I do not have any new pics to post. My second Gee Bee has been making incremental progress as I have been too involved in other projects.
As far as "new" Gee Bee, keep in mind the latest CARF kits are warmed-over versions of what has always been offered. The improvements are very welcome, but the basic design has not changed.
IF you are a Gee Bee R1 or R2 fanatic, you simply cannot go wrong with the CARF. All the difficult issues have been solved for you, but the kit is still challenging enough to offer great satisfaction with the finished product.
I have spoken with a long time aircraft designer and scratch builder in our club, George Miller. He has a long history of successful competition, an RC aircraft company, and building one-off designs for George Lucas' ILM Productions. Mr. Miller also agrees that the dummy radial must have been the primary culprit causing the Gee Bee to hunt all over the sky for a line to follow. We just could not arrive at any other conclusions.
My Dihedral remained the same. Weight went down by a pound (due to added weight up front to balance). Throws and expo remained the same.
The only other change I made to mine when I went from DA150 down to DA100 was the smaller prop, which may also have contributed to less airflow around the aircraft and over the tail feathers. This theory is a stretch, however, since once the airplane was at speed, it shouldn't matter whether you have a 30" or 28" prop up front.
The dummy radial seems to be the only logical explanation as to WHY my Gee Bee's flight characteristics took such a nasty turn for the worse when I went to the smaller engine.
MY dummy radial was easily removable. I WISH[>:]I had taken the time to try a flight with no dummy up front and I could have proved this theory[:@]
Alas, I sold Gee Bee #1 before this even occured to me[&o]
Anyone out there up for the challenge??? You could resolve this issue for us all!!!
