bignasdy

I remember you Frag! I also added about 2 lbs to the front end, and mine flew wonderful, and I was indeed surprise at the cleanness of the fights. Glad yer back up!
d

mrbiga

I would like to ask : what kind of wheels do you use ? I use a pair of 3'' with normal rim and they deform ( because of the weight of the model), so my plane has a horrible tracking on the runway. I have order a pair of Robart scale wheels ,where the tire has a lower profile,but don't have it on hands yet. Also , i noticed that while my inside loop is O.K. , the outside loop goes to a snap-roll...Any ideas?

mrbiga

At list ,today ,i got the Robart wheels (but not the inserts) so i cut the hard foam from another pair of lite-wheels and stuff it inside the Robarts.No case to deform anymore. Also , i made a modification in the base of the retracts,i glue a piece of 3 mm plywood in the rear beam,so that the wheel ,moved about 20-24 mm forward (when in the open position) and away from the Center of Gravity.This should give even better ground handling ,i hope. I will test it on next Sunday.

bluestratos

test

mrbiga

I think i am starting to fell very good with this plane in the air. Very clean flying model. NIce landings ,when you have some speed.
Test for the wheels . was O.K.
Much better ground handling and no sings of deformation.
I still have some problems, but i think this is because of the spring wire that connects the Gear and the strat. It is 3/16 (4.8 mm) the one that came with the SpringAir's (model 103 HD - 85*) but it keeps bending inside. Do you have any suggestion?

mrbiga

tmenold

My Feedback: (17)

Mr Biga,

Sorry for your loss... I updating myself on this thread and liked your pics in your earlier posts. That's always exciting when you get a plane dialed in and start getting more and more comfortable with it. Then I see your last pictures, just curious what happened?

I year ago or so I came very close to purchasing a used Rare Bear that the guy said had been reinforced etc. I really like the looks of the plane and really wanted to do it but after reading about all the issues of it I decided to wait. I decided to purchase a Great Planes Little Toni instead and am in the middle of building it right now. Hopefully you can still salvage your Bear.

Trent

mrbiga

I was on the 2nd flight of the day.Everything was looking O.K.... 3 minutes after the takeoff ,i passed the transmiter to my 17 years old son (he flyies for 5 years now-mostly 3D ) to fly & feel the plane a little bit. He flew the Bear gently for 2 minutes, about 500-600 feet high and after a downwind leg and left turn, i saw the plane diving at full throtle .I thouht he was going to make a low pass over the runway- the plane was flying str8 to the ground on a 70 deg angle with the wings level and no respont to throtle, aileron or elevator inputs. I said """"uppppppppppppp""""""" but there was nothing that could be done.As if the receiver was locked !!! There was only 1 more flyer on the field on 40.150Mhz , i was on 35230 Mhz.,so no problem from him...
The plane fall in a very very mudy field, so i saved the engine ( found 20 cm under the surface).
I still can not undersand what happened. There was not pilot error. No crack or brake on the stabilizer/elevator. Everything was working normaly when i got there and took the photos. Battery ( i use 2- 6volt/2500 ma Nimh with two switches -http://www.rcbatteryclinic.com/parallel.html ) was O.K. , each one gave me 1500ma on the discharger...at 0.8 A.
Now i have put the receiver and crystal aside ,and will not use it again. If any friend has some answer ,i 'ld be glad to hear.
By the way, the last modification on the retracts ,was to put a 2mm ply, under the base plate close to the wings center, so that the wheels,moved when open about 1 inch to the front and away from the C.G. That gave even better ground handling.[][][]

tmenold

My Feedback: (17)

