SmoothRC

I am either stupid or crazy. Prob. a little of both, but my little girl thought the Biplane was cute and she wanted me to build it.

Well I am going to go all out and make it a 4 channel. (alrn., elev., rudr., and throttle).

I want to go glow for this and looking at it from afar an .049 I think will work. May be slightly overpowered? or should I put in an .020 and pray for a rebuild when it crashes?

Work with me guys on this. Any suggestions?

Or I might go electric..............I just hate the thought of that.

Dukester

My Feedback: (31)

Smooth,

I too have been bit by the Guillow's conversion bug. I just bought a series 800 Stearman kit from a guy on RCGroups that I was planning to try out with a exhaust throttled 049 (Norvel 061 waiting in the wings if needed, but I really want to use the throttled cox). I have some fairly light weight radio gear already (right at 1.7 oz for 4 servo + RX). After doing quite a bit of research, I have decided that this is a very challenging project and likely to end up with not so stellar results. However, with that being said I'm still hopeful for the best.

Keep us updated on the Morse build and I'll post some Stearman pics as it comes along.

Duke

fox35

My Feedback: (9)

I tried one with everything from CO2 to electric to Pee Wee 020.

It finally flew with the 020 and rudder/elevator with no throttle. It was by no means overpowered--could have used a light 049. But it was a thrill to see it fly.

It never flew well though. It was unstable in pitch. Could have had the CG wrong, or maybe the wing incedence.

Used two FMA 80's, 50 mah rx pack and Hitech 555 without the case. Can't remember what it weighed.

Good luck with your project-- it makes a very nice little airplane.

SmoothRC

Duke & Fox, thanks. I have already started the transformation. I figured that since it has 210 sq. inches it should work fairly well. Much more of a relaxed flight.

I have already converted one rubber powered kit. The Golden Age Repro. Stormovik, Russian fighter, with great success. It had 5 channels including retracts. It flew like a dream but we had a front moving through last Sunday and.....well.......a gust blew it into the catch fence on final approach. Only thing left is all radio gear, motor, and tank. Plus I can salvage the retracts for a later project. It had a Norvel .049swinging a 7x4, kept the thrust up and RPM down slightly. Worked great, nice and stable, very agile. Worked like a pylon racer I had many years ago.

See the thread - What Happened? - it will probably go even farther into the build.

Thanks for the support.

buzzard bait

I've been wanting to fly that one RC since about 1965 but I still haven't tried it. My thought was to keep it as light as possible, use an 020 unthrottled and two servos--elevator and CAR. The ailerons would be driven by pushrods from a servo in the fuse going to torque rods in the wing, as on the full scale. Hard to think how to do it any other way since the ailerons are in the top wing. The same servo would go to the rudder via fishing line (coupled rudder and aileron--CAR). It's a lot of complication in a small space, which is why I haven't tried it yet, but it seems to me it should be possible.

Don't know what to say about the instability in pitch unless the CG was off. It's got such a short nose -- a 1/5 scale model in our club required a tremendous amount of lead. In fact the full scale aircraft tended to be a little tail heavy. Enlarging the stab would allow for a more rearward CG.

They were built about a mile from where I live, in Ithaca NY. The guy who built the 1/5th scale also built a 1/2 scale static model that hangs as the centerpiece in the local airport--a tribute to his Dad who built the originals.

More power to you, Smooth--keep us posted! Jim

r1morris

My Feedback: (1)

Guillows - Thomas Morse project
Guillows now makes the Thomas Morse in a laser cut kit for $32.00 the perfect setup would be the new micro micro radio gear from Cirrus with a small electric setup. the whole thing is very doable. So much so I might just make it a winter project.
The down side if you want to call it that is the price. The project will run about $220 plus to put together.

toy264

Here's a thread on the tommy on RCGroups electric forum- might give you some ideas.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showt...as+morse+scout

John

fritzke

My Feedback: (1)

Tower has them for $20 right now.
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXBVF2&P=7
The SE5a too.
dave

sean GT

I just ordered a Guillow's Thomas Morse to build as an electric RC. Only trouble is I don't know much about electrics. What size motor (and gearbox?), prop, batteries (NiCd, LiPoly, NiMH ?), and radio gear should I use? I would like to keep it under 200$ and I have seen plenty of GWS (among others) flight packs for around 80$. Any suggestion? Thanks, -sean

Jaime_Arenas

My Feedback: (4)

I wonder what it is about the Thomas Morse that has us all so excited?

Anyway, I bought one last week, and I plan to go electric. As I type I'm working on a CDROM brushless motor for it from gobrushless.com. I plan to use the small Cirrus servos for Ailerons, Rudder, and Elevator, and a Castle-Creations phoenix 10 brushless controller; I haven't made a decision on the receiver yet. The battery will likely be a 2 cell Li-po pack. I have not crunch all the numbers just yet, but I think that the all up weigh should be in the 7.5 oz range for a 5oz/ft^2 wing loading. As I work through re-engineering the kit I may start a separate thread on the electric forum.


SmoothRc please post pics of your progress.


Jaime.