Special Exhibit:
Citizen-Ship 4 Stick
(Click on any of the images
on this page to see a larger version)
This is
Citizen-Ship’s 4 stick digital proportional. It is
autographed by Ed Hughey, long time Citizen-Ship engineer
and executive. Yes, he’s the same Ed Hughey famous for
Hughey Boats and his world record RC hydroplanes.
This was the prototype for a line of 4 stick proportional systems Citizen-Ship ultimately decided not to produce. It may also be Citizen-Ship’s first digital radio as explained below.
In the initial years of proportional, many manufacturers considered producing 4 stick models in addition to the customary 1 and 2 stick versions. The logic driving 4 stick systems was that they could be made to closely resemble the dominant reed sets and tap a new market of entrenched reed flyers who could be lured to proportional with a transitional transmitter having controls in all the familiar places.
Thus, 4 stick transmitters have rudder and aileron sticks on the upper right hand side, moving left and right only, and elevator and motor sticks on the left hand side, moving up and down only. This enabled reed flyers’ thumbs to operate the same function at the same location on the transmitter, only with full sliding proportional control instead of “bang-bang” flipper switches. Citizen-Ship’s famous owner Vernon MacNabb revealed his thinking on this in the Jan/Feb 64 Grid Leaks when Citizen-Ship was striving to produce its first proportional. He said “…if it were not for the habit-conditioned reed flyers, ailerons and elevators should be on one stick…”
Other 4 Stick Proportionals
Although nationally advertised we believe very few Astroguides were ever produced. It is likely that Klinetroincs’ failure to generate the expected sales to reed flyers was a major factor in the decision of other manufacturers’ to abandon their 4 stick programs at the prototype or drawing phase.
In the Jul/Aug 63 A.M. it was reported that F&M was also working on an “experimental” 4 stick proportional. The editors recognized that this could make it easier for reed flyers to transition to proportional, but wondered whether it could be “true proportional” since the 4 sticks “would have to be thumbed like reed levers”.
Oddities
The first mystery about Citizen-Ship’s 4 stick is that the elevator and throttle controls are side by side. Reed sets including Citizen-Ship reeds, had motor and elevator controls above and below each other. Ten and twelve channel rigs would have an elevator trim lever side by side with the elevator control, but not motor control.
The larger mystery is the timeline. No one recalls when this prototype was made. Other known programs to produce 4 channel proportionals date to the early analog days. This transmitter is digital.
One big clue is Citizen-Ship’s SL-6 reed transmitter which was introduced just 8 months prior to its first production proportional, the APT. Compare these product announcement pictures for the two products (Mar 64 RCM and Jan-Feb 65 GL):
The resemblance
is so striking as to defy co-incidence. It appears
Citizen-Ship’s first proportional system, commercially
produced in large numbers, was itself a reed transitional
hybrid or mini-version of the 4 stick reed-imitating
proportional. Notice how the motor control is in the same
position and uses the same reed-type switch with the same
labeling, the rudder control is in the same position on the
right with the same labeling and the elevator control is in
the same position on the left with the same labeling. Other
2-3 channel proportionals combined rudder/aileron and
elevator on a single stick. To top it all off, the cases
used for the APT proportional transmitter and the SL-6 reed
transmitter are the same.
Citizen-Ship’s first digital system was not announced until
June 1966. By then, stick modes were well established in
the industry and there should have been no further
consideration of 4 stick reed imitations. So how can this
transmitter be explained? One possibility is that it was
made much earlier. It has the same sticks as Citizen-Ship’s
first production proportional, the analog “APT”. By the
time Citizen-Ship announced the APT in January, 1965,
digital systems were on the ascendancy and said by RCM and
others to be the future of radio control.
Vernon MacNabb and his engineers were so competent and
attuned to industry trends that they could well have been
working on a digital system at the time their first analog
was introduced, or even earlier. If so, this transmitter
may have been Citizen-Ship’s first digital proportional and
would naturally have used the same stick, gimbals, pots and
reedlike control layout as their first production
proportional.
This could also explain why the 4 stick proportional is
housed in a Citizen-Ship 10 channel TMS reed case instead
of the smaller cases used for the various Citizen-Ship
proportional transmitters (the APT cases being smaller that
the DPT, but all being smaller than this prototype). In
addition, the sticks are about 1/8” shorter than APT
sticks. This may have been a deliberate shortening of APT
sticks to make them more “reed-like”, or it may indicate
this prototype was built before the APTs (i.e. before
Citizen-Ship had supplies of APT sticks and other parts to
use on this prototype). Moreover, while this prototype uses
the earlier APT type sticks, gimbals and pots (not those
seen on later Citizen-Ship digital sets) two gimbal
components (the pot collar and spring stop) which look
identical to their counterparts on the APT are made of raw
steel not silver (cadmium?) plated steel as found on even
the first production APTs. This seems to indicate that it
preceded the first Citizen-Ship analog proportional.
Similarly the “L” shaped spring engager on each prototype
gimbal looks the same as those on APT gimbals but is
actually 1/16” shorter with a different indentation
opposite its curve. If the 4 stick was made after the APT
was in production why wouldn’t its builder simply take
standard APT parts out of the bin, instead of custom
machining nearly identical parts with differences serving
no functional purpose?
It is easier to understand this if you imagine the
prototype 4 stick was produced before
the
APT and the availability of APT parts. Its gimbals would
then have been the model which was closely (but not
exactly) copied for the APT.
Another mystery is whether our 4 stick is actually analog
or digital. Two Citizen-Ship engineers at first proclaimed
it digital then had their doubts. To help resolve all these
issues we sent a set of internal and external pictures to
Ed Rutherford. Rutherford is recognized as one of the
preeminent experts in the world on vintage RC radios. After
examining the pictures Ed advised that this prototype is a
digital and probably predates Citizen-Ship’s APT. He noted
it may be a tone digital – a hybrid concept attempted by
other manufacturers without success. Research continues.
