What percentage of pilots fly Mode 1 in the UK?

[J D 8]

I learned to fly [ full size ] on a T21 glider in the mid 70's.Then took up RC flying about a year later using mode 2 [ just because that was the mode of the radio I bought ]

A couple of years later had a go flying the early microlights and they had all sorts control systems. One I flew called an Eagle, was a canard type that was halfway between weight shift and conventional controls.

You sat in a swing seat and held a handlebar fixed to the frame,to turn you moved the bar in the same way as a Cessna control wheel. This did not move ailerons but deployed drag plates on the wing tips.

To climb you pushed back on the bar moving ones weight back,a cable from the seat also pulled the canard elevator down. To dive you pulled on the bar and a bungee pulled the elevator up. As speed built up the bungee would stretch limiting the elevator movement and the Eagle would pull out of the dive and slow automatically.

It was different but I soon got used to it,

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

We had a young lady who joined our gliding club after converting from weight shift hang gliding. Sadly, she stalled and spun in with fatal results whilst hill soaring and the accepted most likely explanation was that she pulled rather than pushed as the stall started.

[David Davis]

Posted by Peter Christy on 05/07/2018 20:58:27:

There was a lad I knew a while ago who flew aeroplanes in mode 1 and helicopters in mode 2 - and he was pretty good with both!

Pete

I used to know a lad, back in the FM radio days, who could fly both Mode 1 and Mode 2 though his own models were set up for Mode 2. He could also start a Laser 150 just by twisitng the spinner in a clockwise direction! He got together with a lady member of the club who flew a WOT 4. She also liked to take photographs of the wildlife surrounding the patch and in the end spent more time with her camera than she did with her model.

Her interest in photography rubbed off on him and he no longer flies. I'm still in touch with them on a "social media" website.

[Martin McIntosh]

Being an old codger having graduated from reeds, mode 1 was the obvious way to go in the transition period. In my former Midlands club mode 2 was unheard of. I am now in Bucks and am just one of two mode 1 flyers. I got strange looks when I first flew there. The two of us call mode 2 `Futaba mode` because this was mainly distributed in the sarf at the time and imported on the US preferred mode.

In the 70`s I flew F3A and I think that only Mike Birch flew mode 2 in those days. All of the continental top flyers were on mode 1. (Prettner, Matt, etc).

Mode one is very much easier to use when performing point or slow rolls because you do not need to keep finding the elevator setting with just one hand between points. Flyers have got very much better at doing this these days but some time ago I could tell a mode 1 pilot a mile away because the rolls wobbled up and down between those points.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Stuart Z]

Hi

Not wishing to stir this pot up too much but would there be value in having a list of what the predominant Mode is in each club?

This may be of value for people that are moving home etc., so that they know which clubs to approach in their new location.

S