Official Black Horse Spitfire 2000mm ARF Discussion Thread

[timmybeetle]

Hi

I own V1 of this Spitfire from BH.
It flies very well, mine came with air retracts, but I replaced them by electric.
Mine I fly with a DLE30 but also bought me one from a friend which is electric, with the same electric landing gear installed.
Compared to the other brand I can make any comment on that because I don't have them in my fleet.
I looked at Toprc but you have to buy LG separately and original cost a lot of dollars....

Anyway for me de BH is a great deal for the money.

Regards Hans

[dsa44]

So are you guys pretty happy with the BH? I was looking for a new spitty, and compared to the offerings from seagull, phoenix and toprc, this looks nice, but kinda pricey. Is it worth the premium? Thx

[Cfreuen20]

How does the wrap hold up in sunlight?

It definitely wrinkles, I would say quite easily. I went over it once with a heat gun and it's holding up for now.

[Fett vision]

How does the wrap hold up in sunlight?

[Cfreuen20]

I finally had time to get my second attempt at flying this plane. I made sure to set the center of gravity a good 12 mm further forward, and I suspected that the planes desire to nose over was related to some binding on the main wheels, so I said everything up a little better this time and outside of an almost disastrous take off that was completely my fault, everything went great and it flew easy as can be. I got three flights in, and they were smooth and easy. When this plane is actually balanced correctly, landings are simple. My preferred set up at the moment is zero take off flaps and half flaps for landing. I had half laps on my first flight for takeoff, and it lifted off the ground at about 15 mph it caught me off guard and fortunately the motor had enough thrust to pull it through any potential stalls.

[Cfreuen20]

Well it seems my experience was unique.

Timmy, thank you for the advice. I have been flying warbirds since I was a teen ager in the mid 90s, I use those same techniques. Maybe nerves got me, I know I was too aggressive on the throttle. I've avoided flying it again because life has been so busy, but I'll get back out there and see if it handles a little better. I'll have the aura turned on next time.

[jasmiller]

How did you feel about your flight? I will ask you the same question, did you feel that yours flew tail heavy, and if you were to move the CG forward do you feel yours would have a tendency to nose over?

It balanced perfect. The NGH four stroke needs to be broken in well before your first flight. I thought the characteristics were great.

[timmybeetle]

Wow you nailed that landing. Beautiful greaser well done!

Thanks

Practice practice and practice more.....

grts Hans

[Aros]

Wow you nailed that landing. Beautiful greaser well done!

[timmybeetle]

Hello


Considering you have flown yours numerous times, do you feel like you had to rake the landing gear forward at all? I have flown mine once, and only one time. It had a pretty bad tendency to nose over, and it flew tail heavy. If I shift CG forward more, I'm afraid it will nose over every time I give it the slightest bit of throttle on the ground.


I flew it a lot, my LG is build in stock.
I have no nose overs at all, my CG is at 100mm from LE.
It's a tail dragger, so when taxing you keep elevator up.
On take off roll keep elevator up and when gaining speed I gently let elevator down, plane is level on ground building up speed and just a bit up and I'm airborne.

It takes a lot of practice before you can do it, I practice it on another plane before I flew my spitfire.

Recently I bought a second one elektro from a friend, and same procedure as with my Gas Spitfire.

Landing

https://youtu.be/d07mm1Onkak

sadly I don't have a video of take off.

This is video of my practice spitfire

https://youtu.be/RWoztcEOSug

grts Hans

---

[Cfreuen20]

Maiden today. NGH 38cc.

How did you feel about your flight? I will ask you the same question, did you feel that yours flew tail heavy, and if you were to move the CG forward do you feel yours would have a tendency to nose over?

[Cfreuen20]

[QUOTE=timmybeetle;n232186]
Building,
Keep posting some more pics,
I build also BH136 Spitfire, see my build on RCgroups link posted in previous post.
I use a DLE30, but to set my CG I needed almost 1kg lead.
So tail should be as light as possible, if I new it before I removed as much balsa,plywood from tail.....
Flying it is easy it flies almost as a trainer, it has a lot of lift.
I converted to electric retracts, using only struts and wheels from kit.
Only after some flight I had a hard landing and stock wheels broke, plastic is not that strong.
Good luck with building this beautiful plane.
grts Hans

ps I see that struts looking better quality than in my KIT


Considering you have flown yours numerous times, do you feel like you had to rake the landing gear forward at all? I have flown mine once, and only one time. It had a pretty bad tendency to nose over, and it flew tail heavy. If I shift CG forward more, I'm afraid it will nose over every time I give it the slightest bit of throttle on the ground.

