AIR - Understanding the flight modes (Mode 1, Mode 2)

 MCM Blog

Understanding the flight modes

When looking at the characteristics of a « Ready To Fly » kit, or on a transmitter set, you have already seen these at the end of the product description : Mode 1 (or M1), and Mode 2 (or M2).

The "mode" actually indicates how the controls are sorted out on the sticks of the transmitter. These are intuitive on a car transmitter, but this isn’t the case for the planes, gliders, helicopters and drones where both sticks can do several functions.

Let’s take a look at the basics first.

Fixed wings (planes, gliders, …)
Throttle: The throttle controls the speed of the engine, and the more throttle the faster the engine goes. Whether you're flying electric or gas more throttle means the propeller blades (or ducted fan) pushes more air meaning your craft goes faster and/or generates more lift.
Elevator: Elevators are the horizontal flaps on the tail that cause a plane to point (or pitch) up and down. Both elevators (left of the rear vertical fin and right of it) operate together, moving up or down together.
Rudder: On the rear vertical fin is the rudder which allows you to control yaw, or the craft's deviation from directly forward motion.
Ailerons: Most of the work of a turn is accomplished by using one control surface on each wing, together referred to as the ailerons. Making one side's aileron go up makes the other side's go down.

Helicopters and Drones
Longitudinal cyclic: This is the command to tilt the model forward or backward.
Rotation around the pitch axis is controlled. It corresponds to the "depth" of the fixed-wing models.
Lateral cyclic: This is the command to tilt sideways model to the right or left.
Rotation is controlled around the roll axis. The lateral cyclic is the "Wings" function of fixed-wing models.
Collective Pitch: This is the command that varies in a comprehensive manner the angle of incidence of the blades of the helicopter with a rotor collective pitch. It does not concern fixed propellers nor the multirotors. The variation of the pitch allows you to rise or fall vertically.
Tail: This is the command that allows you to rotate the nose of the model to the left or to the right. On a conventional helicopter, the said rear rotor "tail" which allows rotations. On helicopter rotors or multirotor drones a differential rotational speed as the rotation of the rotors is obtained. The tail is the steering of a fixed-wing model.
Gas: Helicopter collective pitch, the throttle and the collective pitch are both actuated by the same shaft, an electronic mixer ensuring the transmission of orders adapted to two distinct paths to the receiver. Helicopter or fixed pitch multirotor, gas command directly to control the altitude.

The division of orders

On the transmitter, there are four ways to divide these commands on both sleeves.
Mode 1, Mode 2 but rarely also Mode 3 & Mode 4. These are the "modes" of steering. The most common are the modes 1 and 2. In Europe, the Mode 1 was historically used by the majority of drivers, but recently we notice that the Mode 2 is the most used because it is more intuitive for beginners.

MODE 1

Planes
Elevator and Rudder on the left stick, Throttle and Ailerons on the right stick.

Helicopters
Longitudinal cyclic and Anticouple on the left stick, Throttle/Collectif pitch and lateral cyclic on the right stick.

MODE 2

Planes
Throttle and Rudder on the left stick, Elevator and Rudder on the right stick.

Helicopters
Throttle/Collectif pitch and Anticouple on the left stick, Cyclique longitudinal and lateral cyclic on the right stick.