Official FlightLine RC 1600mm F7F-3 Tigercat Thread

[Beeg]

Chris, whats the turn around on the those strut covers? I ordered a couple sets and was just wondering.

BB

[Beeg]

Because I used an AR610 with it's one long antenna, I found this was the most convenient placement for this receiver.

[Brandon Moon]

This is where I mounted the RX in mine. NOTE: If I had mounted it a bit further back, I would not have had to slightly modify the aft edge of the hatch block as shown in the picture, but I wanted it a bit further forward and angled up on the slanted portion of the plastic plate back there to have better access to the servo connections.

[Brandon Moon]

The picture with the hand made flat mounting plate is an optional idea I considered for either the RX or a Stabilizer, the posts are already provided next to the fuselage circuit board. Only a slight bit of foam removal would be required to make it all fit cozy underneath the hatch cover as you can see in one of my pictures before I did the second canopy modification.

[TiredIronGRB]

Mine cleared the hatch mounted toward the rear of the plastic ledge.

[Brandon Moon]

Looks good Charlie. There are several good options for mounting the RX in this plane. Underneath the Fuselage PCB is also a good choice, but less accessible there.
You mounted yours flat at the flat edge piece where as I mounted mine a bit further back on the angled down piece where you have yours is why mine needed a bit of foam removal to allow the hatch cover to seat better. I wanted to leave as much of that open area there accessible to be able to get to the sound speaker connections mounted below it all mounted in the belly as well as the wing and battery connection wires that are fed through the left and right openings there on the sides of the fuselage.

[crxmanpat]

OK, so I now have a total of 5 flights on my Tigercat, and I've got her dialed in right where I like her. I did not like the recommended throws in the manual (seemed like way too much throw, even on low rates), so I started off with what looked "right" to me. On the maiden flight, rudder, elevator, and flaps all seemed to be just right, but it needed more aileron throw (even my high rate setting seemed too little). So I turned up the rates on the aileron for flight 2. Still too little on low rate, but high rate seemed perfect. So on the third flight, I put low rate at what high rate was for flight #2, then upped the high rate another 20%.

So, that said, here's what I ended up with:

Flaps:
Take-off - 13mm
Landing - 29mm
(and I added 2mm of down elevator for each setting, so take-off has 2mm down, landing has 4mm down)

Ailerons:
Low rate - 20mm
High rate - 24mm

Elevator:
Low rate - 11mm
High rate - 15mm

Rudder:
Low rate - 14mm
High rate - 28mm

With these rates, rolls are just right, loops are nice and big and smooth, and enough rudder for nice presentation passes. And even though she'll turn just fine with aileron and elevator, I find she likes some rudder input to help get that big tail around.

I'm using Turnigy Graphene 4S 4000 45C packs in mine, which weigh 16.6 ounces each. The bottom pack slides all the way back as far as it will go, and the top pack sits as far back as it will go and still be under the battery strap. At these locations, my CG is right at 68mm, and she seems to fly fine at that CG even though the manual recommends 73mm.

Speaking of battery straps, I took the stock straps out and added my own. Since I'm using bigger packs (the Graphenes are thicker than normal 4000 packs), the stock straps were just a bit too short. So I replaced them with two-sided velcro tape. I cut them 9" long and they work great. I also pulled out the lower battery tray and moved it back 3/4" to get the strap further back. At this location I have about 3/8" of battery ahead of the strap.

Overall, this is a great flying bird! The guys at the fields were blown away by the quality and performance. Some were even shocked that it was foam and not composite. She flies in a very scale-like manner, but is no slouch at WOT either, and she climbs like a homesick angle.

I think I'm going to add 3 coats of Minwax (or Varathane if I can find it in matte), and then hit it with a coat of Testors Dullcote. I just tested this on the hatch of my Bearcat (which I unfortunately crashed yesterday), and it worked great. It had 2 coats of Minwax Gloss on it, and after hitting it with a coat of Dullcote spray, it looked great. No issues with bubbling foam.

[OV10]

Bearcat (which I unfortunately crashed yesterday

Bummer on the Bearcat Pat but If I was a betting man it would be a sure bet that you'll have another

[crxmanpat]

Yep, I'll be picking another up soon, probably in January. Hopefully it will be in stock when I go to order.

FYI, I'm getting an easy 8 minutes of flight time on the Graphene packs, with about 35% left in the pack. Perfect for storage!

