Mode Survey - Results

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

Hi,

 

Well first of all a big thank you to eveyone who contributed. This thread presents the final results from the survey.

 

OK here are the first batch of final results - basically the raw data.

 

A total of 436 responses from UK taught flyers were received. Based on the estimated population size this gives us a 95% confidence interval of approximately plus/minus 3% - excellent!

 

The division of Modes between respondees was:

 

Mode 1: 24.3%

Mode 2: 73.8%

Mode 3: 0.5%

Mode 4: 1.4%

 

So on short about 1 in 4 flyers flys mode 1 - across the country.

 

Regarding where we fly now:

 

44.3% fly in the North

53.9% fly in the South

 

So there is a slight South basis in the data. Note these don't add to 100% due to people who were taught/learnt in the UK but now live outside the UK.

 

Regarding where people learnt to fly:

 

43.6% learnt in the North

55.7% learnt in the South

 

This is broadly in line with where people fly now - so there is no evidence of any systematic North/South or South/North movement. We would not particularly expect to find one and indeed this result is a effectively a "check" on the data.

 

Regarding how people learnt:

 

54.6% were taught by instructors.

45.4% were self-taught.

 

All these figures are accurate plus/minus 3%.

 

So that's the basic data complete. Next up I'll be doing breakdowns of mode against region and mode against how people learnt etc. Will post these tomorrow.

 

Remember the Mode Discussion thread remains available for any comments, ideas, observations, questions etc. 

 

BEB

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[birdy]

Good one BEB. Unexpected (for me anyway) results..

[flytilbroke]

Mode figures much as i expected.

 

I have slight reservations about the Self taught/ Instructor taught numbers though. The main reason being I know of some who because they were not on a Buddy lead have claimed that they were not taught.

 

I suspect the self taught claimants are in the main, long term modelers.

 

Edit, should have put this where B.E.B suggested. Sorry.

Edited By flytilbroke on 17/01/2010 00:01:25

[David Ashby - Moderator]

Excellent BEB, I would have thought there would be more mode 2 flyers in fact. Would you like the voting closed or left open for time being?

 

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

Hi All,

 

here is the second installment of the survey results. This time we will focus on the "North/South Divide"!

 

For those that learnt to fly in the North the mode distribution is:

Mode 1: 33.7%

Mode 2: 66.3%

 

For those that learnt to fly in the South the mode distribution is:

Mode 1: 17.9%

Mode 2: 82.1%

 

Compare these with the national average from above:

Mode 1: 24.3%

Mode 2: 73.8%

 

So, what can we conclude from this? Well first of all the statement "They all fly mode 1 tu'p North" isn't true. North or South mode 2 flyers are in a majority. But its certainly true to say that mode 1 is considerably more common in the North than it is in the South. Basically one in three flyers who learnt in the North are mode 1, whilst the equivalent figure in the South is less than one in five.

 

Put another way, the instance of Mode 1 flyers is above the national average in the North, but below the national average in the South.

 

Next time we'll look at the relationship between instructed/self-taught and mode

 

BEB

Edited By Biggles' Elder Brother on 17/01/2010 21:50:35

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

OK, here is the next batch of results. This time we will look at the influance of how people learnt on what mode they fly.

 

Considering first those of us that had an instructor:

(Just modes 1 & 2)

Mode 1: 25.6%

Mode 2: 74.4%

 

This is exactly what we might expect and indeed tends to confirm the accuracy of this part of the survey. Its what we would expect because in the majority of cases we can assume that mode 1 flyers teach mode 1 and the same for mode 2 flyers. This means the break down for mode distribution for those taught to fly by an instructor should pretty well follow the national average - within our plus/minus 3% error bounds. And indeed it does - remember the national figures are 24.3% and 73.8% respectively. So that's fine...now for something rather surprising.

