Official FlightLine RC 1600mm Spitfire Mk. IX Thread

[Beeg]

What is the flying weight of this plane. MRC shows 100.5 oz as the flying weight using, I assume, the 22.5 oz Admiral 4500 6S battery. My battery weighs 26 oz and with the plane the total is 126 oz. How did I get a pound and a half heavier by adding 4 oz?

You're not heavy. The website is off. Here's what the manual says about weight sans battery.

[Flyer Phill]

Nearly finished MyLcraine...

[Beeg]

Nearly finished MyLcraine...

Looks nice! :Cool:

[Shirty]

Looks great phil.

[Wesnc]

The grey nurse progresses, unfortunately the Callie graphics shark mouth did not fit the flightline Spitfire & I was unable to modify it to a workable solution. In the end I painted it on :)

[MesRcPilot]

@ Hi Flyer Phill , your home hangar and the new Spit look too good to be true :Cool:

[franky]

I found it not easy to remove the plate which used to hold the 2 wing halves together, so i put a nylon srew to make it easy.

[Shirty]

The grey nurse progresses, unfortunately the Callie graphics shark mouth did not fit the flightline Spitfire & I was unable to modify it to a workable solution. In the end I painted it on :)

Nice job on the sharks mouth. ;)

[Wesnc]

Haha thanks Shirty.....i was super nervous:)

[Dewey H Lee]

Amazing paint work Wesnc.

[19000rpm]

My horizontal stab and elevator is loaded with blistering. The worse I've seen on any of my EPO planes. The pictures don't do it justice. Such a contrast with the rest of the plane that is almost blemish free. I'm contacting support as soon as the site is back up.

[Beeg]

Disregard..

[horsefeetky]

maiden went pretty well.. flying off very smooth short grass i did have it want to nose over both on initial take off and roll out. i got the takeoff figured out it needs a bit of extra throttle bumping to get it and keep it rolling light on the wheels. but be careful as it only takes 1/3 throttle and after that your flying. this plane has tons of power and will rip off the ground fast if your not careful.

landing was hit and miss i have mid rates on first flight and found it to be fine just twitchy so i added more expo to elevator but at 85% throw it didnt have enough to keep it from nose over at end of roll out and the top of the rudder took a spike resulting in some wrinkles which i got most out with hot wash cloth trick. after that i went with 100 % throw and 40%expo on the elevator and i was able to hold the tail down until it stopped but i sure wouldnt try to taxi this plane on grass.

all in all i call this plane a hit being it is true to scale nose overs like the real ones and it does track in the air like a pattern plane.

i did have UP elevator in the mix with flaps. spektrum -6 on mid flaps and -12 on full flaps.. never had a plane need up elevator mix till now. the knife edge tucks towards the canopy pretty hard i need to get a mix in there for that but the small rudder does a good job and handles the torque on take off ok also.

i did remove the retracts and drill and place two small carbon rods into holes i drilled at the front two corners of the gear mounting plastic flange with glued them into the foam with top of rod just a tad above the plastic the cover plate has a recess to allow this to handle the reported poor glue from factory in this area. however i tried to tug on mine prior to the mod and they seemed very solid.

it sures is nice to see the power systems getting it spot on to our needs for speed and flight time. like my tiger cat this thing will fly long flights with supercool battery pack at the end. timer on tiger cat is now at 7:30 and spit at 8 min both using 5000ma packs

[Alpha]

My horizontal stab and elevator is loaded with blistering. The worse I've seen on any of my EPO planes. The pictures don't do it justice. Such a contrast with the rest of the plane that is almost blemish free. I'm contacting support as soon as the site is back up.

19000rpm, yes, please call the tech support guys on Monday when they're back in the office. Based on those photos, they'll send you a replacement horizontal stab free of charge, no problem. We'll get you in the air with a bird you can be proud of owning!

Cheers

[Oxotnik]

Horsefeetky, congrats on the successful maiden. I fly on a grass field, and I've experienced the same things that you've mentioned. The Spit will nose over pretty easily if the grass is not cut really short. I always try to make scale-like take offs, instead of just blasting the throttle and climbing out at a steep angle. I do have to fly the tail carefully, to have a decent takeoff run, as the speed is coming up. As you've said, it doesn't take much ground speed to become airborne. I always worry about torque rolls, when the aircraft takes off too soon (at least too soon by my judgement), but as long as I'm creeping up on the throttle when her Mains leave the ground, she hasn't shown any tendency to torque roll on me. Then, continued slow advance of the throttles, and pitch up to climb out, and she flies wonderfully. Also on landings, she'll nose over on a grass runway, if you don't keep the tail low. Half flaps seem to be perfect for landing, with a little speed. I plan to start working on making good full-flap landings, now that I've gotten a pretty good feel for the handling (takeoff, flight, and landing) characteristics of the Spit.

Back on the topic of the gear pulling out and a heads-up on LG grub screws..

