Boeing P-12

[jetfool]

Davegee,
Fantastic! What are your low rates set at on your Spektrum for ail., Ele., and rudder? I want the best chance for success I can get. That's 2 reports I've heard that the ail. are touchy. My props are supposed to arrive Monday per USPS and this week should be the test flight if weather agrees. Seems pretty sturdy and glad you landed without damage.
Best Regards, Rex

P. S. starting to get cold here so the road to Toledo '27 w/F-4 Phantom will continue shortly.

[davegee]

Davegee,
Fantastic! What are your low rates set at on your Spektrum for ail., Ele., and rudder? I want the best chance for success I can get. That's 2 reports I've heard that the ail. are touchy. My props are supposed to arrive Monday per USPS and this week should be the test flight if weather agrees. Seems pretty sturdy and glad you landed without damage.
Best Regards, Rex

P. S. starting to get cold here so the road to Toledo '27 w/F-4 Phantom will continue shortly.

There is another thing that might have come up. The right aileron "twitched" a few times yesterday and again at the field. And when I powered it up in the workshop, it twitched momentarily again. That's entirely possible that it did this while I was flying today. It's not just a twitching but sometimes a spasmodic movement and then freezing in place for a few moments while the left aileron responds normall. I'm going to try again tomorrow morning, but if it twitches again, I'll ground it and talk to MRC about what might be going on with it. Could be the servo, wiring, or could be my Spektrum receiver that I have not used for a long time. We'll find out.

For what it's worth, I have aileron ratesin low: 70% 10% expo. Medium rates 90% with 15% expo. Elevator is 90% with 6% expo in low, Medium rates are 96% and16% expo, High rates are the same as medium rates. For rudder I have low rates of 68% and 10% expo, Medium rates of 75% and 20% expo, and high rates of80% and 20% expo.

For the above settings I tried to use the throws in mm up and down per page 13 of the operations manual for the airplane. Yours might vary a little from what I have. I'm hoping to have a good flight if possible tomorrow, provided the twitching of the right aileron doesn't come up again. That is worrisome.

Yes, before you know it you'll need to get busy on that F-4 for the contest!

Cheers

Davegee

[Grossman56]

Hey Rex, Robin Olds
(In the background) needs a home!?

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

[jetfool]

Grossman,
My Freewing F-4 is a Navy F-4B but my JHH F-4 will be Robin Olds that's in the AirForce Museum. I purchased Chris Wolfe's cockpit and 2 full body pilots last winter but won't start on it for a while. Plane is in primer just needs finished and detailed. Will hire you to paint them when that time comes. Nothing looks better than a DAN the MAN PILOT.
Best Regards, Rex

[jetfool]

Davegee,
Thanks for the info on settings. I have mine at the manual setting but will re-check and lower to yours. The manual states to test fly on high rates but I'm Leary of that. I can always land (crash) straight ahead in the hay field but if it's twitchy, I never know how it lands.
I would contact Motion before I flew it again. Never a good thing if they spasm. They have always answered my questions truthfully and sent a new motor and esc free of charge once. Gold star company IMHO.
Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

Davegee,
Thanks for the info on settings. I have mine at the manual setting but will re-check and lower to yours. The manual states to test fly on high rates but I'm Leary of that. I can always land (crash) straight ahead in the hay field but if it's twitchy, I never know how it lands.
I would contact Motion before I flew it again. Never a good thing if they spasm. They have always answered my questions truthfully and sent a new motor and esc free of charge once. Gold star company IMHO.
Best Regards, Rex

Good advice, Rex, and I concur. I have flown a number of biplanes over the years, and this was the first one that was so erratic, even when you count the wind and turbulence I had yesterday. I have the plane in my truck along with my P-51D HHH for a trip out to the field later this morning, but I will probably at least do some ground and taxi tests to get more information on it for MRC. It could be an issue in the wiring, the servo itself, or the receiver that I have had in my workshop and was previously flown on another plane some time ago.

Hopefully we'll get some good results as to what is going on with it now, how to fix it, and then to fly it with some confidence that it will perform in a positive manner like the rest of the airplanes I've bought from them over the years.

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

Good advice, Rex, and I concur. I have flown a number of biplanes over the years, and this was the first one that was so erratic, even when you count the wind and turbulence I had yesterday. I have the plane in my truck along with my P-51D HHH for a trip out to the field later this morning, but I will probably at least do some ground and taxi tests to get more information on it for MRC. It could be an issue in the wiring, the servo itself, or the receiver that I have had in my workshop and was previously flown on another plane some time ago.

