would otherwise. It all comes down to what's going to help you have fun and stay safe, if both of those are being fulfilled, then you're doing the right thing in my book!
FlyingWithRyan
Elite member
I refuse to fly stabilized aircraft the same way I chose to drive manual. I like to feel the machine more and have more say in what it does
FlyingWithRyan
Elite member
*used to fly giant scale gassers 😂😂🥲
Bricks
Master member
This surmises it very well, I don`t knock any one for the type of plane they want to fly so why knock anyone if they prefer to use a FC, each is a means to an end.......Flying and enjoying it.
Yeah, D'OH! I am still flying old low tech analog....
One of these days I'll get up to speed on the HD/Digital. Looks like it can be done with BetaFlight. Either use RC passthrough, or run just the video through the FC.Similar threads
