On my initial engine test run in my driveway I used an 18-6 Master Airscrew Classic prop. The engine turned it but it appeared to be loading the engine down too much. Getting a needle was more difficult, but I was able to get a decent 4-stroke needle and then find peak RPM. I didn't tach it, but it didn't sound like it was turning much above 7000 RPM.

I test flew with a Master Airscrew 16-8 Wood Simitar prop. The engine didn't have any trouble spinning it. I broke that prop on the prototypical Gee Bee 3 point landing. The next flight will be with an APC 17-6. I'll also probably try an 18-6 wood prop.

If the weather improves as forecast I'll fly tommorow, possibly Sunday if the wind stays below 15mph.

Rich

I flew the Gee Bee a second time today. I made a couple of adjustments to the elevator settings. I tried to mechanically center the trims, added more Throw, I was limiting High Rate at 75%, so this was increased to 100%. Low Rate was increased to 75% and I added 30% expo to soften center stick in pitch. I also installed an APC 17 x 6 prop on the GMS 1.20.

Flight was very nice, I went too far with the clevis adjustments, no biggy. Anyway the flight was very nice, nice big loops, incredible knife edge performance. You'd never think a barrel could generate so much lift. Finally decided to LAND !!!

Setup for the landing with a stabilized approach, chopped power and wheeled the plane on. As I was controlling the pitch attitude duirng rollout, everything looked great, then all of a sudden, it was like someone stepped on the brakes. The plane just stopped and nosed over, flipped over on it's back. OK, so the grass grabbed the wheel pants, or so I thought.

Sat around for awhile and deceided to go for another flight. Again great flight everything went well, then it was time to land. Setup was good, but I decided I was carrying too much speed and decided to go around. Approach #2 was the same deal, so I went around again. On the third approach everything looked good but I was getting past mid-field and still about 3 feet off the ground. So I initiated a go around, it started out OK, then without warning, the nose of the plane suddenly pitch over at 3 feet of altitude and hit hard on the gear. The gear proceeded to exit through the top of the wings, very impressive arrival, complete with a 50 foot debris field. It took about 10 minutes to pick up all the FOD left by my GEE BEE's wing. I suspect I stalled the plane as I was initiating the go around, the wicked fast pitch down occured just as I added a touch of up elevator .

The only damage was to the wings. So I'm going to buy a wing kit and get her back into the air. I'll report back when I fly it again. The next flight should have the pitch trim details worked out. I do plan on avoiding the stall 3 feet above the ground though.

Rich

Sorry about the incident... Not sure if you know but on ebay there is a gu who was selling them for $215 shiped

Sorry to here the bad news! Did you initiate the third go-round with throttle or elevator?

I put an OS 120 in my GP GeeBee and used standard servos. The aircraft takes off and flies beautifully, landings can be a little tricky.
Keep the weight down and enjoy.

Well I just found out today that my wife has bought me a Gee Bee for christmas. I do have a few questions after reading this thread. Have any of you come up with a ideal engine and prop for this plane. Everyone keeps saying to keep the weight down but which engine works the best and what prop works the best. A lot of people are using the OS 120 but for the same money and weight you can get a saito 150. So the question is how much power does this plane really need? I know the plane has to be flown fast as that is the reason i wanted one. Thanks for any help.


Rich

I just maidened mine yesterday.
It wasnt all that bad~ except I goofed up the landing a bit. I dont think it was a hundred percent trimmed. It was a bit windy and had some crosswinds as well.
The Gee Bee has a huge tendency to turn into the wind.
I took her up, straight down the runway...
She took off, nice climbout. I balanced her at 70mm and it felt a bit tailheavy...
Felt sensitive on the elevator as well.
Flew her around a few times around and around. Didn't really do anything demanding. Wanted to get a feel for her.
It was pretty gusty I dont think I trimmed the rudder right.
Decided to come down.
You know, it actually will fly pretty slow. I started to decend and the wind started to blow. The Gee Bee started to go off to the left towards the wind and I should have just gone around but gave her right rudder to get her back on the runway and basically tip stalled.
Nothing major just the nylon wing bolts broke.
Im glad they're nylon if it wasnt it would have been alot worse.
oh yeah the dummy radial broke too. and a few scratches on the cowl.
No biggie, Ill fly her again
It was pretty fun
But I have to say. I have a non pumped OS 120 on this turning a 16x6 apc and I really have to say, it can use some more power.
I'd say satio 150 or even a 180 would be great.

One of my best friends has a Saito 150 in his and it flys great with it. He is very pleased with it. He has about 20 flights on it. It took him about 6-8 flights to get the landings down. Now I haven't seeen him nose it over in a long time. Just keeps up the speed to prevent tip stall and sets it down on the wheels.... Let's it rool out. Key is not to cut the throttle too fast... If you do the nose being so large acts like an air brake and it will nose over...

Throotle first, and then as I added a very small amount of up elevator, BAM wicked fast nose down. So I must have been right at the edge of the stall, only 3 feet above the ground. Had I been 6 inches off the ground it would have been a none event.

I did do a bunch of stalls at high altitude and didn't notice how quick the nose dropped. But when you're doing this stuff 150 feet above the ground it's kinda hard to judge how much altitude was lost in the stall and recovery. I was mainly looking for tip stalling tendancies, which were non-existant. In fact I had to really work hard to get a decent snap roll to the left using elevator and rudder only. The wing creates lots of lift and is very forgiving. I even did an outside snap to a Lomchevak 'sic' and the Gee Bee tumbles quite nicely once you figure out how to make it depart and tumble. Recover only requires you release the sticks.

