Official FlightLine RC 1600mm Spitfire Mk. IX Thread

[wallacems]

I was wondering if anyone is running the Admiral 6000 battery that Motion RC recommends in the description of the plane on their site? If you are can you post pictures and/or a description of where you placed the battery to balance it? Thanks.

[paladin]

Hi all, just interested in how any of you that are removing the wing for transport deal with the need to plug and unplug servo leads.....I’ve fitted y leads to all but the gear on my new bird with the intention of having long enough leads that will allow the wing to be laid beside the fuse without needing to unplug anything. The theory being that when I get to the field, I can pull the leads back through into the fuse and secure somehow to stay out of harms way. The theory being.....if I don’t have to unplug anything I will lessen the chances of an error or bad connection when reconnecting. So.....I’ve used the word theory a lot.... : ).....what are you all doing in the real world? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts....

Cheers
BMK

I do it like I have in all my wood and glass planes. I plug a 6 or 8 in lead in to the rx for A, F, Ret. I make flags on the female end with electrical tape and mark them A, F, and R.

on the wing end I hook everything together with y harnesses and label them A, F, R.

at the field I lay the fuse inverted in a cradle then lay the wing over the fuse. lift the TE and hook everything up and stuff the wires in the teeny tiny hole they give us and screw the wing on.

Joe

[Beetlemankurt]

Thanks for the info guys, much appreciated. Can’t wait to get this bird flying at some point over the next few weeks.
Regards
Kurt

[Oxotnik]

I was wondering if anyone is running the Admiral 6000 battery that Motion RC recommends in the description of the plane on their site? If you are can you post pictures and/or a description of where you placed the battery to balance it? Thanks.

I've never flown a 6AH pack in my Spit. I think that 5200 is the highest capacity 6S battery that I have. Even so, I never push my battery to the forward bulkhead; I always leave about a 1" gap. If you're new to the Spit, I'd suggest setting your battery to get the CG where the manual recommends, then move it around later, to be suit your flying preferences.

[Denniswpb]

I do it like I have in all my wood and glass planes. I plug a 6 or 8 in lead in to the rx for A, F, Ret. I make flags on the female end with electrical tape and mark them A, F, and R.

on the wing end I hook everything together with y harnesses and label them A, F, R.

at the field I lay the fuse inverted in a cradle then lay the wing over the fuse. lift the TE and hook everything up and stuff the wires in the teeny tiny hole they give us and screw the wing on.

Joe

I just ordered a set of the Multi Servo Connectors for my Spitfire. I have them on My Carbon Z T-28 and they work great. Just one plug for each wing and you are ready to go!!

[Hugh Wiedman]

I just ordered a set of the Multi Servo Connectors for my Spitfire. I have them on My Carbon Z T-28 and they work great. Just one plug for each wing and you are ready to go!!

Wow, those are outstanding, where did you order them from? I'm just finishing making the Hansen Hobbies polarized latching connections to accomplish the same thing and getting rid of the blue box, but I'm having to actually make the connectors; lots of cutting wires, soldering and crimping the female/male leads.

[paladin]

I just ordered a set of the Multi Servo Connectors for my Spitfire. I have them on My Carbon Z T-28 and they work great. Just one plug for each wing and you are ready to go!!

I saw those at the field. I don't like the length of the connector, balancing the wing on the plane and my hand and having the connector plug a skew. but the biggest problem is the contacts are Nickle plated.

Joe

[boomer108]

I don't know who makes the ones shown but there is a site Electro dynamics .com that carrys them and the contacts are brass.

[Hugh Wiedman]

OK, just finished rewiring the control surfaces on the wings, removing the blue box. Flew it earlier this week and had some electrical glitches on the control surfaces, so when I got it home, I noticed that 2 of the negative power leads into the blue box were loose, coming out. At that point, I decided to rewire the whole thing cause I got tired of plugging 4 connections into the blue box putting the wings together and connecting 4 servo connections to the fuselage leads going into the receiver every time I took it out. It was such a "pain in the lower drain" and no doubt caused loosening of the wires every time I yanked them out.

