I finally got the Pitts flying fairly well, not what I expected from a Pitts, but it will have to do, as I did about a dozen adjustments to the engine thrust angles and a half dozen adjustments to the wing incidence, it been a real pain in the butt to tweak, here is what I settled on.
Down thrust >> 3 degrees (factory recommended setting)
Right thrust >> 3.5 degrees
Bottom wing incidence >> positive 0.5 degrees
Top wing incidence >> negative 1.5 degrees
The quality of the kit I got was very poor, I had to sand and shim the bottom wing saddle in both directions to get the wing centred and at the proper incidence, it came from the factory at negative 2 degrees. It has very cheap covering, if I do not crash it, I will recover it this winter. Its coming apart at every seam and splitting at the wing ribs and fuselage ribs. I have been patching it up all over the place.
Once I got the thrust and wing incidence in the sweet spot, it now flies a lot better than the first few flights I had with it, although it cannot hold a candle to the other bi-planes I have flown. It's definitely the worst flyer out of the 4 >> Stearman, Skybolt, and Goldberg Ultimate.
It knife edges slow and low, but has a lot of coupling in both aileron and elevator with some practice I have trained my thumbs to get it fairly smooth. Rolls are axial with some differential programmed in the ailerons, but loops are not inline, I think that is just a defect with my airframe.
I have not been able to do flat spins, either upright or inverted. I'm at the middle of the C of G range, so I will now start to move it back to see if it will flatten out on spins. The best flat spinner I have flown is the Super Skybolt.
Flying inverted is a real hand full; it needs more that a half elevator stick to keep it level.
The Pitts excels at tumbling and it's a real crowd pleaser when I do them at the field.
I give the Pitts and overall rating of 3 stars out of 5.
This is short clip of my Pitts in knife-edge with a 50DL and a 22x8 Xoar prop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLWrG0ZPCjo
Geppino
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BoundForHell
You can never have enough power, as you can always throttle back.