Radio System FAQ

Your question is actually a fairly complex one and difficult to answer. The 9Z has a huge range of features and capabilities beyond your 8U—or any other radio currently on the market.

The largest difference between your 8U and the new 9Z WC2 radio (and all 9Z series radios) is a feature known as conditions. A condition is essentially an additional complete model memory available at the flip of a switch. Each model you store can have up to 8 conditions, so you can have 8 completely or partially different set ups all available in a single aircraft each at a flip of a switch (or several other set up means.) (Note that there are a few primary things you cannot change from one condition to another, such as stick assignment for the 4 primary channels.)

While the average sport pilot may not have a lot of use for this incredibly powerful feature, for those flying complex scale aircraft, competition aircraft, combat or fun fly aircraft, the possibilities are almost endless. For example, a giant scale tail dragger may have a condition set up for take off with flaps dropped, retracts down, gyro on, engine at low idle, onboard ignitors hot, etc. After take off on the flip of a switch gear is up, flaps come up, elevator goes to low rate, throttle goes to high idle, onboard glow is dimmed, etc. These are just 2 condition set ups for one aircraft. The various combinations are far too many to mention.

Another asset of the 9Z is the ability to assign essentially any function to any knob, slider or switch on the transmitter. This allows you to set features wherever makes the most sense for your personal setup preferences and flying styles. (Again, these set ups can be different in each condition within the model.)

This added complexity does come at a price, however. The 9Z is more complex to use because of the broad span of available features. However, common settings most modelers will use (such as primary surfaces assigned to the normal 4 positions on the gimbals) are predone for you, and from there the other decisions are up to you! The radio still has ailevator, flaperon, flap trim, elevon, elevator-to-flap, and other preset functions already set up and still fully supports acro, heli and sailplane.

Another nice feature of the new 9Z WC2 is that here in the U.S. the transmitter is being sold 'alone'. (That is to say, transmitter, TX battery, charger, RX battery, case, switch, DSC cord—no module, no RX, no servos.) This way you can reuse the equipment you already have, helping bring the cost of owning this incredibly powerful radio into your reach.

If you use digital servos, the 9Z WC2 adds yet another advantage. The WC2 has an accelerated frame rate around center stick on the primary surface controls. That means that your digital servos will respond faster with the WC2 than any other radio in the world! (Analog servos' frame rates are too slow to take advantage of this new feature.)

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