Crow or Butterfly, function on a glider

[Wildflyer]

I think I would like to set up crow or butterfly function, on a high performance electric glider. I believe they mean the same thing, please correct me if I am wrong. I am after good glide control, for spot landings.
Some questions have come up.

I have a JR 9303 on 2.4

My Plane is a Sky Sergio 09 from Soaring USA, it has a one piece flap across the flat center panel, it also has ailerons on both tip panels, 81" span. Total of 5 servos plus the ESC.

1, Will I gain control for landing or is crow intended to drop the plane out of a thermal, without building up too much speed?

2, About how much should the ailerons come up when the flap goes down ?

3, Should crow be available on all flight modes (other than launch)?

4, It would be possible to cut the single flap in the center, and have a true 6 servo plane.
I seem to find several programming guides for 6 servo planes.
Would I gain any thing by doing this? (yes I have the skill to do it)

5, Is there anything else I should know about type of control?

I will make experiments at about 2 mistakes high before I try them at 3 feet.

[Old Fart]

My responses in RED. I have a Trinity F3F set up "full house" with the 9303

Originally Posted by Wildflyer

I think I would like to set up crow or butterfly function, on a high performance electric glider. I believe they mean the same thing, please correct me if I am wrong. I am after good glide control, for spot landings.
Some questions have come up.

I have a JR 9303 on 2.4

Fantastic choice!

My Plane is a Sky Sergio 09 from Soaring USA, it has a one piece flap across the flat center panel, it also has ailerons on both tip panels, 81" span. Total of 5 servos plus the ESC.

1, Will I gain control for landing or is crow intended to drop the plane out of a thermal, without building up too much speed?

Yes, as far as acting like a "brake"

2, About how much should the ailerons come up when the flap goes down ?

You need to play with it. I'd suggest setting up different values in different Flight Modes. FWIW, my flaps go down about 80 degrees, the ailerons only go up about 10 mm. Don't forget elevator compensation.

3, Should crow be available on all flight modes (other than launch)?

Not until you find out what works

4, It would be possible to cut the single flap in the center, and have a true 6 servo plane.

True. You'd gain the possibility of AILE-FLAP coupling, don't know if I'd do it right off the bat though.

I seem to find several programming guides for 6 servo planes.
Would I gain any thing by doing this? (yes I have the skill to do it)

Look here: http://www.f3x.com/ under "how to" then "program a 9303". It's not perfect - he missed the value for the ailerons in BUTTERFLY.

5, Is there anything else I should know about type of control?

It's a lot of trial and error. If you have the PC Transfer program, I'd be happy to share the data file from my sailplane TX. I bookmarked about a half dozen articles on sailplane programming, watched Paul Naton's DVD's - then sat outside one evening with several beers and a big cigar and started playing with things.

I will make experiments at about 2 mistakes high before I try them at 3 feet.

[Wildflyer]

Thank you Jeff,

My flap will go down about 75-80 degrees so I will try for about 10mm up for the ailerons.

I had already found the guide on f3x.com.

No I don't have the PC transfer program, I bought it for my 8103's but it didn't work. So I haven't even tried for the 9303.

Happy landings.

[Old Fart]

No worries on the PC transfer program - shoot me your email in a PM, I'll print my settings and email them.

[mred]

The way I set up crow is on a flight mode all it's own. I have never found a need to have it on all flight modes since it is used mostly for landing or just to bring it down fast if you want to. I also have the 9303 and there were a couple of things I didn't like about it, but I got by. I bought an SD-10G and couldn't be happier now, but that radio is still a good radio, I'm just fussy. Once you get the crow function working the way you want it, I think you will like it, but be careful the first few times you use it. It comes down pretty fast. Also, the ailerons are not very effective, so get ready to use the rudder when using crow.

Ed

[Wildflyer]

Thanks for the responses, but like every thing, everyone has there own preferences.

I have heard of ailerons set up to for 10-80 degrees, so I will experiment carefully

[mred]

The lower deflections on the ailerons still allows them to be pretty effective as ailerons, but at the higher deflections they are almost worthless as ailerons. Just depends on what you expect and want out of them. Mine are set for around 30 degs up at full defection and that works great for me. My flaps are set for about 70 degs deflection and this is all I could get the way mine were set up, but they work great. Talk about coming down now. The reason I couldn't get more is because I also have them hooked up to ailerons in one flight mode and to get the deflection I wanted cut into my total down that I could get. That's OK, it still works great for me. This is on a full house 100" glider and except for the pilot not finding thermals, it flies great. I think you will like crow and that 9303 is a great radio for setting up just about anything you want. That is what I am using on mine and while it took me a little longer to program it and get everything working the way I wanted it, it does do it and works great.

Ed

[noobab]

crow breaking is great for large gliders

land my spirt like a heli some days