RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

Pylon2, thanks for the quick response. I appreciate your help.

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

I used Sierra's gear. One landing on test flight worked fine, but not really a test as landing very smooth by Pete Rosas.
Jack

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

Hi VK - Very, very sorry for the loss of you #2 T-Cat. I don't have any ch-eerie words for you only the comment that at times this is a DUMB hobby. Sometimes I think my Golfing friends are smarter than me. My model airplane building and flying is a SICKNESS with me. Don't give up, you have too much knowledge and desire to help others. I read every one of your postings and enjoyed the pictures. I have a few pictures of my new engine installation and tie-down setup. I have been dialing in my Fuji engines and taxing around on my Sierra retracts and testing the brakes. Everything is looking VERY GOOD. Hope to fly it soon.

Col. Chuck Winter

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

Hi All,,

Just got my retracts from Century Jet,,,beautiful,,..product # 16520,,full range of spares avail,,great service..$495
4 way valve avail to set speed of each leg $40
Cheers
Wayne

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

Just returned from our biggest scale meet of the year (over 150 pilots and 250 plus aircraft) where the Tigercat won the trophy for best multi.

The Zenoah 20's ran flawlessy and low fly-bys with the prop noise made the TC a real show-stopper.

So much so that in the last flight of the day when the TG was given the airspace for a solo demo the camera lights action of the moment got to me & I overstayed my welcome - on turning from base onto finals for landing with full flaps & a fair amount of throttle the inside engine ran out of fuel and the TG was in before anyone could blink - the airframe is a write-off but everything else is fine - replacement TG already ordered.

Besides being angry with myself for such stupidity the whole thing was caught on film by Tony the owner of Traplet Publications who flew over from England for the meet (RC Model World & RC Jet Int ) who loved the plane & said he may publish the photos of its last moments in RCMW.

Anyway the consensus of all is that it is/was an AWESOME model & has as the chief judge (747 captain with over 20,000hrs) said - real attitude just like the full-size.

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

Very sorry to hear that Buckaroo. I agree with you the sound of the Zenoah 20's on a low pass is superb see video.
Hope you get your new one flying soon. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WWzrg1DbQXo Cheers Richard.

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

Great video Richard - almost a parallel of mine's last flight - the low passes & turns are addictive - too much so in my case - but you're right - you gotta have one.

Guys - keep working on getting those Tigercats into the air - they're great to fly & handle like a *****cat - excuse the attempted pun.

Just use and set the Tx timer!!

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

T-Cat Builders- ATTENTION - Sierra Retract owners. If you are experiences air leaks and can't find out where the leak is, let me brief you on a possible problem. It's possible to have air leakage through the cylinder past the piston. The problem is the shaft that screws into the piston may not have enough or the correct epoxy to lock the shaft into the piston and can cause air pressure to seep through threaded hole in piston. I was able to unscrew the shaft out of the piston with finger pressure. Sierra Retracts (Darrell) will make good any cylinder that is bad. This is a very remote problem and most people will not have any problems, but if you are SCRATCHING YOUR HEAD as to where is the air pressure going, check out the cylinder.

Col. Chuck Winter

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

T-Cat Builders - This the CORRECT 2nd picture

Col. Chuck Winter

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

Hi Richard @ Pylon2,,

How many degrees of Flap do you use,, the factory setting of 30 mm does not seem much..

Cheers Wayne.

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

Hi Wayne,
I use 2 positions of flap dependant on conditions: stage 1 25mm stage 2 40mm
Hope this helps Cheers Richard.

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

hello great flyers and builders!i want to bye one tgercat?what engine sould i use?gas radial normal nitro?what servo?i need gyro?power supply?i have one jr 9ch in 2.4ghz.i need equalezer?the retracts from the company are the good?

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

Hi There,
I personally would go Gas engines, mine is superb on 2x Zenoah 20's(see video earlier in thread) I used Century Jet retracts which are available for the Tigercat. I don't use any gyro's in mine. Power is a 4000mah 4.8 volt battery. I use a JR PCM9x Tx. Hope this helps. Richard.

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

Hi all, my Tigercat is ready to go. It came in at 22lbs 10ozs, with two saito 125 under the hood. I used BVM 1” cylinders, home made off set hinges and RCBEE TECH gear door sequencer on the doors. Works great. Thanks to everybody’s input on this thread I could plan ahead and put the 4000mah battery in the nose with no ballast needed. Here are a few photos.

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

Well done looks good, like the doors. Hope your maiden goes well
Cheers Richard.

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

Hi Richard,
You and your videos have been most helpfull, my only concern is the gear but my Tcat came in at 22 1/2 lbs so that should help.

Ron

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

She is a beauty! You will love the way it fly's - No doubt about it!!!

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

Ronair - it looks like you did a 3 pc wing? How did you set up the joining and securing?

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

Cpt G , to make the outer panels removable I installed anitroll pins 1 ½ inch from the leading edge, and installed a ¼ 20 blind nut in the outer wing accessed through the flap servo panel. These photos should help.

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

She fits perfectly, weather permitting this Saturday afternoon is test flight day.

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

thanks - that's just what i needed. good luck on your flight!

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

Good luck.

My replacement Tigercat is on its way to me - hope to be airborne with it in a month - luckily most of the hardware in no1 survived the crash virtually unscathed.

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

Buckaroo- Good Luck on your 2nd T-Cat!! From "Up Over"!!;)

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

Just a general information bulletin for all of you T-cat (and ALL Twin owners) out there. Learn from others so you don't learn the hard way!


During the first 5 or 6 flights of my KMP T-cat I often had a wing "rise" at certain times, but not at others. When it started rising I always expected that the worst was coming and I prepared for an engine (always the right one) to quit on me.

I even called an emergency landing at a major fly-in because the situation looked exactly like a dead-stick was forth-coming. After getting the gear down and coming in on short final, the AirBoss made the snide remark about "where's the dead-stick"? Both engines were running fine - I even taxiied in under power.

After much head scratching n brain-storming ( I even changed the fuel tanks to 20oz because I was running low on fuel after only about 6-minutes), I now have the answer firmly figured out....

After the fuel tank change I decided to spend some time to make certain that both engines ran perfectly and reliably, all the way through FULL tanks. I fired them both up with the airplane tied up firmly to a secure post and just watched things happen.... Well, almost nothing happened. I had tached the engines at idle and at top end so that they were within a few RPM of each other. Great, eh? That's what we were supposed to do. Only one thing I hadn't done and that was to check ALL the way through the throttle movement! When I tached the engines through the mid-range, the LEFT engine was pulling more than 1,500RPM more than the right!!! At some points it was more than 2,000RPM. No wonder the left wing kept rising. It was trying to pull itself over!!!

In order to "fix" it, I used the "throttle curve" function of my radio to curve the servos so that the RPM matches ALL the way through the powerband. I know that MOST modern computer radios (I own the Futaba 9C and Jr 9303 also) have the ability to set the throttle curves and that cures any mis-match in set-up differences or mixture of the two engines. Now, when I tach the engines, they are within about 50 RPM of each other from idle to full-throttle and the airplane flies beautifully at ALL settings!

If you are having ANYTHING happen like mine, this will certainly fix it. Hope this helps someone else. Good luck!

RE: KMP F-7F Tigercat
 

I use this Twin engine throttle curve function on all my twins. My engines on my Tcat are synchronised throughout the entire rev range. Cheers Richard.