I did the same thing with my Stinger 90, using Hansen Hobbies 5 pin Latching Polarized Housings and Gold Terminals. No doubt it was a pain stripping so many wires, soldering leads on and connecting the terminals, but once finished, it was well worth it. I now have only one 5 pin latching connection to hook up when installing the wing to the fuselage. I also made a separate connection for the lights, but that's another story. Like the true idiot that I am, I forgot that the blue box must have had a voltage reducer in it for the lights, and of course this Einstein just hooked them up without a light controller. Needless to say, they were incredibly bright for a few seconds and then burned out. So now I'm left with only 1 connection to make for all 6 wing servo's, but no lights (something nice to have but gone for now). I left the wires as short as possible to keep from having to pack a bird's nest away, but it still long enough to make an easy connection. I may purchase a light controller and new LED lights sometime, but for now they're staying dark.

[RRHandy]

I don't know who makes the ones shown but there is a site Electro dynamics .com that carrys them and the contacts are brass.

They're all made of brass, some that are nickle plated and those that are gold plated.

[paladin]

hugh that looks much more reliable! all those + and - leads down to 1, there's some entertainment!

boomer they have to plate the brass with nickel to get best adherence for the gold. so they had to hand pick the leads that only get nickel plate which costs almost as much as gold plating them. i just don't understand sometimes?

i have a 25+ year old cub that has one aileron servo with nickel contacts that just does not work when everything is hooked up. i have to pull the servo and unplug and plug the connector 3-4 times and it comes to life because the nickel tarnishes over time. its a cub so it never gets maintenance time but when it does that' connector is the first thing to go.

Joe

[Beetlemankurt]

Hey all, anyone here had an issue during pre flight set up with the flaps not deploying evenly? There’s a few mm difference in the first ‘take off flaps’ setting from the left hand side to the other side and then about 5mm in ‘landing flaps’ setting. Seems a little bit stickier to move on one side that the other when unhooked from the servo horn so I’m hoping that’s all it is.

Tried a little tiny drop of cooking oil dripped into the flap hinges but not entirely freed up yet. Gonna take the flaps off tomorrow night and make sure there’s no paint or misalignment that’s making things stick. Both flaps are running through a y lead. Any other suggestions are certainly welcomed (tried the search function but didn’t seem to strike anything).

Thanks all and hope you get in some flying this weekend.
Kind regards
Kurt

[Hugh Wiedman]

Hey all, anyone here had an issue during pre flight set up with the flaps not deploying evenly? There’s a few mm difference in the first ‘take off flaps’ setting from the left hand side to the other side and then about 5mm in ‘landing flaps’ setting. Seems a little bit stickier to move on one side that the other when unhooked from the servo horn so I’m hoping that’s all it is.

Tried a little tiny drop of cooking oil dripped into the flap hinges but not entirely freed up yet. Gonna take the flaps off tomorrow night and make sure there’s no paint or misalignment that’s making things stick. Both flaps are running through a y lead. Any other suggestions are certainly welcomed (tried the search function but didn’t seem to strike anything).

Thanks all and hope you get in some flying this weekend.
Kind regards
Kurt

I've had that before on a couple of planes, and it may be a couple different issues. You've identified one already, see if you can get the hinges free of any paint or anything binding them. My issues were that the servo horns on the servos were not aligned at the exact same position causing one side with more control rod travel. You can remove one of the servos and take the horn off and re-align it so it is identical to the other. In situations where it is difficult to remove the servo and horn, on rare occasions I put the control rod for the side that has less travel in another hole so both travel the same distance. Not sure if I'm making any sense, but can't think of any other way to say it.

[Hugh Wiedman]

BTW, it is for this exact reason (dissimilar travel of flaps) that I set my transmitter up through the trim utilities that I can trim ailerons (and for that matter elevator) in all 3 positions of the flaps, cause very rarely can I get completely identical flap travel. At the same time, I can trim the elevator on each 3 positions of the flap, so after the first flight, attitude and roll are set perfectly with each flap position. Yes, it's a pretty busy maiden, trim for level flight, then for landing flaps and finally for take-off flaps, but after that first flight, it's rock solid where I want it at any flap setting from then on, with no let's land and guess what corrections are needed on the flap menu and keep trying till you get it close!

[RichJ53]

I don't know who makes the ones shown but there is a site Electro dynamics .com that carrys them and the contacts are brass.

Here is the link for those guys interested in this style of connections

Rich

http://www.electrodynam.com/store/102.shtml

[Beetlemankurt]

Cheers Hugh. Legend! I’ll give your suggestions a try at some point over the next few days and I’m sure I’ll get there. Much appreciated. Merry Christmas too!
regards Kurt.

