Same tx referenced in this thread went to full limit on aileron trim, perhaps because the trim was accidentally held... but dunno. The resulting ~20% of full aileron on takeoff resulted in a very hard landing with not minor damage.

I'm wondering why trims do that even- is there EVER a reason you'd just hold a trim button and let it go any distance? Why would you ever not want just one trim step per touch of the button? Bizarre 'feature'- hold it to make it zoom towards a limit. Tx code had to be added to do that- the programmers methinks don't fly much.

Same tx also has the antenna hinge pin fallen out. Good luck finding it. User will replace the whole antenna but that tiny coax connector inside cant be real robust and handling it methinks is a bad idea.

[QUOTE=MaceH;
I'm wondering why trims do that even- is there EVER a reason you'd just hold a trim button and let it go any distance? Why would you ever not want just one trim step per touch of the button? Bizarre 'feature'- hold it to make it zoom towards a limit. Tx code had to be added to do that- the programmers methinks don't fly much.
[/QUOTE]

Simple! On a maiden flight, where there may be a serious trim issue, you want all the trim you have, and as fast as you can get it dialed in.
Pete

Your error regardless

Originally Posted by MaceH

Same tx referenced in this thread went to full limit on aileron trim, perhaps because the trim was accidentally held... but dunno. The resulting ~20% of full aileron on takeoff resulted in a very hard landing with not minor damage.

I'm wondering why trims do that even- is there EVER a reason you'd just hold a trim button and let it go any distance? Why would you ever not want just one trim step per touch of the button? Bizarre 'feature'- hold it to make it zoom towards a limit. Tx code had to be added to do that- the programmers methinks don't fly much.

Same tx also has the antenna hinge pin fallen out. Good luck finding it. User will replace the whole antenna but that tiny coax connector inside cant be real robust and handling it methinks is a bad idea.

Pretty much every transmitter ever made that used digital trims behaves exactly as you describe.
So does pretty much every piece of home electronics, on any other device, that uses a +/- type of control. Who would want to have to press the volume control on their TVs remote again and again to reduce the volume so they can take a phone call. This assumes there are other people watching too so simply hitting mute isn't an option. That is simply the way that pretty much everyone, that knows what they are doing, implements that type of device, a quick press, 1 click, press and hold, click speed increases up to a point where significant changes happen quickly, but the user can still easily stop at a reasonable setting. If you really want to press the trim tab again again again, well that works too, just press and release. Me thinks the programmers got it just fine.

Originally Posted by wfield0455

Pretty much every transmitter ever made that used digital trims behaves exactly as you describe.
So does pretty much every piece of home electronics, on any other device, that uses a +/- type of control. Who would want to have to press the volume control on their TVs remote again and again to reduce the volume so they can take a phone call. This assumes there are other people watching too so simply hitting mute isn't an option. That is simply the way that pretty much everyone, that knows what they are doing, implements that type of device, a quick press, 1 click, press and hold, click speed increases up to a point where significant changes happen quickly, but the user can still easily stop at a reasonable setting. If you really want to press the trim tab again again again, well that works too, just press and release. Me thinks the programmers got it just fine.

Programmers got it fine... hmmm.... damaged plane says otherwise.

Originally Posted by Pilotpete

Simple! On a maiden flight, where there may be a serious trim issue, you want all the trim you have, and as fast as you can get it dialed in.
Pete

And what is the ratio of maiden flights to normal flying?

Originally Posted by futile flight

Your error regardless

Agreed. And thank you for being so helpful.

However, technology exists to serve us, not the other way around. I would have coded it with a selectable 'maiden' and 'not maiden' trim behavior.

Another DX7 AR6210 bit the dust this weekend. I suspect an antenna orientation issue cos the lock out happenes during high speed inverted flight straight the runway and ended up in the runway. its the owners 3rd total loss of aircraft with the radio and about the 7th lockout.

Originally Posted by TimBle

Another DX7 AR6210 bit the dust this weekend. I suspect an antenna orientation issue cos the lock out happenes during high speed inverted flight straight the runway and ended up in the runway. its the owners 3rd total loss of aircraft with the radio and about the 7th lockout.

OOF the worst possible story- this sort of thing makes folks find other hobbies- bad bad bad.

7S right?

Have you looked at his installs? Any other insights?

