Official FlightLine RC 1600mm Spitfire Mk. IX Thread

[RodgerC]

Very nice, did you coat it with a polycrylic or urethane, and if so did you use satin/semi-gloss or gloss?:spitfire

Thanks Hugh. I have coated the model with gloss Cabot's Cabothane clear water based polyurethane. This product is readily available here in NZ and Australia. This is to give a good surface for the decals to stick to and to prevent the silvering that others have experienced when putting them onto the as delivered paint. I am using the Callie decals by the way. Once I have finished the decals I plan on coating again with Matt or a mixture of Matt and Gloss (to give satin). This will also seal the edges of the decals.

[Grossman56]

Hi guys, RodgerC, it looks like the same result I get with Minwax Pro Spar Urethane, here's a picture of the can the one I have says Gloss but it looks the same.


Grossman56

[RichJ53]

Thanks RickJ. I managed to remove the servos out OK just like you described. I have now replaced both Aileron servos with HiTec HS5085MG's that fit perfectly. To hold them in I wrapped the servo case with blue masking tape and then glued in with hot glue. Seems very secure.

Great

How much were the HiTec servos? Strange you had so many bad servos to start with. Just remember not to get to carried away with hot glue, it doesn't take much to hold the servo in place.

Rich

[RodgerC]

Great

How much were the HiTec servos? Strange you had so many bad servos to start with. Just remember not to get to carried away with hot glue, it doesn't take much to hold the servo in place.

Rich

I can't remember how much I paid for them. I just had them lying around. I only had one bad aileron servo but changed them both to keep the the same. Yeah just a few spots of hot glue did the trick.

[paladin]

Is this for all spits that the flap servo needs replacing? Is there a way to determine if they shut off with out flying?

I have mentioned it several times and no one else has reacted so i'm pretty sure its just isolated to me. I have played with this extensively trying to get it to do it on the bench and it won't. I have mine set up to do scale flaps (90degrees). I put them in on the down wind leg and when landing I have no flaps. if I set 45 degrees of flap (closer to what the model intends you to use) they are fine. i'm pretty sure I am stalling the servos and they have some sort of current protection and shut off.

interesting point after landing w 90 degrees of flap going to zero if I move my tx control to clean then back to dirty the flaps come back down. i have also flown low passes putting flaps down 90 and had several people watch them go up and accuse me of doing it.

joe

[RichJ53]

I can't remember how much I paid for them. I just had them lying around. I only had one bad aileron servo but changed them both to keep the the same. Yeah just a few spots of hot glue did the trick.

No problem, usually they are pretty spendy as compared to the Freewing servos... better is always good.

Rich

[Arnie]

Hi guys. Looks like a new set of FL spit owners have come on board since my last post. Welcome. Gidday RogerC, another Kiwi. Where you from?

Been on holiday and my batteries finally arrived from Hobby King. The NZ government have made it nigh on impossible for us to buy Lipos from recognised RC hobby sources from USA or China. Our only recourse is to order through Hobby King Australia who must ship only by seafreight. I ordered 2 Turnighy Graphene 5000mah 45C batteries and finally got to use them today.

Maiden went very well. Wow, this bird really did live up to my expectations, and some. Here's my feedback.

My batteries weigh 808 grams. When pushed forward to the back of the motor mount, the COG is exactly as recommended at 90mm. Take off was smooth and straight forward, she virtually lifted off herself at just over haft throttle onto a moderate head/side wind (about 30 degs to the flightline). No dropping of left wing , very well behaved. After climbing out and retracting the LG, I made 2 trim adjustments. The first was the elevator, which needed plenty down trim for level flight. The next were the ailerons, which needed a load of trim to the left. I tested the flaps at altitude in half and full modes, and neither caused a change in attitude. Great, the suggested mixes with elevator worked well.

The Spit has a solid presence in the air, with no bad tendancies. She even flies well inverted, but I know that is outside of scale flight..........

