Official FlightLine RC 1200mm Spitfire Mk.IXc Thread

[Starck Mad]

Good call on not waiting, these Spitfires are going fast, which is very encouraging to see. For the wingspan, scale fidelity, feature set, and price point, I think we've found a nice balance.

I agree Alpha...It's going to be kinda cool having a Spitfire that can handle its natural element (a grass runway) and not nose over. Having that capability and eliminating that frustration may be well worth sacrificing a bit of scale on the gear. Scale is great, but not so much when the plane is on its back...:rolleyes:

[Alpha]

Good call on not waiting, these Spitfires are going fast, which is very encouraging to see. For the wingspan, scale fidelity, feature set, and price point, I think we've found a nice balance.

[dkalwishky]

I screwed around when the P-38 came out and did not preorder it and then regretted that once they were all spoken for. I was very lucky to get one when the shipments came in and I happened to see it go in stock, I jumped on it and ordered it immediately.

I am NOT making that mistake with this gorgeous Spitfire, I just preordered it. Now if I can just not drive myself crazy until Mid June when it ships..... :)

[psustan]

... My favorite one was a request to put 6" wheels on the Freewing F-14.

Now that's funny right there, I don't care who you are, that there is funny.

[VOODOO]

We do our best within reason, as I described yesterday in this thread. But we can't take all the credit because in general wheel size is mostly informed by the plane's scale from the start, which we can't really adjust much. The scale of the plane will largely decide the scale of the wheel. FlightLine, FMS, Dynam, Horizon, etc, no one can escape the laws of Proportion. Most 800mm-980mm planes have similar sized wheels relative to each other which appropriate for that scale of plane. Most 1100mm-1200mm warbirds have right about the same diameter wheels relative to each other, etc, etc, etc. So ultimately "grass capability" is a function of plane size. The larger the plane, the larger its proportional wheel, the greater ratio of wheel height to grass height, the higher grass the plane can tolerate. From a designer's point of view, those wheel dimensions can be tweaked a little, struts can be raked a little, stance can be widened a little, but, unless it's a Cub, there's no way of having say a 4" wheel on a 1200mm tail dragger. I could bore you with force polygons and the equations we run to quantify all this, but that's the basic summary.

Hopefully the balance we've struck with this Spitfire widens its appeal to some of the grass runway crowd.

I was referring to the statement about forward rake primarily, as this seems to make the most difference, but slightly larger wheels within the parameters you mentioned are also helpful.

[Alpha]

Bush wheels on a spit? :D

You'd be surprised the kinds of requests people send me. I have in fact received a request for a 4" wheel on a 1200mm warbird before, I believe it was the Dynam Hurricane. My favorite one was a request to put 6" wheels on the Freewing F-14.

[psustan]

Bush wheels on a spit? :D

[Alpha]

We do our best within reason, as I described yesterday in this thread. But we can't take all the credit because in general wheel size is mostly informed by the plane's scale from the start, which we can't really adjust much. The scale of the plane will largely decide the scale of the wheel. FlightLine, FMS, Dynam, Horizon, etc, no one can escape the laws of Proportion. Most 800mm-980mm planes have similar sized wheels relative to each other which appropriate for that scale of plane. Most 1100mm-1200mm warbirds have right about the same diameter wheels relative to each other, etc, etc, etc. So ultimately "grass capability" is a function of plane size. The larger the plane, the larger its proportional wheel, the greater ratio of wheel height to grass height, the higher grass the plane can tolerate. From a designer's point of view, those wheel dimensions can be tweaked a little, struts can be raked a little, stance can be widened a little, but, unless it's a Cub, there's no way of having say a 4" wheel on a 1200mm tail dragger. I could bore you with force polygons and the equations we run to quantify all this, but that's the basic summary.

Hopefully the balance we've struck with this Spitfire widens its appeal to some of the grass runway crowd.

[VOODOO]

HURRAH for thinking of us who must fly from grass runways!

[Alpha]

Any video yet?

Hi Psustan, welcome to Hobbysquawk! We're processing the Build Video and Flight Video for this newly announced FlightLine 1200mm Spitfire Mk.IXc.

The Build video will show the very quick assembly and how to apply all the decals. For those asking, the black and white stripes on the fuselage are decals the pilot adds. They are not painted on. This gives pilots the option to leave the stripes off, if they're going with another livery of their choice.