Also I'm wondering if folks should not be using the supplied short satellite cable- that sat needs to be at least 12" away IMO. Its ok to splice into it to lengthen it- no rf is received by that cable.

I can relate that most folks don't try to keep their wiskers straight even- those are quarter-wave or somesuch- much of a bend in the antenna should make them wildly inefficient but if over the runway hard to believe weak signal was the problem.

Also beware ignition noise as contributor- a 10kv spark makes tons of emf. Again, have a look at his stuff? Also I'd send the whole thing back to Horizon- they tend to replace stuff outright for such folks. At his rate though an Aurora 9 might look good- maybe Horizon can swap him out?

Originally Posted by MaceH

Agreed. And thank you for being so helpful.

However, technology exists to serve us, not the other way around. I would have coded it with a selectable 'maiden' and 'not maiden' trim behavior.

I'm sorry, but if someone crashes an airplane and blames it on the behavior of digital trims, they really need to learn to take responsibility for their own actions. Flight controls should be verified to move in the correct direction, moving a reasonable amount and to be reasonably well centered prior to takeoff. If your controls are reversed, in the wrong flight mode or way out of trim and you crash because of that, it's no ones fault but your own. Pilot error, pure and simple.

Originally Posted by wfield0455

I'm sorry, but if someone crashes an airplane and blames it on the behavior of digital trims, they really need to learn to take responsibility for their own actions. Flight controls should be verified to move in the correct direction, moving a reasonable amount and to be reasonably well centered prior to takeoff. If your controls are reversed, in the wrong flight mode or way out of trim and you crash because of that, it's no ones fault but your own. Pilot error, pure and simple.

Yep, I agree. The pilot did acknowledge his error.

I'm the one saying, as a programmer, that the programmer of that system could have done better.

Originally Posted by MaceH

Yep, I agree. The pilot did acknowledge his error.

I'm the one saying, as a programmer, that the programmer of that system could have done better.

I love the blame game...good entertainment!

I like the notion of 'folks should be responsible for their actions', and I totally subscribe to the idea that we are modeling aircraft, and on many levels, all that goes with it. There's mechanical checks, electrical checks, operator checklists, flight prep, postflight prep (yuck, homework) and all that stuff that makes the hobby fun and interesting.

I also think technology should help us... imagine a lipo charger that has no balancer. Operator error if the battery burns up, sure, because he didn't manually balance the cells. So, someone hatches a piece of hardware and writes code to do that for us. I'm just saying there are parts of the system that are not helping us not screw up as much as they could.

I'll go out on a limb and say that a 747 would not let the pilot take off with full trim on a surface. Yes, the pilot should have caught it, but caught that and any one of a hundred other things out of wack? Automation must help us not screw up.

Originally Posted by aviti

I love the blame game...good entertainment!

And its opposite 'stuff just happens'. Repetition of mistakes that for us means lost planes.

Originally Posted by MaceH

I like the notion of 'folks should be responsible for their actions', and I totally subscribe to the idea that we are modeling aircraft, and on many levels, all that goes with it. There's mechanical checks, electrical checks, operator checklists, flight prep, postflight prep (yuck, homework) and all that stuff that makes the hobby fun and interesting.

I also think technology should help us... imagine a lipo charger that has no balancer. Operator error if the battery burns up, sure, because he didn't manually balance the cells. So, someone hatches a piece of hardware and writes code to do that for us. I'm just saying there are parts of the system that are not helping us not screw up as much as they could.

I'll go out on a limb and say that a 747 would not let the pilot take off with full trim on a surface. Yes, the pilot should have caught it, but caught that and any one of a hundred other things out of wack? Automation must help us not screw up.

I completely agree that technology should help us. I simply disagree with your opinion of how it should do that with regard to digital trims. I'm all for innovation and constant improvement, but at some point, when absolutely every control behavior is configurable, the user interface becomes completely unusable. You would prefer to have the trim only be able to move one step at a time, fine that is your opinion, personally I suspect you are very much in the minority. In my mind, a good designer doesn't make everything configurable and doesn't try to make absolutely everyone happy. That's a fools errand. A good designer, takes the time to understand the problem and comes up with a simple user friendly solution that gets the job done and makes the vast majority of the users happy. You can't please everyone and if you try, it will drive you crazy.