Official FlightLine RC 1600mm Spitfire Mk. IX Thread

[Beeg]

Yep, I forgot to mention I fly off fabric runway.

[shocktrooper]

Anyone finding the need to add some weight to the nose to hit their CG? I am setting up with an Admiral 4500 and had to add 2oz to nose under battery tray to get the 90mm spot-on, as measured and pivot pointed upside-down with gear extended...and it still seems just a smidge aft of 90mm, (With the 4500 LiPo). I try to avoid adding 'dead-weight' to my birds if possible but this one seems to need it with my batt. I have on hand.

[radfordc]

Anyone finding the need to add some weight to the nose to hit their CG? I am setting up with an Admiral 4500 and had to add 2oz to nose under battery tray to get the 90mm spot-on, as measured and pivot pointed upside-down with gear extended...and it still seems just a smidge aft of 90mm, (With the 4500 LiPo). I try to avoid adding 'dead-weight' to my birds if possible but this one seems to need it with my batt. I have on hand.

I think you will find that the CG at 90mm is a little nose heavy. Mine is probably closer to 100mm and the plane flys nicely....but you need to use much less throw on the elevator than called for in the manual.

[shocktrooper]

Thx radfordc! Do you mean less elevator throw for any and all set ups on this bird, or just with the 100mm cg? BTW..what brand and rating batt. are you using?

[Plastic_Aviator]

I took a much needed break from all my other projects to work on my Spitfire Pilot and the Spitfire itself. I'll be adding some additional paint weathering soon. Hope you like it!

[Beeg]

Great job! Very nicely done.

[dkalwishky]

Thx radfordc! Do you mean less elevator throw for any and all set ups on this bird, or just with the 100mm cg? BTW..what brand and rating batt. are you using?

Any CG. THe manuals low rates are just right for me with 30% expo. I'm running the Admiral 5000 all the way forward.

[davegee]

I just finished my Flightline 1600mm Mk IX Spitfire after adding some special markings from Callie Graphics. I decided to go with a unique markings scheme to honor Witold "Lanny" Lanowski, a Polish pilot and ace while he was "A" Flight Commander of 302 Sqn. in England during WWII. Lanny eventually moved over to the USAAF 56th FG and flew P-47s with them until the end of the war. Lanny's son Krys lives in England, and I thought this would be a nice tribute to his dad.

[Shirty]

Very cool.

[rifleman_btx]

A buddy of mine from Poland really likes it. Very cool

[davegee]

Thanks, I like highlighting the stories of groups and pilots that might not be well known to many about their important contributions to victory in WWII. These were some very tough fighter pilots! One of them, Mike Gladych, who was able to escape Poland even as his family was murdered by the Nazis, flew with the RAF and then the USAAF with the 56th Fighter Group flying P-47s. Mike would not claim a "kill" unless he was certain he had actually killed the German pilot he was flying against, I am told.

[rifleman_btx]

That is actually true he always shoot for the cockpit

[radfordc]

Thx radfordc! Do you mean less elevator throw for any and all set ups on this bird, or just with the 100mm cg? BTW..what brand and rating batt. are you using?

I think everyone who has flown the plane has commented that the elevator is sensitive and needs less throw than specified in the manual (for all CG conditions). I actually have three rates for the elevator...Super high is for ground taxi only and gives max up elevator throw. My high rate is what the manual specifies for low rate and my low rate is less than that. High rate is for takeoff and normal flight and low rate is for landing. After landing I switch to super high for taxi.

[Oxotnik]

I think everyone who has flown the plane has commented that the elevator is sensitive and needs less throw than specified in the manual (for all CG conditions). I actually have three rates for the elevator...Super high is for ground taxi only and gives max up elevator throw. My high rate is what the manual specifies for low rate and my low rate is less than that. High rate is for takeoff and normal flight and low rate is for landing. After landing I switch to super high for taxi.

Not everybody...
On my grass field, I need as much elevator throw as I can get, to keep the tail down until the plane's speed comes up. I'm just careful with the elevator during the rest of the flight, to avoid accelerated stalls.

[TiredIronGRB]

I keep plenty of throw and just jack up the expo on mine.

[downwindleg]

I'm with TI and dkalwishkey, using two or three rates on the elevator or any other control surface, for me is cumbersome and unnecesary. 30% expo does the trick.....give it a try. Brad

[OV10]

I'm with TI and dkalwishkey, using two or three rates on the elevator or any other control surface, for me is cumbersome and unnecesary. 30% expo does the trick.....give it a try. Brad

Some airframes you just can't get the amount of throw required just using the expo to temper the smaller movements.
You have to force/train yourself to real time use of the rate switches for ground/flight operations.
I am still not all the way there on real time de-activation of flaps as soon as I touch down to help eliminate their effects into nose overs also but that is part of the force/training.

[rifleman_btx]

Ha! Yeah I forget to raise my flaps all the time after touchdown. Sometimes when I get ready to go home as I always have to pull my gears up anyway, sometimes I have to raise the forgotten flaps too. All that TBI mess makes me forget about them from time to time

[paladin]

Rifleman, i used to do that also. Trim the plane with the smidge of flap in it then when I put the flaps down for landing realized what I had done. Then I had a ex-fighter pilot explain to me that they only used flaps if carrying bomb’s or extra guns, ammo, or fuel, or the runway was soft. Mine is not set up for any of that and nobody here flys if there is a hint of rain (all the time) so I stopped using flaps for takeoff.

Charlie, your home field is a tough one to practice short field drills. But to do it right you need sliders for flaps not the three position toggle. The latter will cause more trouble than anything. Flaps produce the majority of their lift in the first 20 degrees of deployment, by 30 degrees drag becomes the major component and continues to grow as they continue to come down (this is for the type of flaps on a p-51, flap the spit has are different than just laid out). drag is important because it keeps the plane from ballooning, but if you kill half the flaps you kill mostly drag and now she wants to balloon. Slider lets me dump flaps all at once.

Joe

[davegee]

I took the plane back to the field today and took some pics while a friend flew it for me.