Never

Good Morning,
I bought the Gee Bee R-1 from Great Planes.
Someone manages to land without doing somersaults ?
I have seen the footage of the Great Planes, and also they do not land right !
Do you have tips, suggestions for me ?
Sorry for my english !

Marco-Siena- Italiy

capnduane

I also have a Great Planes Gee Bee, it is hanging in my living room, I have not flown it. Every one of them I have seen has been wrecked. Mine has a Magnum 120 four stroke engine in it. I had problems with a too fast idle, and hung it up, and have not messed with it for a couple of years. My take on this aircraft, is that one needs to be careful with the CG, and keep all weight low in the fuse, to help keep the tail from coming up and over on landing. As an aside, I have the SeaGull Gee Bee Z, and it is a sweetheart, just fly it in, wheel land it, no problems. One day, I will get around to flying the Great Planes, another thing is to make sure the wheels do not contact the pants.. You need plenty of clearance there, esp in back. On landing the wheel touches the pant, over you go!

stuntflyr

Hi Marco,
Seems the majority of the Gee Bee ARF's have an engineering breakdown at the landing gear. They use a small Pattern ship style gear block with music wire for a strut and then install a 1 foot long wire with a 4 inch wheel on the end and expect it to somehow resist all of the forces of that long moment arm and large wheel. It will not.

As the above poster states, the wheel will touch the pants, like putting on brakes, and the model will nose over.
The gear needs to resist side loads and fore and aft loads. The strut needs a link soldered to the main strut and triangulating back to a hard point mounting it to the wing directly behind the main mounting several inches. Follow the angle on the wheel pant/strut covers, and construct so as to retain them internally within the wheel pant/strut covers when installed.

Then it needs a side load resisting scheme which on the larger models is often done with structural flying wires from mid span of wing to the lower end of the gear strut and to the wing/fuselage center, as the real airplane was done. The wider the bracing better.

In the case of the lighter Great Planes and some Chinese ARF's of similar size, there could be a triangulation of the load's forces done on the main and trailing strut by soldering a span wise plate onto landing gear strut wires in the wing mounting area part of the wire, and then a gussett either side of the gear wires down from the span wise plate, attaching to the strut all the way down to certain distance down the strut wires. The longer the better.

These schemes may overload the wood mounting structure in the wing, it may be advisable to increase the lumber in the landing gear mounting area by removing the wing covering and beefing up internally.

Some companies sell scale Gee Bee gear, but they are complex and very expensive. They may well be of larger scale than the Great Planes model. The way the landing gear is mounted and what the landing gear material is made from is the big problem with Gee Bee ARF landing gear. Their ground handling problems stem from this, the better the gear, the better the handling.

Chris...

rowdog_14

My Feedback: (5)

I have many flights on mine and it is a joy to fly. Some days I would take just my Great Planes Gee Bee out and just fly it. I have it all setup per the manual everything is factory no upgrades. I have not flown mine in about a year because the field I fly at now has trees at the end of the runway which makes it hard to land but it is still possible. Here are two videos of mine...good luck and may I suggest the OS120FS, with a prop spinner it balance right on the money.

Since they have stopped making this plane, I might hang mine up in a little bit. Once you master the Gee Bee you should be able to fly anything!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWSW5RhO5E4[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns7KwODzMxo[/youtube]

capnduane

Most Excellent, Rowdog! I applaud you! Gives me hope, some day I may take mine down from the ceiling and fly it. Looks like it flys just like my Z. I have a magnum 120 four stroke in mine, and it balanced like yours. I just had problems with a too high idle, and sort of moved on to other models. It sure looks good hanging, I have two smaller non flying Gee Bees on display with it. Duane

foodstick

Here is what I did to mine ...to beef up the gear box, I opened the bay on TOP of the wing to reinforce it, when you see how little is in there.. a shiver will run up your back..I then made a nice access hatch where I opened the wing so I good go back in any time I wanted...

Second make sure your wheel pants aren't so low they grab the grass.. yeah that will make you cartwheel..believe me

Third this may sound crazy but wrap around your tires with black electrical tape, when you are unfortunate to hit hard and push the wheel against the inside of the wheel pant..it will slide, not grab like brakes and flip you over...

just a couple ideas to try.

MercerAUST

It seems to land similar to the Mew Gull andother Golden Era racers. You need a good runway - the longer the better - and a good appoach is critical. You must keep the throttle on and carefully watch the undercarraige (not the fuselage) to finese the landing. This will typically take you to about the mid runway point directly opposite from where you are flying. Settle it down and be prepared for up-elevator, when it is firmly planted, to slow it down as much as possible before you get to the end of the strip.

It is always better to bring it in too fast, and risk running offthe end of the strip, then too slow and plopping down.

Never

Thank you all for the advice.
I think I'll change the landing gear, I might appear, there are the Robart landing gear!
What do you think?

Marco

Lifer

My Feedback: (1)

Strange as it may sound, I found the landings to be better when I used a 6 inch pitch prop. It allows the plane to slow down better for landings, FWIW.

rowdog_14

My Feedback: (5)

x2

Never,

I do not know if you noticed that on my profile and video but I too used a 6 pitch prop too. I used and 16x6. I have used a 16x8 and the Gee Bee will want to keep flying.

Never

my problem is not flying with OS 120 FS flies very well!
My problem is landing.

Marco

ARUP

Great flying, Rowdog 14!

rowdog_14

My Feedback: (5)

I say buy a hot landing plane and fly the hell out of it and just practice on landing it. I have a great planes revolver (.46), and it lands hot all the time. That is what probably helped me land the Gee Bee. Every time I come in for a landing at my field with my Gee Bee they say "you need to go around because you are too hot" and all I do is just laugh in my head. Here is a video of my revolver landing

To me long & high approaches are the best with the Gee Bee.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzaY8vLwFrk[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d62Sx8bJ1cQ[/youtube]

The revolver is my everyday plane and my test plane for a new field. It takes up a lot of sky quickly and lands hot so if I can fly it at a field I can fly all my planes.

PSJDBF

Heres how I did my landing gear on my Seagull GeeBee Z, seems to work well the rear brace wire stops most of the flex to the rear and the dampened strut stops most of the bounce.
Will post a very short Vid I made up yesterday for my son, I was flying the Z and he grabbed the video camera, his first attempt at videoing one of my planes.
After editing about 4 to 5 minutes of it, I ended up with about 1.5 minutes of usable footage, not to bad an attempt considering how excited he gets.
Funny looking at the world through his eyes.
Not up to your vid standards rowdog may have to get your missus over to video mine Ha !.

PSJDBF

The video link.
Cheers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2ItC...ature=youtu.be