moving from 3 channel plane to 4

Takeoffs will now require you to steer down the runway with the left hand. That will take some getting used to. I would suggest switching the rudder to the left stick only after you get ailerons on the right stick. Reason being that if you get in the air and find that you can't fly with the left stick you have the right one.

Turning with ailerons is a little different. Ailerons roll the plane then you use elevator to bring the plane around the turn. Using ailerons and rudder together is called a coordinated turn. Not necessary to fly but good to know how to do.

John VB

Keep in mind I'm still rather green, so take what I say for what it's worth....

I fly with the ailerons and elevator on the right, rudder and throttle on the left. This is most like how I was taught to fly (elevator and ailerons together on the stick, rudder on pedals, etc.)

I find that a light application of the ailerons gets a turn going quite nicely. I've never really had to use the rudder very much. More experienced pilots tell me that learning the correct rudder application comes with experience.

Enjoy a 4-channel! I moved from a 3-channel to a 4-channel after 2 flights. The reason was that the 3-channel trainer didn't give me the response I expected from an airplane -- when I move the stick to the left, *roll*, dang it!

| Takeoffs will now require you to steer down the runway with the left hand.

In my experience, that is by far the biggest difference.

| Turning with ailerons is a little different. Ailerons roll the plane then | you use elevator to bring the plane around the turn.

Ultimately, a rudder only plane flies similarly. Ailerons (epsecially if you use the rudder too and make the turn coordinated) make for more graceful turns, but if your plane has a good amount of dihedral, using the ailerons won't be very different from using the rudder.

If you don't have any dihedral in your aileron plane, then things are a bit different, but only a bit. Basically your plane will not tend to right itself anymore, so you'll have to do it. So to turn, you'll bank a little, pull back the elevator to keep from losing altitude and to `pull the plane through the turn', and when you're done, you bank the other way to level the plane again.

It's not much of a translation.

| Using ailerons and rudder together is called a coordinated turn. | Not necessary to fly but good to know how to do.

For most planes, it's completely optional. But some planes do fly a lot better if you do your turns with both aileron and rudder rather than just aileron.

Don't forget that when a plane is banked over to any considerable degree, the rudder can act in the same way as an elevator in level flight, and once the turn is started it should be neutralised.

With some planes, it might even need to go to the opposite control sense to prevent a spiral dive developing and tightening all the way to the deck.

Malcolm

If you have a computer radio (which is unlikely, since you haven't really caught the bug yet), mix the left stick rudder and right stick aileron to whichever channel has the rudder servo. Now, you can steer with the left stick and fly with the right stick.

I caught the bug early and bought a Futaba 8Us. I used this rig with a Blue Foamie (speed 400 simple plane). The plane would do something like a snap roll with conventional rudder and elevator input. Since then, I have used the same setup with a student who had a rudder only plane with landing gear and a computer radio; it let the instructor (me) steer after landing without getting utterly confused.

-- Mike Norton