Question For Fellow F14 Pilots

[Aces]

Hi guys. I have the F14 and I had a hard landing a few weeks back. Broke the front landing gear. Got that fixed and was testing everything to go fly and noticed that I do not have elevator control for my wing ailerons. The ailerons work. Each wings aileron servo works when giving left and right input. But when giving elevator input the wing (aileron) servos do not respond. When i replaced the front wheel that is the only servo wire removed from the control board. So I assumed that the mix must be bad in the control board. So I switched out the control board with a new one but still no worky.
I am at a loss. The mix for that is in the board programming right? Its not in my radio? I am using the admiral 10 channel receiver. Any thoughts or advise would be appreciated. Thanks.

[xviper]

Can't really help you with your wiring problem as it's hard when you can't see it in person.
However, with regards to elevator response on your wing ailerons ........................... why do you have this? What's the purpose? The usual is to have aileron response on the wing ailerons (up and down opposing). At the very least, as per "RC Geek", the wing ailerons will have a slight bit of UP only (on the appropriate side) when tied to taileron aileron input.

[Aces]

Hello X viper. Well, now that I think about it, I may be all mixed up. Now that you are asking that question maybe I did not have the wing ailerons tied to elevator. Maybe I just thought that I did. I certainly did not do any fancy programming. I basically left it the way it came. I don’t have enough channels to do the type of programming that RC geek has done. But Everything else is functioning normally so maybe everything is fine. It’s been a few months since I flew or so I guess my brain is just not thinking straight

[xviper]

As it comes out of the box and if set up as per the manual, your ailerons are just that. They are "Y'd" together (via control box) and go into the AIL port. It's basically a 6 channel airplane with the exception of the 7th channel being the wing sweep mechanism. The elevators are just elevators (Y'd via the control box, as are the rudders). A caution is that you MUST deactivate the flaps (either via a switch or manually by the pilot) when the wings are swept IN or about to be swept IN or you'll snap them babies off in an instant.
Mine is set up as 9-channels, with tailerons and "reflex" (up only) on the wing ailerons. I must manually (and mentally) ensure the flaps are level anytime the wings are going in or are in.
As for your problem with the ailerons, I don't think you have a problem at all. The wing ailerons are not mixed to the elevators. Perhaps you are thinking that there is some elevator compensation when the flaps are deployed. This plane requires a lot of elevator compensation when the flaps are deployed (wings OUT of course) just to stay flying level. Unlike most other planes, flap deployment causes the plane to pitch down severely on the F-14. Most other planes "balloon" UP.

[Aces]

Thanks xviper. I will fly her.

[xviper]

Thanks xviper. I will fly her.

Be aware that the first time you bring the wings IN during flight, can be a startling experience. A friend of mine said he flew his wings OUT for 2 seasons before he had the nerve to swing them in. The first time he did it, he said it scared him as it became a whole different kind of plane to fly. He's good enough that he has yet to crash his F-14.

[kallend]

. . . . . A caution is that you MUST deactivate the flaps (either via a switch or manually by the pilot) when the wings are swept IN or about to be swept IN or you'll snap them babies off in an instant. .. . . . .

I'm reading this thread as I'm seriously thinking about getting the F-14.

Wouldn't enabling flap deployment only when the gear is down (simple to do with any modern transmitter) essentially remove the possibility of sweeping the wings when the flaps are down? I don't imagine anyone sweeps the wings when the gear is down. For additional safeguard you could program wing sweep only to be enabled when gear (and/or flaps) are up.

[Evan D]

I did a sequencer program in my radio for it. If the wings were out and flaps down it would retract the flaps before sweeping. If I asked it to deploy flaps with the wings swept it wouldn't do it but would automatically do it after extending the wings with the proper time delay.

That was the one and only time so far I've used that function in my radio.

[xviper]

Wouldn't enabling flap deployment only when the gear is down (simple to do with any modern transmitter) essentially remove the possibility of sweeping the wings when the flaps are down? I don't imagine anyone sweeps the wings when the gear is down. For additional safeguard you could program wing sweep only to be enabled when gear (and/or flaps) are up.

I had to chew on this for a bit. Initially, I thought that nobody would sweep the wings in when the gear is down but this is not a guaranty. Tying the flaps to gear is a good idea in principle, but it's not "goof proof". There will always be that possibility when someone will have a brain fart and do it anyway, thereby putting the onus back onto the pilot to manually do something at the appropriate time. An example might be: You've just taken off and you are gaining speed after the first turn, going into the straight. You forget to lift up the gear AND forget to raise flaps and you begin to bring the wings in. Something bad is going to happen. (I've seen guys take off and fly most of the flight with the gear down, sometimes even forgetting to bring them up at all.) Brains farts on a plane like this can become very expensive. Although I have yet to fold the wings in-flight, the day will come when I do. For now, I can still have a brain fart and fold the wings in as I'm taxiing back after landing and forget to bring the flaps back up. Operating this plane takes the most attention on my part more than any other plane I have (except maybe for my VTOL planes).

I did a sequencer program in my radio for it. If the wings were out and flaps down it would retract the flaps before sweeping. If I asked it to deploy flaps with the wings swept it wouldn't do it but would automatically do it after extending the wings with the proper time delay.

That was the one and only time so far I've used that function in my radio.

This, to me, is a better "goof proof" solution. Can you give us the basics on how this is done?

[Evan D]

It was a while back and took a lot of fiddling with the timing to get it right. I have a DX-18 that has a sequencing program.

[xviper]

I'll have to check my DX9 for such a feature.

[kallend]

I'll have to check my DX9 for such a feature.

DX9 has a sequencer. You can probably adapt the built-in one for sequencing gear and gear doors since the timing requirements are similar.

[Evan D]

I can see the MCBe used for a sequencer but not how we would use it to lock out flaps but still be able to use them with the wings extended…