Rich

P.S. I fly full scale, including Real Airplanes (Those with the correct end sitting on the ground). not that it matters much.

If price wasn't an issue, I'd have a Y.S. 1.40 for this plane. Since I didn't have a large 4-stroke and didn't really want to spend 2X the cost of the kitto acquire one, I bought a GMS 1.20 cu.in from Tower Hobbies. For $119.95 I didn't know what to expect and I couldn't have been more pleased. This engine with a Bisson Pitts Style 25 degree muuffler for a Moki 1.20 cu.in. was a perfect fit and didn't require any weight to the nose or tail for CG purposes. I balanced right at the 70mm point (which is slightly tail heavy IMO) per the plan. The engine runs nicely with a 17-6 APC and a MA Wood Simitar in 16-8.

I paid $115.95 for the engine (Tower Discount) and $44.95 at my LHS for the Moki 1.2 muffler. So for a total investment of $161 I have an engine that pulls a decent sized prop and isn't overpowering the plane. The downside is fuel consumption as compared to a 4-stroke of similar displacement.

Rich

Rich,
Your second flight, ok, second landing, experience is almost identical to mine. I actually landed it very nicely on the first flight, brought it in kinda hot, put it on the wheels and chopped the throttle. That worked great except I was down the runway pretty far and I was running out of room. I literally stopped with the prop in the weeds at the fringe. The OS 120 has some impressive weed wacker potential swinging a big master airscrew!

On my second flight I went around what seems like 100 times setting up for the "perfect approach", all was going well but just as I got close, and I mean real close, it must have stalled because mine did the whole sudden stop back flip thing also. In my case the Robostruts compressed (I had softened the springs) and the wheel pants plowed which was obvious from the damage. The struts twisted back up into and through the wings just as you described. A new wing kit and a set of pants and it's good to go again, though I'm waiting on changes to our field before it flys again. Lessons learned....first, fly it in and only throttle back when it's on the deck. Second, don't soften the springs in the robostruts! They may seem stiff from the factory, but this bird can put some serious weight on them when it comes down. (mine have new factory springs!).

Steve

I have a SuperTiger 2300 comming for mine. It seems like there has been a few people besides myself ask about this combo so I am going give it a try.

Steve,

My first landings were wheel landings and I didn't have problems except for the wheel pants grabbing grass and flipping the plane on roll out. It was the second test flight of the second flight test session when I tried for the perfect landing and drove the gear through the wings. Thanks for reminding me about the springs. I need to order a new set, it seems the original owner of my GEE BEE and the Robart struts had done something with the springs. One gear leg had a spring in it, the other didn't have a spring, however there was this extra long spring in the box of stuff that came with the plane. So I measured it to the same length as the spring in the gear leg and went with that. Could be that I didn't get the spring tension right and probably bottomed the struts out in the full stall arrival.

Rich

Rich,
When you order new springs from Robart they just send you a long length that you have to cut. Since i had shortened mine to begin with by 1/4", I just added 1/4" when I cut the new ones.

I will tame this beast!

Steve

I wished I had known that when I was assembling my gear. The bag from Robart had a single long spring, I duplicated the length of the spring that was installed in the gear leg. Possibly a BIG OOPS on my part. As I seem to recall, the Robart Parts List for the gear indicates the spring should be 4.5" long. I guess I'll disassemble a strut and measure the springs, if it's too short I'll order new from Robart.

Rich

Thanks for all the input guys. I am thinking that i am going with a saito 150 in this. My only concern is how much fuel is this engine going to use and how much flight time i will get off of a stock fuel tank. So all you guys out there with saito 150's what size tank are you using and how much flight time do you get? Thanks for all the help!



Rich

I am mounting the Super Tigre G2300 to the firewall and will use a 17 oz tank. The 14 oz, same engine another plane got approximately 9 + minutes, so I anticipate 13-15 minutes on the 17 oz'er.

Almost finished with my Gee Bee. Just waiting on servo's and deciding on were to place the battery trey for balancing.

I will have to say that this is one great looking airplane and the quality was pretty good. Only issues I had was the belly pain not fitting that good and the wood I had to add for the top ruddder hinge as it had barely anything to grab on to on one side. I left the dummy engine off as it was going to need to be butchered to get it to work with the G-2300.

Got any pics of your G2300 setup. I curious as to how the dummy engine can be mounted. I should be getting my project started at the end of next week.

I started to get it set up and after a little cutting I realized it was going to need to be chopped up quit a bit. The carb and needle (I have a Jett carb on my 2300) hits the back of the dummy motor and keeps it going back far enough to mount the cowl. I am going to wait until I fly it before I do anymore with the dummy engine.

Just got mine, too. Thanks to all that have contributed to this thread. Lots of good info.

While most of you suggest going with nitro motors, my finances dictate that I should use my G23. we'll see how it goes.

Thanx again for the info.

Tom, get the flying trash can on the dining table and get it built.

I guess that it does kinda look like a trash can.

As you can see, I have a very understanding wife !!!

Has anybody gone with "GAS" on this plane? I was thinking about getting one of these and installing a G-26 in it or maybe a RCS 140 or something. I like 4cycles but would perfer gas. So has anybody tried and had success with a gasser? If so what did you use?

WARBIRD MAN

I think Tom has decided that a gas (or petrol as we call them) will be to heavy. Tom nice French renaissance dining set you have there,to good to eat off . Ideal for building planes on mate.