ORIGINAL: BgCatfish1
I have to say that last week I ran across a Pitts that looked great and the price was good too. Thought about letting it sink in on me before I bought it (got alot of birds in the hanger), and now I run across this thread and also the one that was linked (within this thread) that was locked.
I was really interested in this bipe and if anyone can say they have bought it, and it is of good quality, let me know.
Has anyone picked up this bipe or have anything good to say? I have almost got the wifes ok to get a bipe LOL
The Pitts 40S is a nice plane...
A few caveats.
This is a lightly built plane. I suggest fuel proofing the interior to add adhesion to the ply formers, etc.
The landing gear mounts MUST have reinforcement or else you'll easily rip them out.
As usual the manual is pretty worthless, and many of the steps are displayed way out of order.
The wing strut "tabs" to which the struts attach are perpendicular to the wings. This is a bit problematic because the struts are installed with a 1" diffential, causing the upper struts to purposely cant out . After installing the struts the tabs should have thin CA applied so that they take their new canted shape w/o breaking.
The covering job on mine was very good with no wrinkles of any sort.
The stars are a bit crude compared to plastic stick on decals, but from a few feet they look great.
The cowl is HUGE for the size of the plane. It completely encloses my T.H. 46 and slimline Pitts Muffler.
The plane plane could probably do very well with a .32 engine, and is overpowered with a .46 2stroker.
As such it lends itself VERY well to electrification. The area behind the firewall has a fairly large space. This area is easily accessible from underneith the plane if you remove the lower covering. There is ample space there to fit 3 3S packs side by side! All you need to do is add a battery retainer and door.... the batteries could then be swapped out w/o taking anything apart. No structure has to be changed, cut or modified to support this.
The plane flies well, but you need some expo even at the low rates as it is VERY responsive. The short tail moment contributes to this.