The Flight video will be a basic preview of the aircraft's flight handling. At next week's FlightLine Fly-In event, we'll be filming all of you who come over to fly her, and making a fun video montage out of that.

[Alpha]

ok..now youve sold me. looks like its about the scale of the Avios Sea Fury too...how bout the FL Fury? same scale? cause I may be replacing my Avios soon lol

The Sea Fury is 1:9.7 scale, so yes all three of these planes are very close in scale to each other. We can't always get them exactly to a round number, but we try to get close.

[psustan]

Any video yet?

[StormyDog1962]

This is by far one of my favorites of WWII, I had a Hangar9 Version with a 4 Stroke and it was a great flier as the design of this plane lends itself to be one.

[TSHobbies]

By the way, here's a picture of your P-38 and Spitfire :)

The Spitfire is 1:9.4 scale, and the P-38 is 1/9.9 scale... Close enough once they're flying in loose formation in the air.

ok..now youve sold me. looks like its about the scale of the Avios Sea Fury too...how bout the FL Fury? same scale? cause I may be replacing my Avios soon lol

[Starck Mad]

Alpha,

Nice work on this one for sure, and I know all to well how impossible it is to make the perfect plane that is perfectly scale, but flies well as a model. You can get away with that with some planes...like J-3's for instance, but with warbirds it becomes much more difficult. Even with really scale versions of planes like the Durafly they have still taken liberties here and there to make it work as a model. Given what you guys are shooting for with this one I'd say what you fellas have done makes more sense now to get the ground handling where you wanted it.

Love the pic of the P-38 and Spit!

[xplaneguy]

A few more images.

[xplaneguy]

Here's photos taken Feb 21st of this sweet Spitfire and of course, a FlightlineRC product announcement would not be complete without RC Pilot Evelyn proudly displaying the latest offering from Motion RC. :)

[Alpha]

By the way, here's a picture of your P-38 and Spitfire :)

The Spitfire is 1:9.4 scale, and the P-38 is 1/9.9 scale... Close enough once they're flying in loose formation in the air.

[Alpha]

Hi Adam, as you correctly surmised, it's all about Balance. Designing RC planes is more than translating three view drawings of the real airplane into a 3D model --far deeper than that, it involves optimizing the model to have a wide flight envelope in the context of RC and accessible to the widest group of RC potential pilots. The Spitfire requires a balance between scale fidelity and user-friendliness. Dynam's Spitfire's landing gear isn't scale, but it's the least prone to nose-overs. Durafly's Spitfire's landing gear is the most scale, but as you said it's the most prone to nose-overs. With FlightLine's Spitfire, we sought a reasonable middle ground, a balance between form and function for both hard and softer surfaces. After all, scale only goes so far, and nosing over on grass because the wheels are too small or insufficiently raked is neither scale nor fun.

I've flown a giant scale Spitfire, complete with scale landing gear geometry, scale airfoils, scale empennage, and I can tell you it was not pleasant and probably not the kind of ground handling most pilots would want in an everyday model which is supposed to be fun, not stressful.

[Starck Mad]

Beautiful photo, Bajora, nice catch!

Starck Mad, here's an underside shot. The struts move rearward, they aren't 90 degree outboard swinging like a P-51. When viewed head on, the struts sit splayed outward, not 90 degrees to the wing like Dynam (inaccurate).

Thanks for that Alpha...and I'm so not trying to rain on the parade here. I will have both this and the new E flite Spit's. This one is beautiful! I'm relieved the gear isn't as bad as the Dynam...although the gear on the Fliteline does not sweep back into the wing at the correct angle (not enough) and its much too forward...from a scale perspective. I do however...know you guys don't miss a trick. I'm assuming there is a reason for this, and my guess is ground handling. Not a deal breaker by any means. My Durafly is really close to right on with the gear...they got the sweep back angle right and almost put them in the scale placement, but did angle the struts forward to prevent nose overs, but unless the grass is really short...shes going over anyway...and that's with a three point touchdown. I can see this one handling grass much better and I like the bigger size very much.

It's been a great year in the plane department for me I must say, and you guys at MRC have been a big part of that! I got the P-38 I've wanted for years, and its fantastic! I got the Mk1a I've wanted forever, and now thanks to you fellas and E flite/FMS I'll go from no Spitfires worth having (to me) to three in my hanger by August! Just can't get much better...unless somebody does an A-4. Lol. And yes...I'm never letting that go...

SM

Adam