Compass calibration Carbon Cub

[Traveling Man]

In the manual it states in step 4, "after satellites are acquired, the aircraft will signal it has entered compass calibration mode by the following:
Wings On: the ailerons will cycle left and right slowly.
Wings Off: the red and blue led's on the flight controller will flash alternately.

Can someone explain what it means by wings on / wings off. I am sure it's not referring to the actual wings being on the aircraft or off it. Also I haven't been able to find any leds on the transmitter.

TIA.

[xviper]

I don't have this plane but the instructions seem fairly clear to me. Wing ON or wing OFF means just that to me. You can do this compass calibration before you install the wing if you wish. It will still work. Obviously with the wings ON, you can see the ailerons move. With wing OFF, there are no ailerons to look at, so you must look at something else. What they've done is provide you with an alternative way to tell when something is happening and that's to look at the light on the flight controller. The "flight controller" is NOT the transmitter. It's inside the plane with all the wires going in and out of it. It looks like this:

https://www.horizonhobby.com/receiver%3A-carbon-cub-s-13m-p-spma3232

[Traveling Man]

Thanks very much for the answer xviper, I hadn't realised the two points you made. I just assumed that you had to have the aircraft ready to fly before doing the calibration. So as you put it, it makes sense. Also thanks for pointing out the distinction between the flight controller and the transmitter, I thought they were one and the same.

Thank you for taking the time to help me out. 😀

[xviper]

You're welcome. It wasn't that many years ago that these sorts of things confused the heck out of me.
In a sense, the plane is "prepared" to fly, only in one case, the wings aren't attached. Some people remove the wings for transport even though this plane is small enough to not require it. Do this calibration outdoors. I'm not sure if it has a GPS unit but in case it does, it will require to have clear view of the sky to pick up the satellites.
In the case of this plane, the flight controller and the receiver are integrated into the same unit (mounted inside the plane). The transmitter is the thing you hold in your hand and has the "joy sticks" on it. However, having said this, there are now receivers that has transmission capabilities in that they send telemetry information back to the transmitter in your hand and it must be able to "receive" it. Nevertheless, they are still called "receivers" and the thing with the sticks is still called a "transmitter".

[F22trainer]

This airplane does have the GPS, which is another topic. I pretty much disabled mine and learned to fly it with just the Beginner and Intermediate modes. About he time I got comfortable with it in Advanced mode, the factory set up began trying to find a place to crash and would unexpectedly not respond then just as quickly returned to normal. So, out with the old - in with a basic Spektrum 6 channel (I use the flaps), programmed the Spektrum_Transmitter with low rates and high rates, a little expo in low rates and some down elevator using flaps. Now she is lighter and even more fun to fly. I also added some nice aluminum struts which add to the appearance.

[Mbishop]

Has anyone installed the gps module into a carbon cub s2 ? I bought one with the plane and the manual isn't totally clear

[Bob Montgomery]

Yea, I installed it. Followed the instructions and after taking off the plane went completely out of my control. It was shear terror as I tried everything I could to regain control, but finally I was able to land it. After that I have removed the GPS and threw it away. Never ever again!

[xviper]

Yesterday, I helped a new pilot set up and do the maiden on his plane with the GPS equipment. It was not this particular plane but the electronics are very similar. His is the RTF, which is already bound to the provided TX. Even in the RTF version, there are some features that must be understood and how these features are activated and de-activated. It has different virtual fencing, depending on what steps are taken to acquire each. It also has "holding pattern" capability. Nobody, including myself knew how to set a particular level of geo-fencing nor did I know how the holding pattern was activated or de-activated. I experimented with this feature when high up. Holding the bind button was no different than pushing it once and letting go. This would activate the holding feature. It took me a while to figure out that I had to push the button again to de-activate it, so I could regain control. If you have a BNF, it is possible to assign different switches to do different things and also to have or not have the bind button do a particular feature.
What I'm getting at is that if, for some reason and unbeknownst to the pilot, one of these switches or the bind is pushed before taking off, the plane can appear as though it "goes crazy" and uncontrollable. For those who are familiar with "Return to Home" devices, it would be like taking off with the plane set in "RTH". It CANNOT and should NOT be done. The plane will go crazy and is likely crash (seen it and it wasn't pretty). After my experience with this sort of tech, I'm not so sure that it is a glitch in the system but perhaps more that the pilot is not fully cognisant of how these features work and not fully understanding how to activate/select these features. So, from the perspective of an uninformed pilot or observer, the plane looks like it just went "crazy".
Additionally, before I stepped up to offer my help to maiden his plane, I saw him install the battery with the plane upside down and BEFORE turning the TX on. He just didn't know. On these planes where the battery compartment is accessed from the bottom, it is important to plug the battery in and immediately turn the plane right side up and NOT touch it for a predetermined amount of time. Even better would be to have the connectors hanging out the bottom of the plane and powering it right side up until it has a chance to initialize and calibrate itself properly. Doing it upside down could result in the plane not doing "its thing" properly and resulting in some initialization not happening correctly ................. resulting in some very weird flying characteristics than some may categorize and "going crazy". I supposed in the final analysis, the easiest and simplest way to resolve this is to yank out the GPS and throw it away.

[Evan D]

Good post X. As our hobby gets more technology we have to be able to understand and adapt to the tech. Most times the manuals will tell us how the tech works but many times the manual is just hard to understand and many don't read it. There have been a lot of times someone shows up at the field and they don't bring the book and no one can figure out what needs to be set, switches or something and we make the decision to not fly it. Sometimes we can find a manual on line but not always.