The landing was made with 1/2 flap into a slight head/side wind. Needed to fly it in a bit faster but toched down square before gentle resting on its nose. Throttle was cut and no prop damage occurred. It was bought down after 7 minutes and still had 3.80 volts in each cell. All in all, a very enjoyable maiden.

I checked the elevator after trimming and it was level, the recommended 2mm up had been trimmed out in flight. However, the ailerons were 1.5mm off center correcting a right roll tendancy in flight. I guess I'll have to wait for a calm day to see what influence the wind was having on my settings.

The second flight was a breeze, with a bit more adventurous manouvers. Full flaps were used this time, with a much steeper and slower approach possible. Landing was great with enough up elevator to prevent nose over after tail down.

Didn't have the opportunity to video these flights but hope to next time the Spit is out. Waiting on a replacement blue box.

If you can run the BB, I recommend it, as there is not much spare space around the rear servos.

Happy Flying.

[MesRcPilot]

Hello Arnie , thanks for the presentation, I see that you have the knowledge and experience ... so ... all the best and greetings from Croatia.:Cool:
Jos

[Elbee]

Arnie, Welcome to Hobby Squawk and Congrats on the 1st & 2nd check flights. Best LB

Jos, Hello to you from Kansas. We're heading South to warmer weather later today, back after we get some sun on our faces. Will stay in touch. Best, LB

[Arnie]

Hi Jos and LB. Thanks for your warm welcomes.

Jos, not many members from your neck of the woods. Have you got to maiden yours yet?

LB, nice to get back into some decent weather eh? You're coming into spring, we are heading into fall down under.

More feedback:

Checked my wing for balance. Turns out that the SB side is heavier and requires a 5 gram weight near the SB tip to balance it. This will be contributing to some of the off set trim on the ailerons, but not all. There also seems to be slight difference in shape of each wing, where the wash out is built in near the tips. The way it flies, I won't be stressing about this.

All in all, this a very well thought out approach by Flight Line to poducing a near scale spit, that is far more user friendly than most seen around the traps. The minor flaws have been managed ok.

I'm looking forward to getting this bird to the stip on a regular basis.

Cheers Arnie

[Hardway]

Hi Arnie!!!! Welcome to the Squawk from TEXAS!!! ;):):Cool: Glad you are here!!! (And you survived your heat wave!!!) :Sweating: Jerry

[Arnie]

Hi Jerry.........thanks for your welcome too. :)

Yeah, survived the heat, but not as bad here as in Aussie.............:Sweating:

We just had a week of relatively settled weather, with one day dead calm, but I couldn't fly...............:Crying: how frustrating.

[MesRcPilot]

@ Hi Elbee ,I wish you happy and interesting way toward the sun , and of course we will be in touch.:Cool:

@ Hello Arnie, not yet a maiden, I'm waiting for the summer, and I'm a little afraid (shaking hands..lol) because I really like this Spitfire. No Croats on this forum , but there is a part of my family living in Auckland, but in my heart is Christchurch (I was there);).Thanks for your time... Cheers
Jos

[Arnie]

Hi Jos..........sounds like you were visiting NZ and in Christchurch during the big shake! That would have been scary. My home town was devastated in 1931 by a 7.8 quake (same size as CHCH). As a result of the rebuild, it is now recognised as the Art Deco Capital of the world. Christchurch is recovering well now.

Try and get as much tail dragger experience as possible before attempting your spit's maiden. The war birds all have their wheels too close to the COG, which makes managing takeoffs and landings a handful, for the unprepared...........

Cheers

[MesRcPilot]

Hi Arnie , unfortunately I know ... and better that I was not there during the earthquake ..... I was sad, and last time I was officially in CHCH 1984. Thank you for the advice of LG, this is my 4th Spitfire ... but my dearest. Cheers.

[RodgerC]

Hi guys. Looks like a new set of FL spit owners have come on board since my last post. Welcome. Gidday RogerC, another Kiwi. Where you from?

