AirRayInc

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I did not want to clutter up the $50.00 Bearcat thread with more unneeded posts.

Lou,
The Bearcat is a dream. There is just about no bad vices on this airplane. The vertical makes this about the most rock steady plane you fly with regard to yaw control and co ordinated turns. As we are not running long scale length sturts, you are gonna have to watch for your prop clearance. 3 point landings and take offs are not hard to accomplish with the Bearcat. They arent easy either but it helps save props. On take off if you ever let the tail get too high, you are not gonna get it back. I ripped the motor off the plane back when I was learning all the what you cans and what you cants with this plane. P factors are strong, so I just stand on the rudder and run up the power. I do less corrections that way.

I was looking at your prop selection, without knowing first hand the specs and numbers on your motor, I would say you have too much prop there. I had a Brison 4.2 and flew the plane well with 22" props. I now run 5.8s and run 24x12 or 26x10. Mood dictates. The bigger prop is a lot quieter and the smaller prop is extremely faster. My first one weighed about 35lbs, this new one should be right about the same.

Flaps, you dont need much to be effective. Be careful, those barndoors will bring the Cat to a stop in the air with too much deflection, anything over 35 degrees in my book. I ran 15 degrees on the low setting and about 30 on the high setting. Low as I do my landing/gear break, and 30 when I am on final. The plus side is that the lift generated is incredible, keep a little power up or you will bounce all the way down the runway.

Have fun Buddy, and great job,
Ray

flyn2high

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Hi Ray:

Thanks for the great info. I can't wait to fly mine now. I don't know what I was thinking with the prop. It is actually a 24" x 10 zinger prop. This is also what was listed on the test report for it so I thought it would be a good first choice. I measure 3" of clearance from the prop to the ground with the plane horizontal. This is with the landing gear springs extended though. I have no experience with a heavy warbird but I am use to flying a midwest extra with a brison 3.2. I am in the habit of landing it with just a touch of nose up on the flare. It has no tendency to nose over on take off so I will have to watch out for that. For my first flight I will probably be on a grass field that has an almost unlimited runway. I was thinking of doing the first landing with out flaps to have less to worry about. When you extend the flaps to land do you need to do any elevator correction? I figured that I may need to mix in some up or down elevator when the flaps are used.

I was in San Pedro last March visiting friends. It is beautiful there. I guess you can fly year round. Here in New York it is 22 deg with snow on the ground. I am waiting for it to warm up just to start the engine for the first time.

Best regards
Lou

flyn2high

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Hi Ray:

Last weekend was the first flight for my Bearcat. It was really cool. It was a handful until I got it trimmed out. It leaped off the runway because it needed lots of down trim but I nailed the landing. Got two flights that day and it is still in one piece.

If you like I have a video on my clubs web site. You can see it by going to [link=http://liarsrc.com/]LIARS[/link] Then click on photo gallery and you will see it in the lower left hand corner.


Best regards
Lou

JohnVH

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Great looking bird! I do love those bearcats

gunny11

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Nice video's Lou!

Gunny

flyn2high

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Hi John:

I agree with you about the Bearcats. It looks and sounds so cool. It is my first war bird project and now I am hooked. I was checking out your photos page, cool beans. I like your car. Is that an SL55?

Hey Gunny good to see you hanging around here. Thanks again for the invite to the Skyhawks field for the Bearcats first flight.

Best regards
Lou

JohnVH

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great vid. What kit is this?? I gotta get another bearcat..

flyn2high

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Hi John:

Actually I got myself a band saw and scratch built it from Ziroli plans. Is all built up with basa and light and aircraft ply with some maple blocks. I used fiberglass cowl and a canopy from Ziroli. I made my own strut covers using the sheeted wing as a mold to get the right shape. You can see my construction photos at: [link=http://gtweb.net/test/my-bearcat/]my bearcat[/link]

I scoured the internet for photos of the full size plane. In case anyone is interested I put them all in one place at: [link=http://gtweb.net/test/F8F-Bearcat/]F8F Bearcat[/link]

JohnVH

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Wow, impressive!! Nice plane, nice job!

gunny11

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Lou, Nice LIBRARY of pictures of your project. And your always welcome. Just let me know when your up to flying it again out of SKYHAWKS field.