That explanation sure puts doubts in the radio system and I don't blame you for setting aside your Rx and crystal. Have you ever had any other problems with your Tx? I currently use a JR6102 Tx and love it but I had some radio issues with it also. I sent it in once to JR with signal problems and they claimed I had a loose Tx crystal. I'm surprised I didn't notice that but it seemed to work great after that (for the most part). I was pretty sceptical for quite a while cause there's nothing more scarier in this hobby as getting radio interference while flying. After I got the Tx back from JR I went flying again and on this particular night I was flying my Thunder Tiger Lazy Tiger 51 and was on my third flight (I shoulda check the Rx battery before this flight, my fault...). I went straight up into a stall and nosed it over while the plane was fairly close to full throttle and from about 250 feet up (give or take some) it went straight down and smacked into a terrace channel which was also luckily very muddy. The plane was shredded but the engine (which I found about 10-12" under the ground surface) was OK. I sent the Tx and Rx into JR to inspect and everything checked out fine. I didn't check my battery until much later cause I was blaming the radio, but I am sure the battery was the culprit. As in your case it does not sound like it was. Here is a few pics of my loss. I really liked how this plane flew so all my original electronics and O.S. 52 engine is back on another Lazy Tiger 51. I've even got another brand new Lazy 51 in a box ready to be built if the the one I'm flying now ever gives up on me. I just recently purchased a Spektrum DX7. I've been wanting to upgrade to this since the 2.4 GHz is supposed to me much safer and less chance for interference. Once again, my regrets to your Rare Bear cause they are beautiful planes. Hope you can salvage it.

Trent

Rbeav533

Resurrecting an old thread...

Is anybody still flying one of these, particularly the original version with the weak stabs ?

The guys at my field had been asking me about my RB, we had a small fly in and I said I dust her off and put in a couple of flights. Well after putting a couple of hours into getting my RB air worthy, she started right up and didn't disappoint the folks at the field. What was even more surprising, the Spring Air retracts worked perfectly after being in mothballs for nearly two years. I've taken the RB out for the past several weekends, and the air system is still holding air from the previous week. I've recently purchased a 2 blade 3-1/2" True Turn P-51 spinner. Time to see if I can bust through 100mph in level flight. FWIW: My RB is powered with an old school ASP 1.08, with an O.S. 1.08 carb, and a Bisson pitts style muffler. Two years ago we RADAR'd my RB at a downwind/upwind average of 95mph in level flight.

Rich

Sundance2018

Hi RBeav -

I don't have an older one, but I've got one of the newer ones still fresh from the factory in its original packaging. I've been putting off building it, though, as I'm thinking of putting the new Saito 20cc gasser into it. Might I ask which model of Spring Air retracts you are using in yours?

Tom

Rbeav533

Tom,

I don't recall the Spring Air Model #, they are 85 degree with 3/16" wire legs, mains only. If my RB survives the rest of the flying season I'm planning on doing some upgrades, one of which is to purchase a set of gear from Sierra Precision. With this upgrade will come gear doors, and possibly a retractable tailwheel, clipped wings, removal of the film covering, glassing and paint in the latest RB scheme. I'm even considering conversion to electric and running a close to scale 4 bladed prop, it would definately be fast then.

BTW: My RB has the coolest whistle as it flys by. I don't know what causes it, but I suspect the oil cooler openings have something to so with it.

Rich

Sundance2018

Hi Rich -

Sounds like you've got some terrific plans for your RB! Would love to see it when you've got it all polished up I've only caught partial glimpses of the newest RB scheme from their website. Do you have other pictures? If so I sure would love to see them!!
I've not been able to find any 4-bladed props - what manufacturer are you looking to possibly buy from?

Tom

PLANE JIM

My Feedback: (109)

My RB whistles nicely too-it is kind of a odd whistle-almost the sound of a supercharger-but it isn't-just a stock thunder tiger 120

Rbeav533

Tom,

I don'ty have any photos of the new paint scheme, like you, the only ones I've seen are the teaser pics at their website. I haven't actively looked at 4-bladed props, but I do reacll APC making a large (maybe 15") 4 blader. The issue is having enough torque to spin a large scale diameter prop. The only way to efficiently do this would be with a large inrunner.

