GhostRider32

Guys,

I'm looking at building one of these and would like to know if there are mechanical retracts for these that work well. What did you guys use? I'm looking at the Lado's and will use these if necessary but would rather do mechanicals (due to Lado cost) if there are good ones available at a reasonable cost. I'm not planning on doing air at all. Links please if possible. Thanks.

mimoore67

My Feedback: (51)

I have heard of guys having very good luck with the world model retracts and Dave Brown Retracts (Southern Pros)!

bigtim

My Feedback: (13)

sorry built both planes with air retracts, but given the choice now, I would go with LADO's ,I have 3 sets and they work great, fitting LADO's into my spit would require major surgery, the Robart air gear works well enough.
in the P-47 I have Century Jet gear there not too bad at all but for the $$ I spent on them I will buy LADO's now

GhostRider32

I'll probably go with Lados then. How well did your build go? Was it as easy as Top Flite makes it out to be?

ChuckW

I have the ARF TF P-47 and I used Lado's. Sure they are a little more expensive than mechanical retracts but they have been absolutely flawless so far. No linkage to set up, no leaking air lines, no problems. A good set of pneumatic retracts aren't cheap either so the Lados are well worth it to me.

bigtim

My Feedback: (13)

if you follow the instructions and have a basic bit of model construction experience you cand build a top flight model, one thing is building them light they come out a little heavy, but both were fun to build and are nice looking models, I have a couple more of them that I will build in the next few years after I clean up my bench.
right now I am doing a refurb on a TF P-40, that I picked up fairly cheap, and some more projects before I start another fresh project, the instructions are well done on both models just follw them and you will end up with a fine model.

GhostRider32

Thnaks guys.

Craig-RCU

I've built the 1/7 TF P-47 and installed Century Jet pneumatic retracts. The Century Jets are working well for me. My only complaint is that the instructions were rather sparse.

The build of the P-47 went well for me. TF's instructions are very comprehensive and give lots of handy tips along the way. The only tip that I can think of that I'd add is about sheeting selection. I'd read that some people's P-47s were coming out tail heavy. Adding weight to the nose to fix that issue is part of the reason that these builds come out heavy overall. I felt like TF instructions should remind the builder that wood can be highly variable in density (if you are a noob to working with wood, the variability can be surprising), so the heaviest sheeting should be put toward the front of the plane. Knowing that some builds were turning out tail heavy and that wood can be highly variable in density, I weighed all the sheeting, wrote that weight on the sheeting (weighing the sheeting requires a fairly sensitive scale. I used a $33 "My Weigh MX 200" electronic scale. It is accurate to the tenth of a gram) and also balanced each piece at its mid-point to mark the heavy end. On the wings, I put the heaviest sheeting pieces toward the leading edge and put the heaviest end toward the wing root. Having the heaviest wood toward the leading edge and root makes it less likely that you'll put a finger through the sheeting when handling the assembled plane, makes the wing a less likely to fold in flight than it would have been otherwise and makes it less likely that the plane will be tail heavy. On the fuse, I also put the heavy end of the sheeting toward the nose. I put the heavier sheeting on the bottom of the fuse to protect against damage from belly landings and moving the model around by hand. I saved the very lightest sheeting for the tail surfaces, since they need to be light to avoid the model coming out tail heavy and you don't need to handle the tail surfaces to move the model around.

The result of all this attention to the weight of the sheeting was that my monokote covered P-47 with a RCV91-CD for power came out nose heavy. I had to move the battery and receiver just aft of the wing and mount the elevator servo to the tail just under the horizontal stab to balance my P-47 at the aft-most recommended mark. I used a standard servo to operate the air retracts. That and the air tank are mounted just forward of the wing's trailing edge. So, it appears that even if one were to use a heavier covering material than monokote, such as fiberglass, paying attention to the weight of the sheeting should certainly minimize if not eliminate any need for nose ballast for balancing their model.

As far as mechanical retracts, I have been very happy with the retracts that came installed in my World Models Zero 60. It is a very inexpensive and effective setup. The instructions for the ARF recommended a single standard servo for the operation of both gear. I have no doubt that would work as the stock gear legs are sorter than scale and the stock wheels are very light. I lengthened my gear to proper scale length with robostruts and use lager scale sized wheels that are light for their size but still heavier than the stock wheels. For those reasons, I used a standard servo to operate each gear instead of one to operate both. This has worked very well for me. At some point I might rig servo slowing with my radio or add-on electronics so that the gear operate in a more scale speed.

GhostRider32

Nice writeup. Thanks for the comments. I've never put too much thought about weighing individual sheets like that......

Craig-RCU

Thanks, I just enjoy the challenge of trying to optimise models to balance without nose weight. Weighing the sheeting is not 100% necessary to build a nice flying model and maybe this level of attention to detail is not for everyone.

I just thought of another sheeting tip. In the TF P-47 instructions, they recommend wetting the sheeting on the razorback area because it is such a difficult place to sheet and then letting it dry some while it's pinned in place. That wasn't working for me so well and I was getting impatient at letting the sheeting air dry, so I got out my covering iron and applied high heat to the wet sheeting to boil it dry while holding it to shape in my hand. I found that I could warp the sheeting to a great degree by doing this and the iron-dried wood would hold its warped shape well enough that pinning the sheeting to the fuse framework became very easy. After a series of wetting and iron-drying attempts I found that I could shape the sheeting on this difficult to sheet area to practically be a drop on fit requiring few pins. Also the wood is completely dry at this stage and moisture is no longer a gluing issue anymore.

I wish that I had also used this approach in sheeting other compound curved areas on the fuse. I could have saved myself some time and weight filling with light weight spackle to get rid of the "starved horse look" of the sheeting sagging a bit between fuse ribs. If I had used the iron-drying technique I could have warped the fuse sheeting into a compound curve that dropped in place with fewer pins needed and little stress on the sheeting to cause it to want to sag between the ribs. If anyone is going to try this, I'd recommend experimenting with some scrap sheeting first rather than sheeting that you've spent time prepping to be applied to the model.

MANFRED

My Feedback: (27)

P-47 will land better

Craig-RCU

Are you talking about the stall characteristics of the P-47 or the wider gear stance that gives it better ground handling? I'd have to say that the wide gear makes the P-47 a better first-time warbird than the Spitfire since the P-47 is such a great flying plane.

GhostRider32

I am interested in which of the Top Flight planes fly the best. I have plans on building them all but don't know if I'll ever actually do it but knowing which ones fly the best might sway which order I build them.

Craig-RCU

As far as I've heard, all the TF 1/7 scale warbirds fly just about equally well except for the P-40. Apparently, the P-40 has harsher tip stalling tendencies, which doesn't surprise me because I've heard that P-40s from other manufacturers have that problem too. I observed a guy at my club crash his Hangar9 P-40 from an altitude of about 50 ft when he got too slow after his engine quit. The H9 P-40 tip stalled to an inverted attitude and there wasn't enough altitude to recover. None of the other TF models have this problem as far as I've heard. When they stall, they might drop a wing to maybe a 45 degree bank but don't flip inverted.