Well, today I got a call from Jim Bourke who was in Sacramento checking out the Hobby Shop I work at part time (BIG SHOP) www.rccountryhobbies.com who wanted to know if I wanted to come check out his Yak-54.

Anyway I am off for the month working on my house after the fire here; https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...ht=garage+fire working on the rebuild here; https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...ghlight=garage

So I am off to Sac. to check it out and make good time getting up there and meet Jim and Eric, who works for Jim at Knife-edge. Next thing I know Jim says lets go for a ride and Eric hands me a parachute (right a parachute) and they sqeeze me into the front seat.

Off we go for little flight over the San Joaquin Valley for around 20 minutes. I get to take the stick for about 2-3 minutes before we do some aero, which was just a few turns. Talk about needing a gentle touch!! By the way, I have not been in a private plane for over 20 years, much less an aerobatic plane with power to spare!

Jim said what do you want to do? So we do and easy roll, then I asked for a loop pulling about 3 gs, which was not to bad pulling 4 gs. Jim asked if I was ready for a little more and I go sure! I was feeling a little "tight" in the stomach, but not bad really.

So Jim says how about about a Hammerhead, and I say sure. So a little speed and up we go. Hard right rudder and over we go pulling about 4.5 gs coming out the bottom. I am jazzed, but the stomach is...Continue Reading

I set up my throttle curve in 3 modes for flying, but 2 will work fine. I would not use less than 2 for safety reasons for you and the heli. This setup is for use with an ESC in Gov mod and I recommend thee is no LVC or as little as possible.

This is also just my setup and others do it a little diff like using a knob for the throttle. Each to his own but I like it this way and it conforms to many pilots setups.

Throttle curves;

Normal 0-50-100-100-100%
Idle 1 100% for all
idle 2 100% for all

Pitch curves;

Normal neg 3* to pos 10*
Idle 1 neg 3* to pos 10*
Idle 2 neg 10 to pos 10*

What this curve does is allow me to start the motor in normal and even fly around a little. I can only shut the motor off in normal. And there is a little more safety with the motor only starting with about 25% movement of the stick.

As soon as I get the rotor up to speed I switch to Idle 1. That allows me to fly around without fear of killing the motor and I have just enough neg pitch to force the heli down and no screw it into the ground.

For aerobatics I use idle 2 with full pitch neg and pos, but motor cannot be shut down.

The max % for the throttle should all match, but some run a little more in Idle 2 for max power. I like all the % to match.

You can run a little less than 100% and I have run 95% with no problems for a long time. But remember the higher the % the better the system will run if matched up right. Also, headroom is a myth, the correct power setup is the key.

The Pitch curves MUST all match past mid stick so any switching between modes does nothing to the pitch and the heli stays stable.

I then set the throttle hold/Auto switch to 0%. It depends on your ESC but most will strip gears if you try to power out of an auto. It also makes a great safety switch. I use it to slow the blades and leave it until I unplug the battery.

Hope this helps.

Emco Maximat 11 with mill and tooling

This was my 1st Swift in the 1st RC Heli magazine