I got a wealth of experience today flying my Zero with a 2.4 gHz throttle. First, I flew with my transmitter handle, and the very first thing I learned was not to use a dry cell battery holder on the airplane that was not fully enclosed. One cell kept coming loose, which would of course shut off the radio. Since I live near the flying field, I made a quick trip back to the house and cobbled up a light ply cover for the battery box. It did its job, and the rest of the day there were no more battery issues. My impression of the transmitter handle was that while it worked as planned, it seemed rather cumbersome, and as I think I mentioned before, I would have preferred more trigger movement. The radio I used for the handle has a mechanical switch for the throttle to shift the neutral point from 50% fwd/ 50% reverse to 70% fwd/ 30% reverse. I found that with the 70/30 setting, I never needed to push the trigger to "reverse" except to land. I also observed that not having the radio nearby when starting the engine was inconvenient, and resorted to starting the engine with the radio off so we could move the servo by hand. Speaking of the servo, on the next airplane I will put it on the inboard side of the fuselage to keep it clean. Let's just say that this servo will never rust!
Next, I wanted to try flying with my Spektrum DX2E radio, held in my left hand. As seen in the photo, I simply double sided taped the Spektrum receiver to the airplane, since my other receiver wouldn't communicate with the Spektrum TX. I found that I preferred this setup. The Spektrum TX has more trigger travel, giving a better overall feel. Also, it was much easier to start the engine with the TX in hand. My only complaint about the Spektrum TX was that the throttle was set up for a 50/50 neutral instead of a 70/30 neutral position. I put a light rubber band around the trigger and front of the TX to pull the trigger to low idle, and found this to be a very useable solution.
I am now torn between using the Spektrum radio as-is, or making it into a transmitter handle. The "brain" of the transmitter is smaller than the one on my current transmitter handle, and the throttle feel is better. It may make a more satisfactory transmitter handle. On the other hand, there is a lot to be said for using the radio just as it comes. Maybe if I win the radio in our raffle next month, I'll be able to do both!
Once again, thanks to Phil Dunlap for helping me out with this today. We had an absolutely beautiful day today, yet we were the only two people at the flying field.