Official FlightLine RC 1600mm F7F-3 Tigercat Thread

[Denniswpb]

Ouch, well I'm sure that hurt your pride! LOL. One other thing I would do while waiting for parts, if you haven't already. is to connect both batteries in Parallel. This way both batteries are feeding both motors at the same time evenly. It comes out of the box where one battery feeds one motor each. Not good for a twin prop airplane. Take a look at the pictures of my Tigercat in #2179 to see what happens when you lose power on a single motor!!

[JustPlaneChris]

I wondered about the separate battery configuration, I'll look into rewiring it. I also was surprised by the really long battery leads. Best practice to avoid ripple current is to extend the motor wires, not the battery wires. But, I guess it works!

Chris

[Necroscope]

Morning Tigercat pilots, has anyone flown using a single 4S 5K 60C pack?

[Evan D]

Same answer as in RCG...

[Evan D]

Well... The battery will work but be marginal in C rating and capacity. Remember that the battery adapter will also consume a little energy. If you decide to do it use short wires at least 12 gauge for the adapter. Do a good full power ground test, not just a quick run up, check for battery sag, hot connectors or hot wires. Keep your first flight very short and check how much you used when you land.

Good luck.

[Grossman56]

Well Damn!! It happened again last week. Perfect take off with a nice shallow climbing left turn on crosswind and the left wing dropped suddenly, and I lost a lot of power. I immediately corrected to the right but had no choice but to go left to avoid trees and try to get it back on the runway. As I turned back left, it rolled in! When I got it back on the bench, everything was still connected even though both wings were cracked, and the fuselage nose was pretty crunched. I put the battery back in and all the flight controls worked fine. When I spooled up the motors after removing the props, that's when I discovered the issue. The left motor thew a magnet and obviously took a big duce while climbing out on crosswind!! I happened so quick and dropping fast right toward the trees I didn't have time to think of what was going wrong at the time. Others at the field who were watching also started it looked as though the left motor had an issue.
Ordered a new fuselage, motor, props, hubs, and nose gear door and already got the wings and nacelles back together but will have to respray everything all over again.... Arrrrrgh! :woozy_face:

Man that sucks! Sounds like mine. Something let go, i think it might have been the prop or the motor mount, but she went into self-destruct mode after a nice take off and turn. The result being, well, not very nice. The good thing about it is that I've managed to salvage and repair everything except one nacelle and the forward fuse. (new props of course) so it wasn't as bad as it looked at first. She'll be back in service for the next season.

Grossman56

[Denniswpb]

I got her back together and ready to fly again. I just need to go through everything and do a good run up and power check before flight. I bought a new fuselage, props, and a new left motor. Everything else, I was able to salvage and rebuild.. I then spray painted everything and clear coated it.

[Grossman56]

Has anyone heard when the spare parts stock for the Tigerkitty are coming? I went to order a new front fuse, left nacelle and canopy but the only thing they had in stock was the nacelle.
While I'm at it, I have the replacement front strut on mine and for some reason, I can't seem to get it to work. The wheel will not compress, I've tried pulling it apart and adjusting everything I can see that might affect it all to no success. It remains ridged, just like the stock strut. Very Strange....

Grossman56

[Denniswpb]

Has anyone heard when the spare parts stock for the Tigerkitty are coming? I went to order a new front fuse, left nacelle and canopy but the only thing they had in stock was the nacelle.
While I'm at it, I have the replacement front strut on mine and for some reason, I can't seem to get it to work. The wheel will not compress, I've tried pulling it apart and adjusting everything I can see that might affect it all to no success. It remains ridged, just like the stock strut. Very Strange....

Grossman56

Did you get the front strut figured out? I had the same issue until I figured it out. Loosen the screw that holds the spring, then compress the strut while tightening the screw back, but not too tight!!! It needs to move up and down.

[Grossman56]

Thanks Dennis, I'll give that a try.
I've experimented around with that screw but no luck, your method may be what I'm missing.
In the meantime, I ordered the new forward fuse and left nacelle, but now they're out of the canopy again. Six of one half dozen of the other I guess. Anyway, I can get to work on her hopefully next weekend, get all the paint work going the installing everything into the new parts. It'll sure be great to have her back again, I've really missed that airplane.


Grossman56

[Denniswpb]

Your Tigercat looks great! I had to put mine back together again, but haven't flown it since the rebuild. I had a left motor go out and had no choice but to turn into it and it didn't end too well. Amazing how fast it started to descend once the motor quit. Try that with the front strut and it will take care of your issue. Inside the strut there is a ridge on top of the pin and on the bottom of the pin. That screw has to travel in between those two ridges, but if you tighten too much the screw is up against the pin and won't allow it to travel. Hope that helps!

[Grossman56]

Thanks Dennis, now that I have this info, I'm going to get into this weekend and get her fixed before the parts get here. I'm just hoping that the paint matches the old parts as she's seen many a year at the fields from here to Indiana. But at least she'll be airworthy again. When she piled in it was an absolute mess, I thought she was a total write off, but I managed to fix the wings and surprisingly, the carbon fiber rods were intact, it was just a matter of gluing them back together. I had a spare nacelle and the tail section came off the wrecked fuselage fairly easily, I just kept cutting away foam until I could see the glued joint then trimmed. I think either a motor mount let go or a prop, she chewed the fuse to junk and both nacelles were destroyed. It wasn't pretty, but for just under $120, she'll be back to airworthiness. I'll track the rebuild on the forum.

Grossman56

[Denniswpb]

I just "re-maidened" my Tigercat today after the major crash due to motor failure a few weeks back. New fuselage and left motor.. all else was repairable. Flew flawlessly!

[Grossman56]

Great to hear Dennis, gives me hope!

Grossman56

[Yellowred]

Hi all, ive been looking at lots of your comments about this Tigercat as im ready to maiden mine! just a couple of quick questions, I fly off grass does she need half flap for take off and are you guys using the book setting for c of g and movements? I see she needs flap elevator mix, again are the book setting good?

[Denniswpb]

Hi all, ive been looking at lots of your comments about this Tigercat as im ready to maiden mine! just a couple of quick questions, I fly off grass does she need half flap for take off and are you guys using the book setting for c of g and movements? I see she needs flap elevator mix, again are the book setting good?

No flaps needed for takeoff. Go easy advancing the throttle and don't be in a hurry to get it off the ground. Which transmitter do you have?
Flap Setting:
Pos 0 -100% 0%
Pos 1 -14% 9%
Pos 2 18% 12%
I use CG in the book and works well. I would connect the batteries in parallel though.

[Yellowred]

Great Thanks for the advise, best way to. wire the batteries in parallel is to just bridge them together?

[Evan D]

I've never wired them together on any of my twins but can understand that doing so give you a safe feeling.

[Denniswpb]

Great Thanks for the advise, best way to. wire the batteries in parallel is to just bridge them together?

You will have to make a Parallel harness that connects between the battery connectors and the ESC connectors, where you bridge black to black and red to red. By connecting them in parallel, both batteries act as one big battery feeding both motors at the same time equally without changing the voltage.

[Denniswpb]

I've never wired them together on any of my twins but can understand that doing so give you a safe feeling.

As the song from the band Boston goes... "It more than a feeling"