that this can have the servo operating at its
absolute speed limit, with the motor constantly
reversing direction back and forth to make minor
corrections.
Certainly smackdown 3D flying makes high
demands on the tail servo, particularly with
high-speed tail-first maneuvers like tail slides
and backward hurricanes. Understand that
inflicting that sort of torture on a servo comes
at a cost. The problem can be compounded
these days because the latest tail servos are so
freakishly fast that they can stand up to very
high gain settings without having tail wag set
in, particularly on a larger heli with greater tail
mass. Remember that, no matter how fast the
servo may be, having the motor constantly
reversing direction at high speed is going to
generate constant current spikes, which are
going to generate heat. If you insist on running
very high gain settings, I’d urge you to use a
high-quality servo with a coreless motor, as the
much lighter coreless rotor means that there’s
less rotational mass to deal with. But given the
amazing performance of today’s tail servos, I’d
urge you to think hard about how high a gain
Tail gain can be selected in flight by adjusting the
gain setting on your transmitter. If you have to use
high gain settings for demanding maneuvers, like
tail slides, you can assign a higher gain setting for
3D flight mode and a lower setting for idle up. Don’t
work your tail servo any harder than is absolutely
necessary.
setting you really need; rather than starting
at the top and backing off, you might instead
start low and work your way up until tail hold
meets your expectations, whether for scalelike
forward flight or for plummeting tail slides. In the
best-case scenario, a tail-servo failure means
an emergency autorotation, but given that the
tail rotor may be at high pitch at the moment of
failure, a serious crash is likely. Don’t work your
hardware any harder than you have to.
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