Official FlightLine RC 1600mm Spitfire Mk. IX Thread

[Evan D]

It’s a spit day. I have both my 1600’s.

[Elbee]

Can't you use sbus or something similar?
When I'm in need of more than 8 channels, I use either an sbus to ppm converter (4 extra ppm channels per device) or the Redundancy Bus devices to get up to 16 channels. Very flexible system really.

HQ, do you fly Futaba? Best, LB

[HangarQueen]

No, Frsky

[HangarQueen]

But anyway, the reason why I'm looking at this thread is because a fellow club member flew one of these 1600mm Spitfires on our field a while ago, and I was impressed with what I saw.
I fly a BH Spitfire, a 2m span beast weighing in at plus-8kg, which is a real delight and a sensation to fly, but operating it on our relatively short grass runway can be a challenge sometimes. It is really easy to land, but its inertia makes for a long runout after landing, causing damage to the undercarriage a couple of times. I really need to have a touchdown within the first quarter of our runway or I'm in trouble. Takeoff can be a challenge too, with 3000W pulling it to the left.
I am really in love with the Spitfire, already own 2 models (a smaller 1,2m version too) of it, so I was very interested in this 1600mm version. I was amazed by the level of scale details, and it appeared to fly really well too.
Last year I found out that he sold the model, which was disappointing to me. I might have bought it from him, having a much simpler model to take to the field, no bells and whistles (my large BH version uses 13 channels!), just put a battery in and fly.
There is another club member that owns one, but he's a bit afraid to fly it. In fact, I haven't actually seen him fly it. Maybe he'll sell his 😀

[vduniec]

Dude! That’s brilliant! I was thinking I was going to have to assign each gear to it’s own channel and program the delay in. Thanks for sharing.

You mean like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbIMNEoAklg

I plug one of the retracts into the landing gear door plug on the blue box and the other into the regular retract plug.

Grossman56

[Rob66]

heres my 1600mm PR11 conversion, its had a re shaped rudder., deeper chin with smaller carb scoop, fatter exhausts, modified canopy,.

[Grossman56]

Great job and great choice Rob, something I haven't seen yet.

Grossman56

[Elbee]

heres my 1600mm PR11 conversion, its had a re shaped rudder., deeper chin with smaller carb scoop, fatter exhausts, modified canopy,.

R6, Outstanding modifications and repaint. A unique livery choice that most would not take on. Impressive photos and documentation. Truly well done, Sir. Best, LB

[davegee]

Dude! That’s brilliant! I was thinking I was going to have to assign each gear to it’s own channel and program the delay in. Thanks for sharing.

Hey Dan: pretty cool setup with staggered gear retracting/deploying. Did you have to put a Y harness in there somewhere? I see where you said wire one of the gear directly into the gear port of the receiver. With the other one, plug it into the Gear Door (G-D) on the Blue Box. But that still leaves a connection to do from the blue box to the receiver. I'm confuzzled. Could you elaborate?

Thanks,

Davegee

[Grossman56]

One gear to the gear door plug in the blue box and one to the gear plug in the blue box, the blue box gear wire to the gear port on the receiver. In your case, you already have everything hooked up all you have to do is decide which gear you want to deploy first, remove that from the port it's in and move it to the gear door port. It will deploy first as the blue box thinks its deploying the gear door. When you retract, that will be the last gear to retract as its, again thinking its closing the gear door.

Grossman56

[Grossman56]

Had to go looking for the pic I had mapping out the blue box, have a look

[SanExup]

That may be the easiest rc scale modification ever! Thanks Grossman!

[davegee]

One gear to the gear door plug in the blue box and one to the gear plug in the blue box, the blue box gear wire to the gear port on the receiver. In your case, you already have everything hooked up all you have to do is decide which gear you want to deploy first, remove that from the port it's in and move it to the gear door port. It will deploy first as the blue box thinks its deploying the gear door. When you retract, that will be the last gear to retract as its, again thinking its closing the gear door.

