...did exactly this myself ...with a bit of thought and trimming to suit you can get the blocks in without removing the sheeting...took about an hour...dead easy and rock solid

Well, it appears that the landing gear plates are still an issue. I can assure those who have not yet done so the value of inserting the balsa blocks under the gear mounting plates. This is very good insurance against a turned out gear plate. It does NOT matter what your flying proficiency is, if you do not perform this simple fix, the gear WILL likely rotate out and you will have far more work than it would have taken to install the blocks.

Just a quick note to say that my list of modifications does NOT reflect short comings in the kit itself other than the gear plate block mod. I have been designing and manufacturing models for nearly 24 years and I convert a model to make it into what my expectations of it are.

The RB is a very good flying model and worth every penny of the $300 +/- fetching price, however, when a shortcoming is found by a large no of pilots operating the model, the mfr. should be responsive and correct this known condition. I trust that all comments to TT both in and out this tread are acted upon. I see some have gotten parts which is a good indication that TT understands this gear plate matter and will move to have it corrected.

Heck, the Pacific Models Gee Bee suffered from the EXACT same gear mounting problem and they resolved it, I'm sure TT can, will do the same.

It sounds like a better contact with TT has been made than I have had with Steve as his response on the Touch Up Paint issue was not resolved and remains and open item for ALL TTRB owners and needs resolution as the response from Steve was worthless. To suggest that EVERY RB owner go and get paint custom matched to touch up their model is ridiculous.

Putting all this Bovine Scatology aside, the RB is delight to fly and is a very honest airplane with a one of a kind appearance in the air. I have had 2 dead sticks over the past several weeks for various reasons and I can tell you that it has an excellent glide. Mine came in at 11.5# w/ no ballast at all.

Keep em moving forward, you will be glad you did.

Best Regards:

Most of my fleet consist of Arfs with retracts. I always reinforce them them with a combo of epoxy and milled fiberglass. I also recover or make things better to ARfs. One thing is i make all my planes whit on the bottom of the wing. So when I get them right out of the box, I strip the covering off underneath. This also allows me to make these retract modifications and or hack up whatever else before I recover.

Some say "well for $400, I should not have to do this." Well you do and thats just the way it goes.

Some Ace reps are better than others....

Desert Toad,

As a witness you had a great maiden flight (and I'm even a Dago fan)!!! Plane looked great in the air!!! Other than slight retract problem you would have had a perfect flight (including the landing)....Can't wait for my next visit.....

Oh, and the champagne wasn't half bad either....

Desert Toad - did you do any reinforcing or epoxying of the retract mounts before your maiden flight? Just wondering if you went with it right out of the box or not..

I slopped epoxy everywhere I could reach, thought that would be enough...

Yes Dago, we shall fly again! I expect the Jett Fire 50 to be well tuned too!

I didn't have any luck at all with steave i just wrote it off as a lost cause. i learned just not to deal with people like that. i went thru a hasel for weeks without any luck at all.so i just won;t buy from them ever again.plus a lot of club members from this area won;t buy either.have a nice day.

Unforntunately, there is just NOT enough glue surface on the stock mounting plates /ribs. I initialy added 1/2" balsa triangle stock and the gear rotated out on the first landing anyway. Since my adding of the 1" wide blocking ( front and back ) between all ribs involved and the gear plate, not a single issue.

Just words of encouragement.

hey i heard rare bear sales are down. they don;t get the stabablizer problem solved hope there sales go up side down.i know i lost one.

it's like another "startsivs" (from the Funtana 90 thread.....saddly his "handle" is ingrained in my memory) We're sorry for you dragracingcars....the horse is dead....the beating can stop.

Thank-You!!!


It's been killed 3 or 4 times, been beaten at least that many times, chopped up and stuck onto the end of every pencil on the west coast!!

If airplanes were simple I probably would have lost interest a long time ago.....I personally like the challenge....

If he had that much problem flying a Rare Bear . Could you imagine him with a Dago Red. Maybe he should stick to cars. If he's gonna cry over one wrecked toy this is not the hobby for him.

I have a dago red it flys great.as far as the rare bear. if you had a stablizer come off because of a manufacture flaw you would crash to. when the balsa it not glued to the ribs something is going to come apart.I went along with there run around for over a month and got no results from steve at ace hobby.good luck if you have a problem.

Howard,

Below is your original post about the stab problem .

And here is Steve's (Ace Hobby Distributors) response.

