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Initial flight testing:
Quick
note: Many gyros are temperature sensitive, It is best to keep them out
of direct sunlight for long periods at a time. (mount them on the
bottom of the plane or inside the fuse). Let the airplane acclimate to
the environmental temperature at least 10 minutes before flying. The
effect to changes in temperature you might see is a slight drift of
centering during flight.
As mentioned, Set the initial gains to 30%. Perform a Pre-flight test at your flying location before each flight.
Fly on a day that less than 15mph for the initial testing.
Although I've yet to have a gyro fail on me in flight, nor have I had an uncontrollable flight, Plan
what you will do if the plane is uncontrollable (I always recommend
throwing both sticks in the lower left corner and ditching into high
weeds if possible. This will yield the least amount of damage).
Can you take off and fly over high weeds?
Fly
the plane and observe if you have any wing wag. If the wing is wagging
on its own, the gyro gain is set too high. Have someone lower your gain
or land and do it yourself.
You
may wish to try increasing the gain
5-10 % at a time and observe both the wing wag as well as the
responsiveness of the airplane. If you bump the gain too high, the wing
will "WAG" on it's own. Too much slop or too much gain and this wag can
become uncontrollable or unflyable. Test it's roll rate at 50% stick as
well as 100% stick. Verify your roll rates are satisfactory. In the
case of RATE ONLY gyros, often the higher the gain, the slower the roll
rate. With some HH/Rate gyros, even in rate mode, the roll rates may
not always be reduced (depends upon the gyro).
Now try and fly on a windy day :)
It is advisable that you try your first gyro installation on a smaller less expensive (or easily repairable airplane).
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