I also went to Home Depot looking for Varathane Matte. They did not have any, nor did they have a spot for it on the shelf. I looked it up online, and HD actually had it on their website. So I went up to the paint counter and asked about it. Said they're getting some in on 12/26, a week from tomorrow. They think it's a new item for them. Looks like I'll be able to get it local and will try it out on Bearcat parts before doing the Tigercat.

[Brandon Moon]

I will be just as interested to see the results of that as well? Sorry to hear about the bear cat, Been there...done that

[Beeg]

Pat, Sorry to hear about your Bearcat. See, if you'd had two of them you'd still have one! :)

[Tsmith]

Have you guys seen this video of the full scale Tiger Cat? Turn up the volume for the high speed passes. http://worldwarwings.com/f7f-tigerca...tm_content=f7f

[Peteflys1]

That video is awesome!
My Tigercat arrived Saturday.Wife didn't tell me. She just wrapped it up last night. I guess it will have to stay under the tree for now. :cool:

I meant, NEXT to the tree!

[Brandon Moon]

I have been playing around with setting up the throttles for an individual differential thrust feature with each motor in conjunction with a mix to the rudder through several mixes and putting each motor on its own channel, I also do have it on a mix so it can be turned on or off. Three separate mixes and an extra channel for this so far.

More on this later, but it is proving quite entertaining and interesting.

Note: this does work best with the motors and props set up for counter rotation inwards toward the fuselage due to the P-factor effect and change in rpm's between the two motors.

[dkalwishky]

The chicken legs on the mains were killing me, so I designed and 3D printed a beefier looking strut cover. ;) Looks a little more scale now. For anyone interested in a set, I have them available on my site at: http://thercgeek.com/3d-printed-products-services/

Chris, are these covers for the stock gear?

[Beeg]

Chris, whats the turn around on the those strut covers? I ordered a couple sets and was just wondering.

BB

Just got my shipping notice for the "RCGEEK" strut covers.

dkalwishky, yes. The strut covers are for the stock gear.

[Hiflyer]

I apologize if this has been answered a dozen times but I have been unable to locate the answer.

Question: After calibrating the 2 ESC's, is it recommended that one of the ESC's power wires be disconnected from the Rx so that only one of the BEC's is active? I didn't see where that was mentioned but always thought that it was a potential problem leaving two switch mode BEC's active on a single Rx.

I'm flying my P-38 that way but wanted someone at Motion to wade in with their recommendations.

[crxmanpat]

Alpha has stated both in the P-38 and F7F threads that you should NOT pull either of the red wires.

[Teeks]

As someone who has had their hands on all of the Tigercat parts, I was truly impressed on the design, quality, and finish or this aircraft. I've physically handled every part for every plane that Motion sells and I have to say I am truly excited to see Flightline's contributions to the hobby for the years to come.

[OV10]

I apologize if this has been answered a dozen times but I have been unable to locate the answer.

Question: After calibrating the 2 ESC's, is it recommended that one of the ESC's power wires be disconnected from the Rx so that only one of the BEC's is active? I didn't see where that was mentioned but always thought that it was a potential problem leaving two switch mode BEC's active on a single Rx.

I'm flying my P-38 that way but wanted someone at Motion to wade in with their recommendations.

The problem here is the question was never really answered as to the design parameters of the ESC being a linear or switched or a new design for leaving both red wires connected. Those dialogs were initiated way back in the early springtime on the P-38 thread when Tom indicated that one of the red wires needed to be removed(isolated) which does follow standard protocol for electric twin operation.

https://www.hobbysquawk.com/forum/rc-airplanes/propeller-airplanes/1978-official-announcement-flightline-1600mm-p-38-lightning?p=21421#post21421

I was part of that early conversation but never got an answer and to this day I run my P-38 on a separate 10A ZTW BEC because I don't trust the amp output of one of the stock BEC's to provide enough juice for the whole system and I will never hook two Switched ESC's in parallel to fight against each other. I also have the ESC's battery power leads Y'd so that I'm not going to lose a motor due to one battery collapsing before the other in a dedicated single battery to motor setup.

https://www.hobbysquawk.com/forum/rc-airplanes/propeller-airplanes/1978-official-announcement-flightline-1600mm-p-38-lightning?p=35270#post35270

I know that the majority are running both BEC's in parallel which really amazes me that only a couple problems have arisen over time which leads me to believe that these stock ESC's on both the 38 and now the Tiger are not Switched devices but are of some new proprietary design and thusly the reason for no info concerning the rationale on why it is OK to hook both the red leads together. Can this mystery finally be divulged/resolved??