Hopefully we'll get some good results as to what is going on with it now, how to fix it, and then to fly it with some confidence that it will perform in a positive manner like the rest of the airplanes I've bought from them over the years.

Cheers

Davegee

Hi Rex: I had a good morning to fly, very light wind down the runway. I did not have trouble with the previous twitchy aileron, but the settings I have and the short coupling of this little airplane make it impossible for me to fly it. Never got it off the ground this morning, despite several attempts. I did get four good flights with my Flightline P-51D HHH and they went well. Did one fuel tank drop which worked great.

I'm going to take a step back from this one, now. Unless I can get a winning combination of settings for my transmitter to fly it normally for me, I'm basically done with this airplane. It is for sale if anyone wants to buy it, within driving distance of northwest WY or that area.

Good luck with your airplane. I'm sure it Can be flown, but it is beyond me at this point. I'll stick to larger jet and prop warbirds.

Cheers

Davegee

[jetfool]

Sorry to hear that, Dave. Wish your outcome had been better. I will take it very slow and may do what your doing at the end. Rex

[davegee]

Sorry to hear that, Dave. Wish your outcome had been better. I will take it very slow and may do what your doing at the end. Rex

Beautiful plane, but just didn't work for me. Good luck with yours.

Best,

Davegee

[tab28682]

I had to have the P-12 the moment I saw it. A very attractive and rare “off the beaten path” RC model.

A very well done little model. Great colors and markings. Nice details. Easy to assemble.

I have had great flying experiences with this model. It is a delightful flyer. I used the suggested throws and CG with no issues.

Given that it is a small short coupled biplane, it does react fairly quickly to the controls. Still a great flyer for me.

After the first flight, I felt it could benefit from a little aileron differential to counteract the little bit of adverse yaw it exhibited, since I separated the ailerons and added differential electronically. This was worth doing. The model can also easily be flown without th the pilot coordinating the turns, if you so wish.

I had it at the annual BEST electric fly in in New Waverly, TX the first weekend of October. Lots of positive comments.

[jetfool]

Been to our field twice to get my test flight in and first-time wind got up so flight was canceled, second time this Monday my buddy thought it was a little tail heavy so left for another day. Believe I have it balanced per manual, plan to try Saturday. I built a c/g balancer to balance this bi-plane and found it needed a little more weight in the nose, short coupled its tricky to balance with fingers and I'd rather be nose heavy than tail.
Fingers Crossed, Rex

[Grossman56]

Wes has a good video regarding the CG, comments about the airplane on the MRC website seem to indicate a 1 oz nose weight. I had the same problem with my first 1600mm FL Spitfire. She ended up needing quite a bit of weight in the nose to tame her down

Whereas my second Spitty was right on the money out of the box. This could be same the same case with the P 12. I know Dave has had nothing but trouble with his, yet some report it flying very well. Chris Wolf needs to chime in here.

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

[jetfool]

Grossman56,
I contacted Chris about this plane with touchy aileron movement. Said he flys with 100% throws on everything. He did state I might want to tone down my low rates til I fly it. I hope he does comment here. It's beautiful airplane
Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

Hi Rex: I haven't totally given up on flying the P-12 yet. I rechecked the CG, servo and control surface throws, etc., yesterday, and will probably give it at least one other try before I scrap flying it plans. I hope it works, it is a beautiful airplane and deserves to be in the air!

Cheers

Davegee

[jetfool]

Hang in there Dave. I have over 4 oz. in the cowl to get a slightly nose down on my c/g set-up. 4s 2200 45c battery all the way forward. How much ail throw do you have? Thought I'd set all 3 rates on ail. so I can start at low and progress up. Hoping Saturday I have a good test flight. A beautiful plane hate to wreck it.
Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

Hi Rex: My control settings continue to be exactly the same as those recommended in the manual. I did get that one flight off that lasted about 3-4 minutes a few weeks ago, but the last two times I tried to fly with fairly calm winds, it felt like it was "glued" to the runway and when I started getting enough speed that a takeoff "might" be possible, it started sashaying back and forth and I had to abort the takeoff. I think the short coupling (short fuselage) to the control surfaces makes it a problem without a gyro. I might get a gyro to put in it if I continue trying to fly it. The guy on MRC (I forget his name but trust what he says) flies it on the video with a gyro and he seemed to get fairly good performance with it in the videos he did.

Good luck if you try to fly this weekend or early next week. I'll be very interested to hear how it went, hopefully Good!

Cheers

Davegee