On my first flight yesterday (I made three total), just as I was touching down, I noticed that my left wheel had rotated almost 90°. I made the quick choice to go ahead and land. I coasted a bit more to be close to stall speed when I let the Mains touch. Spit instantly nosed over, of course. The wheel wells that I'd reglued in place held tight. There was no damage to the wing either. A little skill, and a lotta luck, but I'll take good luck over good skill any day. :)

What had happened is the grub screw that holds the strut in the trunion had worked loose. There was no evidence of any thread locker on the grub screw. Luckily, I keep a tube of Vibra-tite VC-3 in my range box, and locked it back in place. I went ahead and pulled the other gear and checked that grub screw. It was tight, but I went ahead and backed it out and Vibra-tited it back in place, too. Anyway, check your grub screws. It'd be a shame to ruin a beautiful model because of the lack of locked grub screw.

If you guys haven't used or heard of Vibra-Tite VC-3, I'd encourage you to look into it. It's a thread locker that is approved for use in manned aviation. After application, it becomes very gummy, and allows multiple removals and reinstallations of the fastener, without reapplication of the Vibra-tite. A club member, who used to own a major hobby shop which focused on large-scale model aircraft, turned me on to the stuff. I love it. Anyway, just wanted to pass on, what I feel is a better alternative to Lock-Tite.

Chuck

[19000rpm]

19000rpm, yes, please call the tech support guys on Monday when they're back in the office. Based on those photos, they'll send you a replacement horizontal stab free of charge, no problem. We'll get you in the air with a bird you can be proud of owning!

Cheers

Thanks Alpha I'll do that. Bob

[franky]

Horsefeetky, congrats on the successful maiden. I fly on a grass field, and I've experienced the same things that you've mentioned. The Spit will nose over pretty easily if the grass is not cut really short. I always try to make scale-like take offs, instead of just blasting the throttle and climbing out at a steep angle. I do have to fly the tail carefully, to have a decent takeoff run, as the speed is coming up. As you've said, it doesn't take much ground speed to become airborne. I always worry about torque rolls, when the aircraft takes off too soon (at least too soon by my judgement), but as long as I'm creeping up on the throttle when her Mains leave the ground, she hasn't shown any tendency to torque roll on me. Then, continued slow advance of the throttles, and pitch up to climb out, and she flies wonderfully. Also on landings, she'll nose over on a grass runway, if you don't keep the tail low. Half flaps seem to be perfect for landing, with a little speed. I plan to start working on making good full-flap landings, now that I've gotten a pretty good feel for the handling (takeoff, flight, and landing) characteristics of the Spit.

Back on the topic of the gear pulling out and a heads-up on LG grub screws..

On my first flight yesterday (I made three total), just as I was touching down, I noticed that my left wheel had rotated almost 90°. I made the quick choice to go ahead and land. I coasted a bit more to be close to stall speed when I let the Mains touch. Spit instantly nosed over, of course. The wheel wells that I'd reglued in place held tight. There was no damage to the wing either. A little skill, and a lotta luck, but I'll take good luck over good skill any day. :)

What had happened is the grub screw that holds the strut in the trunion had worked loose. There was no evidence of any thread locker on the grub screw. Luckily, I keep a tube of Vibra-tite VC-3 in my range box, and locked it back in place. I went ahead and pulled the other gear and checked that grub screw. It was tight, but I went ahead and backed it out and Vibra-tited it back in place, too. Anyway, check your grub screws. It'd be a shame to ruin a beautiful model because of the lack of locked grub screw.

If you guys haven't used or heard of Vibra-Tite VC-3, I'd encourage you to look into it. It's a thread locker that is approved for use in manned aviation. After application, it becomes very gummy, and allows multiple removals and reinstallations of the fastener, without reapplication of the Vibra-tite. A club member, who used to own a major hobby shop which focused on large-scale model aircraft, turned me on to the stuff. I love it. Anyway, just wanted to pass on, what I feel is a better alternative to Lock-Tite.

Chuck

Hi Chuck would you please point in a pict. where exactly the glrb screw is? I certainly want to check mines.

[radfordc]

I flew the first three flights today with no squawks.

I'm using Zippy Compact 6S 5800 25C batteries. Total flying weight is 126oz (7 lb, 14oz) The plane flys "light" at this weight. With them all the way forward the CG is just slightly aft of what the manual calls for. As a result the plane was very responsive to the elevator. I have the high and low throws as called for in the manual and on high rate the plane was very "twitchy" It flew nicely on middle and low rates. Ailerons were fast on high rate and just right on middle rate.

I flew an 8 minute flight and the battery was just warm. Cells were all still above 3.80 v.

Lowering the flaps causes a strong nose down pitching force. I programmed in a little up elevator with the flaps and that fixed that.

Takeoffs from damp grass (2.5 in of rain yesterday) were no problem at all. She taxi's easy with no tendency to nose over (remember my CG is slightly aft). Takeoff is just a matter of holding up elevator during the initial acceleration, adding power slowly, and steering straight with rudder. Bleed off the up elevator as speed builds and about the time you have full power the plane will be flying. Landings are just as easy...full flaps and keep a bit of power on till the plane is ready to round out and touch down.

Flight maneuvers are "fighter like" with more than enough power for anything you want to do.

[Oxotnik]

Hi Chuck would you please point in a pict. where exactly the glrb screw is? I certainly want to check mines.

I would if I could, but I'd to pull my gear out of the wing. It's the grub screw that holds the strut into the trunion. To get to the grub screw, you have to the pull the trunion out of the gear well. Once you pull the trunion out of the gear well and have the gear deployed, the grub screw should be obvious.

[Shirty]

Grats on the maidens boys. :)