Been on holiday and my batteries finally arrived from Hobby King. The NZ government have made it nigh on impossible for us to buy Lipos from recognised RC hobby sources from USA or China. Our only recourse is to order through Hobby King Australia who must ship only by seafreight. I ordered 2 Turnighy Graphene 5000mah 45C batteries and finally got to use them today.

Maiden went very well. Wow, this bird really did live up to my expectations, and some. Here's my feedback.

My batteries weigh 808 grams. When pushed forward to the back of the motor mount, the COG is exactly as recommended at 90mm. Take off was smooth and straight forward, she virtually lifted off herself at just over haft throttle onto a moderate head/side wind (about 30 degs to the flightline). No dropping of left wing , very well behaved. After climbing out and retracting the LG, I made 2 trim adjustments. The first was the elevator, which needed plenty down trim for level flight. The next were the ailerons, which needed a load of trim to the left. I tested the flaps at altitude in half and full modes, and neither caused a change in attitude. Great, the suggested mixes with elevator worked well.

The Spit has a solid presence in the air, with no bad tendancies. She even flies well inverted, but I know that is outside of scale flight..........

The landing was made with 1/2 flap into a slight head/side wind. Needed to fly it in a bit faster but toched down square before gentle resting on its nose. Throttle was cut and no prop damage occurred. It was bought down after 7 minutes and still had 3.80 volts in each cell. All in all, a very enjoyable maiden.

I checked the elevator after trimming and it was level, the recommended 2mm up had been trimmed out in flight. However, the ailerons were 1.5mm off center correcting a right roll tendancy in flight. I guess I'll have to wait for a calm day to see what influence the wind was having on my settings.

The second flight was a breeze, with a bit more adventurous manouvers. Full flaps were used this time, with a much steeper and slower approach possible. Landing was great with enough up elevator to prevent nose over after tail down.

Didn't have the opportunity to video these flights but hope to next time the Spit is out. Waiting on a replacement blue box.

If you can run the BB, I recommend it, as there is not much spare space around the rear servos.

Happy Flying.

Hi Arnie,

I am in Auckland - been here for 8 years. Prior to that I was in Christchurch. We were there right through the earthquakes. Glad to get out of there.

I'm not too far away from maidening my Spit. Just need to put the top clearcoat-on, finish programming the transmitter, and soldering the EC5 connectors on my batteries.

Cheers

[RodgerC]

OK so I've just tried the retacts for the first time and something is not right. They are intermittent at best. They operate maybe once or twice then not at all. This includes plugging them directly into my receiver and bypassing the blue box. Has anyone else had retract problems? I've got them on a 2 position switch going from +100 to -100.

[MesRcPilot]

@ Hi Rodger , the'' world is really small'' ... Christchurch :(.In terms of LG misfire, I had a similar problem with ch 5 (retract) because i used rx frsky (fasst) and tx flight of T8FG, when i replaced rx with the original futaba fasst ... prolem was resolved. For your information only.All the best.
Jos

[JPJI]

OK so I've just tried the retacts for the first time and something is not right. They are intermittent at best. They operate maybe once or twice then not at all. This includes plugging them directly into my receiver and bypassing the blue box. Has anyone else had retract problems? I've got them on a 2 position switch going from +100 to -100.

If you are having the same problem with BOTH retracts, then I would suspect a setup problem rather than a retract problem.

How are you powering them? Make sure they are getting enough volts/amps. If they operate once or twice then not at all, this could well be a flat/defective battery.
Test each one independently (without any y-lead)
Try operating them with a servo tester if you have one, if not, confirm your retract channel is working correctly by plugging a servo into it, making sure you are getting FULL range out of the channel.

[Arnie]

Hi Jos..........sounds like you've had a very long association with NZ.

Hey if you've had 4 spits, you're an old hand................get out there and show this one who's the boss!;)