 

For the self-taught flyers:

(Again considering only modes 1&2)

Mode 1: 24.1%

Mode 2: 75.9%

 

This result was unexpected. Again this matches the national average, so what it says is - there is no statistically significant difference in Mode choice between instructed and self-taught fliers.

 

Why is this result so surprising? Well if "self-taught" means literally no external influance then mode choice should be random - but its clearly not. Even if there was influance, from say model shops, you might still expect a more even distributiuon. Also, I expected that the self taught fliers would contain a larger percentage of older (in modelling terms!) fliers and so a greater number of mode 1's due to historical reasons. All these factors should act to increase the mode 1 count - but no, it stays stubbornly at the national average!

 

It is possible that FTB is correct, that the data is questionable because some respondees have answered "self taught" when they did receive maybe even a small amount of tuition to "start them off" - even such a small amount would sway the data becuase that early help may well have set the mode choice.

 

Obviously we don't know the reason - but its certainly surprises me!

 

Next time we will look at the way how we learnt is related to geographical location - are there more self-taught fliers in the North or the South - or does it make no difference? Tune in tomorrow night to find out!

 

BEB

[001]

Could the mode 2 self taught higher numbers be because new 4 channel and above transmitters are mostly supplied as mode 2?

Also for anyone converting from 2 channel transmitters from cars or boats, the throttle is on the left and direction on the right stick.     Not a conclusion, just a guess.

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

Yes Richard, either of those could be possible explanations. It could even be a combination of several effects of course.

 

What is curious though is that it isn't just that the mode 1 self taughts are lower than you might expect - its the almost exact match with the overall national average - indicating as I say that method of tuition is having no descernable effect what-so-ever! Strange.

 

BEB 

[Tim Mackey]

I would go along with the earlier suggestion that many people who claimed to be "self taught" were actually not. Looking at the other option given of "Instructor" probably swayed some folk to think this meant a "proper formal formal instructor" rather than what I suspect was the case for the very vast majority of us - an experienced club-mate gave up his time to give us a few initial and somewhat frightening lessons.

I class this as an Instructor taught me.

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

Yes, Timbo you may well be right. It was certainly my intention that "Instructor taught" should be interpreted as you have done so - hence why in the OP I explicitly said "even if it was informal tutition".

 

But even allowing for this - which might hold back the expected higher number of mode 1 amongst the "self taught" - its still surprising that it agrees so precisely with the national average. For your suggestion to be the sole cause we'd have to accept that in reality effectively no one is self taught - everyone had an instructor!

 

As I say above its likely that there are a number of factors all contributing in parallel to this unexpected result - but without doing another survey based on a very carefully designed (and probably rather long questionare) it isn't possible to know. As as this is really just a bit of curiousity driven fun I think we'll call it a day here!

 

Mmmm, interesting though.

 

What would be interesting would be to repeat the survey in say 5 years to see if there is any trend. Do more new flyers from the playstation generation push the data further towards mode 1 or mode 2 etc?

 

BEB

[Brian Young]

Hi, A very interesting survey, with not entirely unexpected results. One question, - is Birmingham classed as north or south? I and most of the local flyers are mode 1, which we have long felt to be an isolated pocket in this area. Interestingly, I know of a few machocistic flyers who fly fixed wing on mode 1, but use mode 2 for helecopters! It takes all sorts . . . .

[Andy Anscombe]

and is Nottingham north  or   Midlands   mode 1 may be higher in the midlands

[Roger Adams]

Picking up on Brian's point I was discussing this survey with some club colleagues in the pub earlier in the week.  There is certainly an anecdotal opinion that the midlands has a mode 1 bias.  Given that the north south classification divides the midlads it would be interesting to see whether the statics were changed significantly if the analysis was done over 3 areas of north, middle and south.  Of course this opens up the debate of Wales, Scotland Cornwall Isle of Mann etc..  It might be too much effort, especially now the snows gone and we can return to normal life.

 

Great survey

 

Roger

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

Hi,

 

interesting points. This is going to definately be the point where I make enemies!