[Hugh Wiedman]

Merry Christmas to you too Kurt. Man, I'd love to see New Zealand, it must be a beautiful place to live. Had a trip planned there once for 3 weeks, but something came up with business that I had to postpone it, and that was 25 years ago! Always felt I lost out on something magical.

I assume you know how to set up the trim utilities (that is if you are using a Spektrum transmitter) that allows you to set the trim individually for any surface on 3 different flight modes (using the 3 flap positions as each flight mode). Learned this from a very experienced pilot and now have every plane set up that way if it has flaps. I'm a huge proponent of that utility as it makes flying so much easier (just a little more work on the maiden). You can also (in the same trim utility menu) cross the trim switches so the aileron and elevator trims are on the left and throttle and rudder are on the right (the sticks still stay the same), allowing you to hold the attitude and orientation level with the right stick and use your left hand to adjust the trim. I wish I could do that, but I've been flying to long with the trim switches in their default position that I'm afraid I'd "forget" in a high stress moment if I switched over and I'd trim the rudder or throttle instead of the aileron or elevator. Guess I just need to grow a pair!

[Beetlemankurt]

Thanks Hugh, yes NZ is a great place to live for sure. In saying that, I always love visiting the States too! Haven’t quite got to Miami yet but would love to one day. When you decide that you want to venture to this part of the world again one day, make sure to look me up. Quite a few people seem to come this way for the warbirds over Wanaka show, haven’t quite got there yet either....sounds like a pretty good New Years resolution list...:)

Thanks so much for the extra info on programming, I’ve never really got that deep into it so it sounds like something to have a bit of a play with. Forums like this are great, you never quite know what you are going to learn from one day to the next :). Thanks again Hugh.

[Hugh Wiedman]

Thanks Hugh, yes NZ is a great place to live for sure. In saying that, I always love visiting the States too! Haven’t quite got to Miami yet but would love to one day. When you decide that you want to venture to this part of the world again one day, make sure to look me up. Quite a few people seem to come this way for the warbirds over Wanaka show, haven’t quite got there yet either....sounds like a pretty good New Years resolution list...:)

Thanks so much for the extra info on programming, I’ve never really got that deep into it so it sounds like something to have a bit of a play with. Forums like this are great, you never quite know what you are going to learn from one day to the next :). Thanks again Hugh.

The ability to trim both aileron and elevator separately in flight for each flap setting, in my opinion, is the number 1 aid for better flying. Every plane of mine, prop and jet, that have flaps are set up this way. It's a must for elevator so you trim only once, in flight, for attitude for each flap setting and for ailerons, it is a must to offset any slight difference in flap deflection between each flap. If you can set up your servo horns to give you flap deflections that vary less than 2mm, that's about the best you can do, but even 1-2mm difference will give you a slight roll, which will only get worse the more deflection you put in.

First you need to go to the 2nd menu under F-mode Setup and Program the Flight Mode Switch to whatever 3 position switch you use for your flaps (I always use Switch D). Then go to Trim Setup (also in the 2nd set of menus at least in a Spektrum) and open that menu. Next to Throttle, leave the trim type as Common Digital (default). Next to both Aileron and Elevator, change it to F Mode, and next to Rudder leave it at Common (default). Now each time you change the flaps, the Elevator and Aileron can be trimmed for that Flap. This, of course, means that on the first flight, you will need to adjust 6 different trims (3 each of elevator and aileron). If you want, you can just start with the elevator, (leave the aileron at Common in the trim setup menu), then land, reset your trim menu, and next flight do the aileron, but I like to do everything on the 1st flight. I never found a reason to do this with the rudder, as the trim never changes when flaps are changed. With my 20 or so planes with flaps, very few have the exact same trim for aileron on each flap setting. The same trim setup menu, at the bottom, allows you to "cross" the trim switches, if you're so inclined.

[Oxotnik]

Here is the link for those guys interested in this style of connections

Rich

http://www.electrodynam.com/store/102.shtml

Chief Aircraft also sells a similar multi connector product: http://www.chiefaircraft.com/tb-msh12-3.html

I've been using the Chief Aircraft multi servo connectors, not on my Fightline Spit because I take the wing off for transportation. I do use on my 91" A-26 though.