Thumbs?

[neverland]

If just FEELS unnatural, until you have accomplished it. Then it feels QUITE natural, thank you - in MY case, MUCH more natural, because instead of "banging" the sticks around, I am in control of every nanometer of movement. MUCH more precise.

im not disputing that, and the same goes for thumbs only. and i dont understand why 'banging the sticks' inaccuracy has got associated with the thumb only method. personally, i seem to have a massive amount of very fine control with my thumbs and have never felt i needed more. if i have a 'bottleneck' in fine control the problem is not with my thumbs, but my brain!!! IMO its far more important to learn a maneuver well and recall it accurately than what particular digits you use on the sticks. all this controversy to which is best is making me think different people have varying amounts of dexterity and suppleness in different parts of their hands and naturally gravitate to one or the other as it suits them best. i doubt if its as simple as saying one way is better for everyone.

[Sonixs]

Who knew that a post relating to appendages and their effective use in controlling RC machines could get so waylaid.

This 1 dimensional environment we communicate and share knowledge via conveys only black and white, no body language or expression. It's easy to get our backs up if WE choose to read the negative into some bodies choice of words.

We're all right, all of the time, it's called individualism. The Earth is our airfield and Helifreak is our language, lets play nice lest we make an enemy of a fellow pilot through vowels and consonants.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[clicky]

Originally Posted by Sonixs

Who knew that a post relating to appendages and their effective use in controlling RC machines could get so waylaid.

Are you trying to reduce importance of our 'appendages'? Excuse me but you are talking about opposing thumbs - thing that caused us being different to,... oh, well, other animals!

- - -

Yeah - I enjoyed well balanced discussion until moment it started being personal and people stop seeing things other than polarised black or white only.

Originally Posted by Sonixs

We're all right, all of the time, it's called individualism. The Earth is our airfield and Helifreak is our language, lets play nice lest we make an enemy of a fellow pilot through vowels and consonants.

+1! But I think you've missed one more aspect, which, luckily, hasn't been used in this thread too much: emoticons!

- signed, all thumbs flier!

[Smok1n]

On topic : The bottom line up front? You learned how to fly a freakin' helicopter my friend , you can do just about anything you set your mind to!

Cavete carentia brevitatis (Beware, long-winded story follows):

I'm a Novice. I joined a club a few years ago so I could get help learning to fly, setup helis, meet like-minded people, etc. Very few of the better pilots in the club used the pinch method, but I had already been learning with that method for months so I stuck with it. As a beginner, I just felt I got more control than with thumbs. For reasons unimportant to this story I dropped out of RC.
After a nearly 2 year hiatus I've gotten back into flying and decided to jump right in with thumbs. I suppose the long break made it easier since I was practically starting from scratch, but after only a few flights I felt pretty comfortable using thumbs.
All that said, I'm not sure which method is going to be the way to go, but I find I can switch back and forth between the two methods for now. What would you call that? Ambisticksterous? Anyway, I'll probably have to stick (no pun intended) to one or the other if I'm ever going to get beyond novice skills!

Note generous use of emoticons and extranious punctuation!!!!

[Sonixs]

Originally Posted by Smok1n

On topic : The bottom line up front? You learned how to fly a freakin' helicopter my friend , you can do just about anything you set your mind to!

+1
No matter what you use to fly your heli, you're flying and that's what counts.

Originally Posted by Smok1n

Ambisticksterous?
Note generous use of emoticons and extranious punctuation!!!!

In the language of Helifreak I would have to say yes!!

Pinch is THUMBS with assistance

[SixthArmy]

My 2 buds, who are much more experienced, fly w/ their fingers holding the levers like pencils. I'm all thumbs it feels more natural to me. It's prolly just personal preference.

[clicky]

Oh, am I sticking to the topic? (on many levels! )

[timjz]

I am all thumbs, pinching doesn't feel natural.

[NSFlyer12]

Originally Posted by timjz

I am all thumbs, pinching doesn't feel natural.

Same here. I find when I try to pinch and my ring fingers are in between the switches I sometimes hit those.

[Jon Sands]

Tareq Alsaadi is all thumbs....

Bert Kammerer is all thumbs...

But you're right, pinching is superior

[neverland]

if thats not sarcastic, it should be

[Jon Sands]

it was definitely sarcastic, I'm in the thumbs club as well. I think it comes from growing up on thumb based video games and having no issue with thumb resolution. If you need to coordinate more than one finger to get usable accuracy, hey, the more power to you

[clicky]

I don't think it has anything to do with ability to fly. Both methods are ok, even though pinch seems to be more accepted as proper way of learning it.

People who already started with thumbs and never bothered converting to pinch progressed quite nicely. Had they started with pinch at the beginning they probably would as good as they are now...

Almost same (but not quite same) goes with Mode 1 vs Mode 2. Mode 2 is definitively way to fly helicopters, but that doesn't mean there are no good Mode 1 flyers.

I am all thumbs and Mode 1 (not counting myself as a good flyer though), but first thing I did when I decided to teach my kids any RC skills was to get Mode 2 radio and I constantly remind them to use pinch instead of thumb method. For small thumbs they have it makes perfect sense...

So, there's no point trying to invalidate any of these two, but in my opinion starters should look into going with pinch method.

Back to the topic of this thread: I agree with

Originally Posted by Aeolus1

Whatever your use to now, stick to that

even though for bmc76 trying pinch is not necessarily bad thing to do...

[rcav8or]

doubled...darn phone!

[rcav8or]

Originally Posted by Jon Sands

Tareq Alsaadi is all thumbs....

Bert Kammerer is all thumbs...

But you're right, pinching is superior

Yeah, just think how good they COULD be!!

[ArchmageAU]

Originally Posted by Sonixs

Pinch is THUMBS with assistance

+1

I need all the "assistance" I can get :-) THUMBS and all (which is why I pinch).

I encourage any new flyer to TRY pinch. If it suits you, great; if not, so be it. In the end, fly what is comfortable.

[Tukmol]

Nitro

[Teeyo]

Hey bmc, are you officially switched over to pinching then or have you gone back to thumbs?

Me personally, thumbs are what work for me. It just feels very natural and I have very good control with my thumbs. I have tried pinching on the sim just to try it and it felt very awkward for me.

It all comes down to personal preference and what feels more natural. However, I would think thumbs would have a slight advantage though because you require less fine muscle motor units to move the stick. You are using four fingers in pinching rather than just two for thumbs and it takes more coordination to get the movements right.