Gunny

myersflyers

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Very nice Bearcats Lou and Ray and great pics/build job Lou.
I'm presently trying to complete a Bearcat I started on last August and put it down to
work on another project.
The kit was from Northwest HobbyTech, which I believe now has a different name and management.
At any rate, it's an all foam kit that has to be sheeted with balsa (your probably aware of this) and I'm at the stage of putting panel lines and rivets on. I'm hoping to paint it in a couple of weeks with
Rustoleum Painter Choice paint and clear coat with PPG. What Paint did you guys use? I'm not
absolutely sold on using the Rustoleum. I'm kind of worry about peel, especially when I apply the
stars/bars and the stripe as seen on the F8F 100 Air Group Nineteen version.
Also this is not as nice a kit as the Ziroli, but it has a 82" wingspan and power is a BME 50, total weight
around +/- 20lbs. This will be my first Bearcat outside of an control line carrier kit I built 25 years
ago. With such a short nose moment I'm concerned about ground handling, balance and snapping. Does it have the feel of the Mustang? Are you holding right rudder with touch of up elev thoughout the entire rollout?
Any help would be appreciated.
Hope to have some pics up soon.
Thanks,
Adrian

Katchmarek

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Lou, Really nice Bearcat! Love the video, she looks even better in the air! You nailed that first landing...way to go! Best of luck with her.

Ray, How's it going? I'm almost ready to paint the 109 ... finally!

Happy flying,
Rob Bailey / Pickupsticks

Gremlin Castle

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Very nice looking Bird. Good looking gear doors . Also think that the twin cylinder motors are the way to go when ever you can fit one in.

I find the bearcat to be as easy to fly as a big P-47.

Currently flying a 108" Bearcat with a DA-150 for power. The paint scheme is the Gulf Oil Co. Gulfhawk IV that Major AL Williams campaigned during the late 40s.
His plane and one Navy craft set the standing start Time to Climb record of 0 to 10,000 feet in 91 seconds. The record stood until the F-16 came along.

JohnVH

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Wow!

flyn2high

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Thanks guys for the kind words. It was an awesome experience taking it up for the first time. I went over kill with the engine. It is rated at 36 lbs of thrust. I could probably hang from the prop, ha ha. I did made use of the extra power on take off. I feed a touch of up elevator on the take off roll and as you can see it leaped off the runway. If it wasn’t for all that power I probably would have stalled. After my heart started beating again I discovered that it needed lots of down trim. On the first flight I couldn’t really tell how well it flew because I was too nervous to do any maneuvers. At one point I must have brought the power back and was climbing. I was high but noticed that I had very little control. I assumed that I was stalling and gave it more power which brought it back. On my second flight that day after I had a chance to relax and I noticed that the ailerons did not have enough control for me. The plane was very stable and easy to land. Thanks again to Larry Sribnick from SR Batteries for taking the video.


Hi Adrian:
The paint I used was automotive lacquer over lacquer primer surfacer. This may not be the best choice but I used to do body work and it was what I was use to. I figured that if I made a mistake it would dry so quick that I could just sand it out. It is kind of expensive at $90.00 per quart at the body shop supplier. It also dries very hard and has a tendency to crack if flexed. I have no problem with that yet though. Rustoleum should be fine but it takes while to dry enough to sand. On my next project I am going to use exterior latex with a clear coat of gloss water based polyurethane. I will let you know how it goes.

The finished weight was about 25.5 lbs. I was limited by how far forward I could get the electronics and batteries because I wanted to stay at least 12� away from the ignition. I put the gas and smoke tank right on the CG point. I ended up needing to add 2.5 lbs of lead to the nose so I am at about 28 lbs empty now. The BME 50 is a good engine. Has a high power to weight ratio like my Brison. You may need to add weight up front due to the short nose. By the way ground handing was no problem at all. My tail wheel has too much travel at about 60◦ right and left which I thought could make it very sensitive. I don’t know if the grass helped but it went nice and straight down the runway. Even the second takeoff was fine and a bit more graceful. The tail came up and then it lifted off nicely with no tendency to pull to one side.

I think what makes Ziroli designs so good is the airfoil that he uses. It is not scale as our models fly much slower but he uses a thick semi symmetrical airfoil with washout built in. The airfoil appears to taper down at the wing tips so it still looks scale.