Grossman56

Excellent headwork coming up with this idea, Dan! I got mine working fine. The only quirk, if I could call it that, is when I first power the plane up and extend the gear, only one comes down. Then, I retract the gear, that one gear comes up, followed by a short noise from the retract that didn't deploy on the first go. Then, when I extend the gear again, everything works just as it is supposed to, through many cycles. A very minor point, and I'll exercise the gear through at least one rotation cycle before I put it in the air on each flight. Looks very cool to have the staggered gear up/down like that!👍👍

[kallend]

It certainly is the $0 way of staggering the retraction, and I used it for a couple of years. The issue that made me create the $4 delay gizmo that I posted was getting the the timing of the retraction delay correct (it's not with the blue box method), and that the gear extension was not correct (along with the issue you describe). With the Arduino you can program it to be exactly what you want, in each direction (up or down), and it doesn't take any extra channels.

[Grossman56]

Interesting Dave, I never ran across that, maybe try a different gear door channel?
I hear you about the timing, several old warbirds had that delay in gear rotation, the P40, the Hellcat, the Hurricane and probably a few more. Funny how it was never incorporated into a model, price point I suppose. For a $4 gizmo, you could have added $4 to the price tag and used it as a selling feature.

Grossman56

[kallend]

Interesting Dave, I never ran across that, maybe try a different gear door channel?
I hear you about the timing, several old warbirds had that delay in gear rotation, the P40, the Hellcat, the Hurricane and probably a few more. Funny how it was never incorporated into a model, price point I suppose. For a $4 gizmo, you could have added $4 to the price tag and used it as a selling feature.

Grossman56

That's $4 at retail to me.

[davegee]

After a couple aborted tries to fly at my local field due to high winds, I got out this morning for a couple good flights with my Flightline 1600mm Mk IX Spitfire. Hadn't flown it for a while, and during its recent down time modified the gear sequencing per what Dan Grossman had suggested in this section. Works great, looks pretty cool as they do that staggered retraction/deploying of the main gear in flight, per Grossman.

This plane has been a faithful flyer in my "fleet" for over 5 years now. Its markings are modified to a particular plane flown by Witold "Lanny" Lanowski, whose son is a friend of mine. Lanny flew with RAF 302 Sqdn and a couple others I think, before coming to fly with the USAAF 56th Fighter Group with several other famous Polish aces to fly P-47s .

I also modified my plane to have the scale flap angle of 85 degrees, which I find work great on this airplane. Pictures taken this morning after the second flight .

[Grossman56]

I got out this morning as well, took advantage of the calm winds and clear skies. Must have just missed you!
Beautiful day for flying for a change. Had the 1200mm EFlite Spitty out but had retract problems, one likes to freeze up while retracted. Had her on the bench when it started acting up fortunately, right after a successful flight. PITA those retracts!! Anyone have any suggestions on how to fix these retracts? I've backed off screws and bent struts, loosened and tightened the set screws that hold the strut to the retract. Anyone tried anything else??

Anyway, had the Avanti and the CAF Bearcat as well and got nine flights in
It started clouding over again and he weather is supposed to get strange again this afternoon.

Grossman56

[davegee]

I got out this morning as well, took advantage of the calm winds and clear skies. Must have just missed you!
Beautiful day for flying for a change. Had the 1200mm EFlite Spitty out but had retract problems, one likes to freeze up while retracted. Had her on the bench when it started acting up fortunately, right after a successful flight. PITA those retracts!! Anyone have any suggestions on how to fix these retracts? I've backed off screws and bent struts, loosened and tightened the set screws that hold the strut to the retract. Anyone tried anything else??

Anyway, had the Avanti and the CAF Bearcat as well and got nine flights in
It started clouding over again and he weather is supposed to get strange again this afternoon.

Grossman56

Hi Dan: had to get to the gym for a pickleball lesson at 9am. Crazy game, crazier scoring, but a lot of fun, too.

Dave

[Simon Bee]

If FedEx get their arses in gear (which will be a first), I should have my Spit this week and I’ll be following Grossman’s wiring instructions. Was thinking I’d have to bypass that blue box thing completely.