Vamp, do check the balence on the supplied spinner, I keep think'in about that "little toni" spinner being way out of whack. My wife says one of those three day/ three nights vacation pacs in Hawaii would certainly help towards the purchase of the modified landing gear kit. What ta heck, its time to get out of "Happy Valley" anyway. Will take a lap top to the Island with me to keep a check on your thread. PS, Yup, thats "balance", Not "balence" , I know.

Thanks guys.

Heh guys.

I'm new at this so 'bear' with me. I have a question for anyone building the TT Rare Bear. Given the length of the main gear, will a 16" prop have enough ground clearance when the tail comes up? Thanks

Well, I started installing my 2300 in the RB, and seems to be going well so far. If I can figure out how to post some pics on here, I'll do so......any help how to post pics? not to good with computers

A

Your not kidding Vampire!! It is still tail heavy with my 2300 in it! I was for sure that would tame it a little, but still seems to be real tail heavy. I imagine, like you said, cowl, radio, ect. all installed will probaly balance out ok with recomended C/G. Keep the pics coming and the tips, as I will try to do the same for every one else as well.

A

To post pics, when you reply to a post, look at the lower left hand corner of the reply area. There should be the word "File" underneath all the cute message icons. Directly to the right and below the area that you are typing in, there should be a link labeled "Click here to upload!" Just click on that link, and a new window should pop up asking you to "Select a file to upload:" Click on the "Browse..." button to the right and browse through your hard drive for the picture that you want to upload then click "OK". You can upload up to four pictures.

This 33.2 oz powerhouse should balance the plane just fine:

Thanks guys for the info on pics......well here are the results after getting the new holes drilled in the fire wall, and just finnished drilling the holes in the mount for the 2300 to feel right at home. Plenty of clearance between the cowl and engine head. As for retractable tail wheel would be a nice touch, my wallet is already starting to get a little light on this project. Still not sure if going with pneumatic or mechanical retracts, and if I do go with mechanical, does any body have favorite on some good strong mechanicals?




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ok, I still cant get it to show my pics. I uploaded my pics and it said that it was a sucessfull upload, cliked "ok" and now what?

So now it works!!.....well any way it worked that time!

A

awesome, are any of you guys building these able to make video's? I would LOVE to see some vid of this bird!!

Hey Vampire, are you going to glass you firewall for extra strength? One other thing that concerns me, I had a friend to day, who took a super sportster 40 that he flys, and stuck a Tower Hobbies .75 in it, and we went out this afternoon to fly it....and boy did that thing haul!!! till it had the elevator sucked right off in a high speed fly by. The elevator just ripped out and it was all over, to the burn pile it went. It had the CA hinges in the plane and that had me thinking, that since the Rare Bear comes with the standard CA hinges, and we are over powering them, mabey those nylon pinned hinges and epoxy those suckers in there. I'll be damed if I have the control surfaces come off on me in high speed flight!

Here is another side shot of the 2300, these things have alot of right thrust in them....I thought so anyway!

Most definitely will have the video cam with me the day I fly the RB.....figuring how to put the video on my PC is another thing, I'll have to have my buddy whos a Computer Consultant show me how to do that one, and I'll get the video on posted on here.

A

aps f4u

That 2300 looks good.

No I did not glass the firewall as it is nearly 3/8" thick when all 3 firewalls are glued to gether and I did install triangle stock in on the front side.

As for the hinges, I did previously mention that I will be using Robart Hinges points in place of the CA hinges.

Another issue I have addressed is the location of the fuel tank. TT has it sitting in the bottom of the fusleage and SIGNIFICANTLY below the engine centerline by INCHES !

I installed a tray to raise the fuel tank to the engine mfg.'s recommend positon.

I have recieved and installed the Brison OS 1.60 Pitts muffler which only required a very small amount of the the wood frame to be remove (less than 1/16" ) to provide clearance and I must say that the final engine installation looks as if it was made for the Bare. The other bennift is that approx. 5/8" of the muff stacks exits the bottom of the cowl.

On the subject of balance, it turned out with all the mod's I have made, the balance can be achived just by moving the Rx batery around as detrimned by a preliminary C/G check.