BOB MOORE

Hi Lou great pictures. I had the honor to be selected to be a member of the Blue Angels maintence team in 1952. When i arrived at NAS Corpus Christi the Team had six Grumman F9F -5 Panthers , Two Chance Vaught F7u 1 Cutlasses and one Grumman F8F BearCat. The Bear Cat was the second or third one that was painted yellow. I worked on it several times. A couple of months later it was replaced by A TV2 (T33). I was an Aviation Structual Mech. While I was with the team I was the aircraft painter. The Bearcat was painted with AN Yellow with Blue Angel Blue trim. In those days the paint I used was Nitrate Lacquer. The Blue color was by Mixing Insignia Blue (Three Parts) to one part Insignia white. Butch Voris Number one Blue was again the leader in 1952. He told me that the Hellcats were painted Blue with Gold Leaf for the lettering. I hope this dosen't bore you Bob MOORE AMA 6559 PS The 1952 plane did not have the name BETTLE BOMB painted on it

hattend

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Hmmm...Lyle Shelton and Rare Bear claim to hold this class record: http://www.rarebear.com/page3.html scroll down to between 1972 and 1973

Don

Gremlin Castle

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Shelton and crew are late comers (early 70s) The Navy did it first in late 1947 I believe and Al Williams did it on a regular basis after that time until the Gulfhawk IV was lost in a landing accident.

hattend

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see below (how does one delete an unwanted post?)

hattend

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I was responding to your saying that the RECORD of 91 seconds was held by Williams, et al.

They may have been doing the climbs since '47 but Shelton HOLDS (or rather held...it no longer stands) the record for the class. Not arguing with you, just going by what I have heard and what is claimed by Lyle Shelton.

Check the archive here: http://records.fai.org/general_aviat...1&id2=39&id3=1 I think Bruce Bohannon may hold the piston record now, but I could be wrong.

Don

flyn2high

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Hi Bob Moore:

It is interesting to know that there are people out there that have first hand knowledge of this plane. I know of two that were painted yellow. One is [link=http://gtweb.net/test/F8F-Bearcat/images/14_jpg.jpg]Yellow Gulfhawk Style[/link] and the other appears to be the Beatle Bomb at [link=http://gtweb.net/test/F8F-Bearcat/images/bearcat9_jpg.jpg]Beatle Bomb[/link]

Was the darker blue color used in the Navy Bearcats the Insignia Blue that you describe? It took some guess work to get the color close. My second choice for the paint was to use the orange Gulfhawk colors but I thought I may not be eligible to enter war bird events with it. The 201 B insignias that I used was modeled after a full size bearcat that fly's in England air shows. They were kind enough to email me a close of the nose insignia. Last night I finely applied the nose decal to the cowl

Best regards
Lou

BOB MOORE

Hi Lou . In answer to your guestion the right color for Bearcats and other Navy plane s of that era is called "GLOSS SEA BLUE". After I left the Blues I was asigned to VF 111 at Mimimar,Ca for 6 months then I fin ished out my Navy time as Petty Officer in charge of the base Aircraft Paint shop.Back in the eighties and ninties I was member of the CAF anf have flown in many airshows.I have seen many Planes that were painted in Blue but not the right color. If you ever get a chance to go to Pensacola . Fla, go to the Naval Air Museum. Great place. I have a book called "BLUE ANGELS 50 years of Precision Flight" It has alot of information aboput the Blues Bearcats.The Plane Called Bettle Bomb was destroyed in April 1947. The book dose not say if another one was called by that name. The one we had in 1952 had no name on cowl. The name "Bettle Bomb" came from a song by a guy called "SPIKE JONES" and it a comic story about a race called "Bettle Bomb.. The Bearcat record of climbing to 10,00 ft in 93 second was broken by a F4 PHANTOM IN 1962. The Grumman Rep that was with the Blues for 16 years told me about the record set by the Bearcat while I was with the team in 1952. He was apart ot the test team on Bearcats in 1945-49. I don"t rember if it was by Navy test pilots are Grummamn test pilots.I will send you the web page about the F4 Later. BOB MOORE

BOB MOORE

http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/...ook/record.htm Hi Lou here is the website for F4 records I read my last note and I left out that song was about a horse race and the horse was named Bettle Bomb BOB MOORE