Rich

Sundance2018

Hi Rich -

Well, the Reno Races are coming up in a month so there will be lots of photo shoots of the new Rare Bear I'm sure. I like your idea of putting on both inner & outer gear doors on - sure looks a lot better that way. The RB site has a new artist picture there which I think will be what the new Bear will look like but we'll see.
Also, I juat happened to remember that I saw a Zinger 4-blade on EBay some time ago and so I went to their site, check this out........http://www.zingerpropeller.com/4_bladed_propeller.htm

Tom

hattend

My Feedback: (20)

http://dbmueller.com/racers/images/bear2009m.jpg

DB Mueller's new drawing of the "new" Rare Bear

Don

nexusdc5

My Feedback: (4)

Hey there... Yes I did have something similar regarding my wings not lining up. My Wing tubes were drilled too big so I had plenty of slop. So what I did was instead of using the supplied alighnment dowels for the wings, I instead used 4/40 Bline Nuts in the wing, installed the tube through the fuse.. then installed both wings and then used four 4/40 bolts, check wing root alighnment anf still a little off then dremel the dowel holes in the direction tou want your wing to saddle correctly, then when it does tightn your bolts pulling your wings nicely to the fuse ( No gaps with this method) Then Epoxy hard wood into place around Main Wing tube to fuse. This Will alighn your Wings perfectly. I hope this helps.

Vince...

bkramer

Just bought one of the TT Bearcats used at a swap meet. Can anybody provide me with the CG location?

handyman 220

My Feedback: (54)

BK

CG on the Rare Bear is 5 1/4'' from the leading edge of the wing near the fuselage. I just recently sold a NIB TT f-8 Bearcat, but I believe the CG should be the same. Both airplanes are very similar.

bkramer

Thanks for the info.....that should do it for me.

twinbrother

My Feedback: (7)

DragonRacingCars, you're right on the money. You shouldn't have to spend $300 on an ARF and not have the confidence that your plane will hold together in flight. That's absolutely ridiculous. That Beaver dude is totally whacked!!! What idiot would spend $300 on an ARF and want to put in all that work to reinforce the wings and stabs. I had the same problem with my Hangar 9 60 size Corsair. The plane folded in mid air because the wings just collapsed. I lost over $500 on that plane, including my lipo batteries. Horizon Hobby wouldn't do much for me on a replacement. Never buying from them again.

I don't know how these manufacturers can put out ARFs like this and have them fail in flight and do nothing about it. Posts for the Hangar 9 60 size Corsair go back to 2004 about the wings failing in flight. The Hangar 9 60 size Corsair crashed because there wasn't enough glue in the wings holding the wood together. What are these guys thinking? Skimping on glue? It's a $260 plane. I also have a Thunder Tiger Rare Bear, but I picked it up cheap, $150. For that price, I'm going in to reinforce everything, but not for $300. You've got to be nuts to spend that kind of money and do all that work as you would for a kit.

speed lover

I'm thinking of getting one of these planes but after this thread I am having serious doubts. I planned on putting an old laser 150 V twin four stroke in it 1.2kg in weght. Is this plane bad or can it be fixed easily there is alot to read here can anyone help me out what do I need to do with one of these and is the laser enough power.

Sundance2018

Hi Speed Lover -

Well speaking for myself, I have one of these brand new-in-box. Before I bought it I did tons of research and asked loads of questions. All-in-all I cam away with a mixed bag of answers and feelings; however, one thing I did come to a conclusion on was that everybody that built the model and powered according to how Thunder Tiger says to, these folks were all very happy with the craft. On the inverse, those that tried to skip corners and severely over power the plane ended up crashing it, having tail feather flutter, or a host of other problems.
Further research led me to believe that many of the problems exhibited in the ARF were evident in the initial production runs and that Thunder Tiger took immediate steps to correct these problems. Most of these were around poor hinging of the tail feathers and poor construction of the retract gear mounting blocks, but there werea few other things that were corrected too.
As for me, I'm eagerly looking forward to building and flying mine with a BME Super Tigre 90 gas engine. The plane isn't meant for racing like the full scale version - this is a sport flyer with a fiesty attitude!!

Tom

twinbrother

My Feedback: (7)

Don't do it. I wouldn't pay more than $150 for one of these brand new in the box. There is too much reinforcement you need to do in the wings and the stabilizers. Brand new, these were $350. That's nuts for a plane that has such bad engineering and production problems. I removed all the sheeting from the main wings to reinforce the spars and the wood used for the main wings are a joke. It's an accident waiting to happen. If you're experienced with building and have a bunch of ARFs under your belt, you can give it a shot. But as I stated, I wouldn't pay more than $150 for this thing. It's way too much work.