Ar636 Gain Settings

[Hugh Wiedman]

I have 14 AR636 receivers in acrobatic planes and warbirds. Acrobatics include Yak's, Edges, P2, a Beast 60E and a new Extreme Flight 60" Slick 580. Warbirds include 1700mm P-51, 2-Flightline B-24's, 1600mm Flightline Spitfire, a an FMS 1400mm Corsair and several 1400mm P-51's. It's taken a lot of trial and error in setting the gains (rate and heading) over the last several years and got the acrobatics with 3 flight modes (normal fly around, hands off knife Edge and 3D with high rate and heading gain). For the warbirds, with landing gear and flaps, it has taken 2 years to figure out how to program the flaps to get 3 modes. Since I only have a DX6, the 3 flight modes are in aux 1, which is also the flap channel. This usually only ended up giving me 2 flight modes, because the travel wasn't enough to actuate the 3rd mode. With some technical help and more trial and error, I just figured out how to get 3 modes with the warbirds. Normal fly-around (Flight Mode 1), flaps up use rate gain of 30/40/50 (RPY). My takeoff mode (Flight Mode 2) (which uses almost no flaps as I like to take off without flaps), uses 70/80/90 rate gain (RPY) AND 0/80/90 Heading hold. This Rudder heading hold eliminates the tail draggers from taking a sharp left turn and corrects faster than I can-so I'm not swerving on the runway at take-off and lift off is nice and smooth. Landing flaps (FM3) uses 80/90/100 rate gain and no heading hold on rudder or elevator, allowing me to steer it in myself. In order to get all 3 modes working, the Flap setting on 0 (FM1) needs to be between +50% to +100%. Flap setting on take-off flaps (FM2) needs to be at +40% to -40%, and landing flaps (FM3) needs to be between -60% to -100%. I set my three positions on flaps at 50% (FM1) 40% (FM2) and -60% (FM3). This gives me basically 2 flap positions, but 3 flight modes, with take-off including heading hold on rudder and elevator, which you don't want at any other time. As soon as the plane lifts off the ground, I switch to fly-around mode. In order to get the proper travel on the flaps, I had to reposition the servo horns and in some cases use less travel on the horn and use longer pushrods. Best way to determine how much gain to use and each situation is to disconnect the flap pushrods and set FM1 to roll gain only, FM2 to pitch gain only and FM3 to yaw gain only, set the flap positions at 100/0/-100 and use relative instead of absolute so you can adjust during flight. Unfortunately, there is no instructions in any manual that tells you squat about setting gains, only some Horizon videos, which are fine for acrobatics with 4-5 channels only. 6 channels, and your on your own.

Hope this helps.

[F22trainer]

Great thread -
I’m using the AS3X / SAFE on a few planes from Spektrum, and I have a couple of builds that I would like to set up similar to my PT -17 from eFlite.
Just a simple ON/OFF is really all I would need, but would be even better if it came on with flaps similar to what you have figured out.
I especially like the idea of a heading hold on takeoff. I don’t like the SAFE/AS3X of takeoff as I sometimes don’t have the rudder authority I want when holding elevator to keep the tail down, so oddly enough I have better takeoffs with stability OFF and just use it on landing.
My T-6 activates the stabilization when the gear are down - not ideal as described above but has helped me get the hang of a warbird. It was the best way I could figure out how to use it as I too have a DX6 and was not able to get it on a separate switch and stumbled on the gear activation by happy accident.
Also tried to figure out how to get my Carbon Cub on the DX6, but couldn’t get the trainer modes to work, even though I don’t use them. It is fun for demos to new flyers and guys interested in possibly buying one of their own, as well as for the auto land which always blow everybody’s mind when it lands on the runway as I hold the transmitter at arms length.