[jasmiller]

Maiden today. NGH 38cc.

[dblmars]

Hi Alpha, is there, or will there soon be an electric retract option coming for this BH Spitfire...? Year's ago I went strictly electric RC, so pneumatics are basically useless to me...

[Carm]

I have been following this thread with great interest, great to see the improvements in the Black Horse models. Will these models becoming to your European warehouse as I live in the UK and want the Spitfire first then the Corsair. I will be using the NGH38cc with auto start when Ican get hold of the model.

[Cfreuen20]

Congrats on a successful maiden! Bringing her home in one piece is the sweetest reward. What level was the Pucker Factor at takeoff?

Pucker factor was at an 8 or 9 before takeoff, off the charts during the extremely short roll out (especially when it came a fraction of an inch from nosing over, I can't believe the prop didn't strike) and then I barely remember it leaping off the ground and almost stalling. We did a couple of exaggerated ups and downs as I struggled to keep it under control while gaining altitude. I had to fight a pretty severe tendency to roll, it required a surprising amount of aileron trim. At one point, I mentally accepted that I was going to crash it. I had no choice but to engage the gyro.

Have others had a similar experience? - the factory CG seems to be as far aft as is flyable. But if you move the CG forward, it wants to nose over at the slightest bit of throttle on taxi. It leaves an incredibly slim margin for error.

Maybe it wasn't tail heavy. Maybe the pitchy-ness was the elevator throws, combined with using the fastest and strongest servos I've ever put in a plane, while using less expo than I typically use. I'll play around with the setup.

[Aros]

Congrats on a successful maiden! Bringing her home in one piece is the sweetest reward. What level was the Pucker Factor at takeoff?

[Cfreuen20]

I didn't weigh mine yet. It's been sitting in the garage, i taxi'd it at the airfield a few weekends ago, it wants to go at 1/4 throttle. I still need to get the cowl sorted out, but i need parts from the hobby shop which hasn't been open. I supposed I could get them online, I've just been busy. I'll manage to get that weight in hopefully soon.

No worries, I managed to get the maiden in this morning and that scorpion motor was so damn powerful - it left the ground with ease at half throttle. It behaved horribly when I got an airborne, it flew like it was really tail heavy even though I bounced it with the provided CG tool. When I was taxiing around, it seemed like it wanted to knows over so I scooted the batteries back a half an inch. I don't think that was enough to make a huge difference, but maybe it was. When it was in the air they wanted to roll right really bad and it was flying like a bronco, and I honestly thought I was going to dump it so I broke one of my personal rules - I turned on the gyro during a maiden. Fortunately the aura ate is a great little gyro and it smoothed the plane right out. I managed to get five or six minutes of some nice looking flying, and my landing went okay although I had a little bounce that twisted my strut loose. I didn't have the right tool to fix it, so that was my only flight of the day. The plane is in one piece, so I can't complain. I'm going to ditch the sound system, it didn't do enough for me and it's a way to save like half a pound or so. Cheers.

[sfmadmax]

My flying weight comes in around 18.5 to 19 lb, how does that compare to what others have gotten? I expected this thing to be around 17, but with all this Corona virus stuff forcing me to wait I just kept adding crap. Idle hands.

I didn't weigh mine yet. It's been sitting in the garage, i taxi'd it at the airfield a few weekends ago, it wants to go at 1/4 throttle. I still need to get the cowl sorted out, but i need parts from the hobby shop which hasn't been open. I supposed I could get them online, I've just been busy. I'll manage to get that weight in hopefully soon.

[Cfreuen20]

My flying weight comes in around 18.5 to 19 lb, how does that compare to what others have gotten? I expected this thing to be around 17, but with all this Corona virus stuff forcing me to wait I just kept adding crap. Idle hands.