Trainer-Student (Buddy Flying) Advanced Settings in OpenTX

[Alois]

Hi
we intend to offer more Buddy Flying in our club.
So I put some work in testing different settings for OpenTX.
The result is a paper with three different types of settings.
They share in common that the settings are stored in the model definition (and not in the basic trainer settings of the radio)
So it is very easy and fast to switch from one student radio to another and also to adapt to a new student radio.
I've tested it on workbench only (cause it's nasty winter weather where I live) but it seems to work.
If you are interested please give it a try.
I would appreciate every feedback or good idea (even it there is a problems I haven't thought of)
Regards Alois

Ps: Keep in mind that I'm not a native English speaking person. (So please apologize any mistakes)


you can find the newest version from 1. February 2025 below

 

[Wayne]

I hope more folks will take a look at what he has come up with as he spent a lot of time and has come up with possibly the best methods to accomplish a smoother training experience for students.

Also, I really hope more and more of us are willing to train new folks. It might be a 6 year old, or it might be a 90 year old. I have had a lot of fun sharing the magic of first flights with many people, and hope to do a lot more in the near future.

If you do some training now, what methods do you like? What has worked well for you, and what has not?

 

[Alois]

I've put together a set of Lua scripts for my examples.
contends: creating logical switches, creating mixers, modify input sources
and a script for each stick to calibrate the students stick. (channel-mapping, weight and offset are written to mixer)
Cause it's using "magic numbers" it does not work for every hardware
(at the moment: it should run on all Frsky radios running OpenTX)
There's also the bin file of a model and a script to make it easy to find out how to do for other radios.

Please read "readme.txt" and "Trainer-Student-Engish.pdf" for details.

(19-Jan-23 Have corrected a bug for Horus version and added x10express)
(20-Jan-23 all Frsky radio with OpenTx should be supported)

If you find any bug please let me know.

 

[Alois]

This new version of scripts has no new functionality.
It was done for program optimization.

It should run now on all Radios with OpenTX that are accessible in Companion 2.3.15.
Additionally it should also run on all Radios with EdgeTX version 2.6.0 or higher.

 

[Alois]

Hello

After one complete season (2 trainers, 5 students, 5 planes) I've finally worked out my favorite version and have done a new lua script.
It is a mix of two of the old versions.
The control of rudders is switched from student to trainer when one of the sticks (ail, ele, rud) is moved.
Control of throttle is handled separately. (Throttle for student when trainer stick is at minimum position.)
There's also a simple way to switch throttle to trainer completely.
And there's a lua script that writes a new lua script to save and recover the calibration of the student radio.
So it's possible to cover different student radios and throttle ON/OFF with a single model.

Please read "readme.txt" and "Trainer-Student-Shortversion-English 2023-10-08" for details.

I appreciate every feedback or good idea (even if there is a problem I haven't thought of)

Regards ChrisOHara

 

[pct06]

Hello

After one complete season (2 trainers, 5 students, 5 planes) I've finally worked out my favorite version and have done a new lua script.
It is a mix of two of the old versions.
The control of rudders is switched from student to trainer when one of the sticks (ail, ele, rud) is moved.
Control of throttle is handled separately. (Throttle for student when trainer stick is at minimum position.)
There's also a simple way to switch throttle to trainer completely.
And there's a lua script that writes a new lua script to save and recover the calibration of the student radio.
So it's possible to cover different student radios and throttle ON/OFF with a single model.

Please read "readme.txt" and "Trainer-Student-Shortversion-English 2023-10-08" for details.

I appreciate every feedback or good idea (even if there is a problem I haven't thought of)

Regards ChrisOHara

Hi Chris

I read your dcuments and discovered you have implemented a security check for BT connection loss. I am trying to implement such check on cable connection but I am facing a strange behaviour (the radio seems to keep the last value after deconnection instead of dropping to 0) : I have described the issue here https://forum.alofthobbies.com/index.php?threads/trainer-student-connection-loss-detection.4444/

Have you ever faced the same issue ?

Thanks

 

[Alois]

Hi Chris

I read your dcuments and discovered you have implemented a security check for BT connection loss. I am trying to implement such check on cable connection but I am facing a strange behaviour (the radio seems to keep the last value after deconnection instead of dropping to 0) : I have described the issue here https://forum.alofthobbies.com/index.php?threads/trainer-student-connection-loss-detection.4444/

Have you ever faced the same issue ?

Thanks

I'm not sure that I can trust my memory in this case.
But I think that was the reason why I didn't check the logical switch with the TRx-value.
Instead I created a mixer with source TRx-value and did use this new channel as source to check in the logical switch.

detailed information in https://forum.alofthobbies.com/index.php?threads/trainer-student-connection-loss-detection.4444/

Please try and leave a notice whether it works or not.

 

[Alois]

After three years of practice I reduced my description and scripts to two versions I actually use.
These are one trainer and one spotter version.
I've reduced complexity. Now trainer and students have always the same settings (no different weights).
The rest are minor optimizations like improving recognition of lost trainer signal.

If you find any problems please let me know.