Once I recieve the gear legs and install this will complet the project and I'm hoping that will come together by weeks end and I can put the test flights in on Sat.

Richard L.

I agree as the O.S. 1.60 is nearly the identical weight /less muffler.

Vamp, just "iching" to see the results on this. Please document all info, ie, fuel, altitude, prop etc. MM.

Dang, I hope RCU lets things be for a while now, I still haven't gotten my preferences set back up yet and checking my junkmail box today I found tons of RCU stuff in there!

Anyway, I'm still waiting on the Bear. LHS said there was a hold up in shipping but it should be in by Thurs. or Fri. Hope so, I have been losing interest in 3D here lately and consequently in RC planes. Hoping this little project will renew my interest. (Although, I think Rockfish season and the desire for a new boat may have something to do with it. [:@])

Can anyone tell me what the inside diameter of the cowl is ??

Outside diameter would be fine too.

Thanks
Bob

Hello Bob:

I will get you a measurement later this evening. It is NOT perfectly round as where it nears the bottom of the fuse it changes shape ever so slightly.

However, where the engine resides, it is fairly uniform in diameter.

BR

Any more words on pneumatic strut type retracts for the RB (robo-struts or others of the like)??

I saw the TT retracts for the RB at my LHS the other day (They've got the retracts but still no plane)...And I just can't justify putting those ugly wire mechanicals on it.

It is simple and straight forward to install RoboStruts onto the stock mechanical retracts should you decide to go that route. I would go with pneumatic retracts.

HighSierra;

I'm using a set of series 300 SpringAir's w/ Robart Sieres 440 / P/N 660 Robo-struts. (7/16")

Waiting for the Robo-struts to arrive then I can go fly.

I dunno that much about retracts, but I do know a couple of things that are driving my purchases.

1. I like my planes to look good so the spindly wire Idea is a no go for my plane.

2. I primarily fly 3D and IMAC style planes so this is going to be an occasional plane, therefore I am not going to dump the price of the plane into a set of retracts.

3. Since it is "supposed" to be a Rare Bear Reno Racer it had better be fast. That usually means light.

Therefore, I ordered a set of Robo struts to go with the mechanical retracts I already have from another project that may never get built. (I think they have to be lighter & less complicated then the phneumatics with all of that plumbing and tanks and stuff.) I am going to use the lightest metal gear servos I have (Hitec 5645) to hopefully avoid high speed flutter. And I am going to power this rascal with an OS 160 and a Pitts style Bisson muffler with an appropriate prop.

Most of this stuff I already have which in part drives my decisions but like I said, since it is in no way going to be my primary plane, I'm not going to spend too much on it. My goal is to break 120mph with it and look good doing it!

The fuse is a ton bigger then the little Tony or the Shoestring but the wingspan is about the same and those planes are hitting speeds in the neighborhood of 100 mph with .91 engines and no retracts, I am hoping to keep up with them (actually I'm hoping to blow their doors off!) with this fat girl. I have never built a racer before so this will be a first for me but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn last night!

For those of you who are still looking for a Rare Bear, Chief Aircraft has them in stock. I just ordered mine. I am not sure how many they have, but the gentleman I talked to said they had several. They charge $299 which includes shipping to the lower 48.

[link=http://www.chiefaircraft.com]Chief Aircraft[/link]

I'm pretty much new to retracts and don't know squat about them as I've never been able to use them (where I fly the cracks in the seriously deteriorating asphault runway would destry them, but Now we've got fresh pavement). I do know this much... pneumatic is better than mechanical, and the wire ones look flimzy and lame...especially for a semi-scale model.

I'm still ont he fence as to what to use for power... I've got a YS 91AC, but I'm thinking of selling that along with a OS 61 FX to finance either a YS 110, saito 180, or a OS 1.60.. Still trying to decide between 2 and 4 stroke....(I like the price of the 1.60.....but not the sound of a 2-stroke....)

I think it's off to call chief and finally buy one of these.... I really was trying to hold out till at lest mid october for more people to chime in....But I just can't resist....

The wing is two piece, this is going to be bad for mechanical retracts.