 

Obviously there has to be some dividing line and where ever you put it someone will object! So, what I have done - and its simply one basis - I have defined "The North" as anywhere North and West of a line at about 30 degrees going right through Birmingham. So, if you put "West Midlands" you will have been classified as "North", if you entered somewhere in the East Midlands - say Nottingham - you would have been entered as "South". If you just put "Midlands" or "Birmingham" then these votes were shared on a random basis between the North and South vote with equal numbers going to each.

 

Now its funny you should ask this question. Because although I have no numbers for this I did pick up a strong impression that if any where did have a concentration of mode 1 it wasn't "the North" as such, but the Midlands! What I'll do is I'll take a look at the weekend. I have the data in a spreadsheet and it shouldn't be too difficult to isolate "The Midlands" as a region and see what the division there actually is. Work committments mean I can't do it before then - as it will take a couple of hours. One request - I don't mind doing this for the Midlands but please don't ask me to do for every sub-region - I'd like to do some flying sometime this year 

 

BEB

[Tim Hooper]

Posted by Roger Adams on 21/01/2010 21:01:33:

 There is certainly an anecdotal opinion that the midlands has a mode 1 bias.

Roger

 My own Midlands-based club certainly has a strong bias towards mode 1.  Out of 117 members, I d say less at least 2/3 fly on mode 1.

 

As a mode 2 flyer, may I suggest that the original survey doesn't take into account the literacy of the relative mode adherents.  Clearly, nationally 3 out of 4 aeromodellers who can actually read the poll also fly mode 2........

 

Seems simple to me.

 

tim

[Eck]

Thank you, BEB! This has been a fascinating topic to follow.

The club I have recently joined (Dundee Model Aircraft Club), has approximately 70 members, mainly Mode 2, with ONE Mode 1 flyer that I know of. Now I'll have to ask him where he learned.....

[flytilbroke]

Yes, this has been interesting and a bit surprising. Of the flyers I know in Scotland, I only can place five for certain on mode 1, plus perhaps a hundred on mode 2. Not from asking them, only by observation, mostly in the Pits where control movement stands out.

 

 

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

It's very simple. 

 

Southampton is at the bottom of the South so logically, Northampton is at the bottom of the North.

 

BEDEVERE:
    Exactly. So, logically...
VILLAGER #1:
    .if .. she... weighs... the same as a duck,... she's made of wood.
BEDEVERE:
    And therefore?
VILLAGER #2:
    A witch!

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

Nice ones Tim and Martin!

 

BEB

[Eck]

[flytilbroke]

Southampton is at the bottom of ampton. Northampton is at the top of ampton. Neither has much to do the North South divide

[Guest]

re Timbo's comment - " I would go along with the earlier suggestion that many people who claimed to be "self taught" were actually not"

 

I would agree with this if the self taughts were relatively recent to the hobby and went down the avenue with the standard trainer which as any experienced modeller knows - very few have a ghost of a chance at actually learning to fly before they run out of models.

 

however it would be interesting to have had an age profile of the self taughts - I would not be surprised to see that the majority took up R/C before the  70's

 

at that time , r/c fliers were few and far between - at least they were in my neck of the woods - and the early r/c models were basically  redesigned free flight models.  these models gave the "beginner" a reasonable chance of success with the minimum of assistance. 

 

Moreover, the early R/C'ers were modellers to start with and were well aware of  trimming practices from freeflight'ing and would extend this practice  into leanring R/C

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

Yes John, I was expecting the same - a larger proportion of mode 1's amongst "older" self-taught modellers for just the reasons you cite - ie not that many people around to learn from!

 

Having the age data would have been useful - but in the context of a fun survey, on a public forum, were I wanted to get a good sample (4-500), I was a bit wary of asking folks their age - as it might have discouraged some responses. Good point though.

 

BEB

[Guest]

BEB,

 

age brackets are usually acceptable  - I would be quite happy to admit to being 

 " over 21 "    

 

john