As I already mentioned in a previous post, both carbon fiber tubes for the horizontal stab in my RB kit were too long and required minor trimming for a perfect fit. Based on the autopsy reports you were not careful enough when fitting these tubes and damaged the internal structure of the horizontal stab which subsequently lead to an in flight failure of the horizontal stab.

Time to put it to rest.

Rich

Somehow lost my subscription to this thread and want to keep posted on everyones progress. I'm ready to pull mine out of the box but haven't decided on which retracts yet.

On a lighter note... If you want to cry over no mfg support (like there was any in the early 80's) I've built 7 of the old Top Flite Red Box Bearcats and if retracts were installed (and built per plans), they'd tear out on every flight. After a few tries, a fix was figured, but not by Top Flite.

Update on my RB build:
The long carbon tube was .25" too long as well. I took some 150 sandpaper and lightly sanded the length of the tube, to bring it down in size by a few thousandths. I also beveled the edges of the tubes to assist them into the rib holes. I test fit the assembly prior to gluing anything. I then mixed some 30 minute epoxy & Great Planes glass dust with a few drops of alcohol to thin it. Took a 1/8" dowell, lathered it with the epoxy and inserted in the stab holes all way to the bottom out point, allowing the epoxy to run in, around and through all tube contact points. Inserted the two halves and with light pressure, the assembly went together perfect. Epoxy was painted on the Fuse, just prior to assembly. Then took a finger (rubber surgical glove), and filled the witness line with white epoxy all way around between the Stab & Fuse. Took a rag & alcohol, & cleaned excess epoxy off. She's solid as a rock!
Dudley

if you want to talk to some one at ace talk to anthony you will at least get results.i will stict with world models.

10-4 on that..... Anthony is The Man!

High Sierra, you might have your wires crossed up a little bit, or else I am confused. I was one of the originals in the Funtana 90 thread well enough, but don't think I ever bad mouthed it. Mine is my Favorite 3D plane, enough so that I have another sitting in the box waiting on that fateful daywhen it reaches its expiration date. Point is, why is my name coming up as an example in this thread?

I'm sorry Cstvec.... You are a great modeler and aset to these forums.... THat's horribgile I had you mixed up , I went and looked thru the F90 thread.....It was Startsivs i was thinking of.... No bad blood intenended to you cstvec....I'll go edit that other post.

My bad!!

Thats OK, I kinda figured you had me confused with someone else. I also have this model and would have it built if it weren't for the retracts. For some reason I seem to be having trouble getting the ones that I want. When the rascals finally get here I am going to need some help as I am totally new to the air powered retracts idea so didn't want anyone thinking I was one of them thar whining bad, mouthing, "since I screwed up and crashed it it must be trash" kinda guys. The Funtana must be one of the best 3D planes going but to hear from a select few Hanger 9 should be outta business. I have a feeling the Rare Bear is similar as there appears to be a couple of minor issues but a competent modeler can recognize them and take the appropiate steps to ensure a sucessful build. The people at ACE are "aces" and happy to discuss known issues and suggest remedies/solutions if you only take the time to call.

Has anybody put an incidence meter on the RB and measured everything. I did this a couple of weeks ago while contemplating some mods, here's what I found. All my measurements were made with a Robart Incidence Meter.

Using the Horizontal Stab as the reference, ie; Set to 0 Degrees.

1)The straight sections of the framework within the fuslage correspond to the stab, ie; they're parallel.

2)The front former and front of the fuselage are at 0 degrees or perpendicular to the horizontal stab.

3)The wing is set to 1 degree of positive incidence at the root, the wing has very little if any measurable washout.

4)The firewall has 3.75 degrees of downthrust, I measured the right thrust but I don't remember the value, IIRC it was 3 degrees.

Reviewing some of the previous flight test reports, Vampire specifically made mention of the tailwheel wanting to lift off the ground while taxiing. Some of this might havebeen due to him flying off of grass. But I also believe some of this is due to the relatively large amount of downthrust.

I am comfortable with the horizontal stab, wing and fuselage relationships but IMO I believe there's too much positive downthrust. So in the spirit of modifying and improving the kit, and to also try and get a little more speed out of the design I've decreased the downthrust and right thrust. I've set the firewall in my RB for 2 degrees downthrust and 1.5 degrees of right thrust. Some might wonder were I came up with these values as a starting point. I got them from some notes I have kept from various .60 size warbirds I've built over the years. The engine mount provided in the RB kit lends itself nicely to shimming with washers. I'll adjust the offset to exactly were I like it and then measure the offsets to find out what the RB really wants.

If anyone is interested in knowing why excessive downthrust can be detrimental to flight characteristics, and how it limits flight speed, I'll be happy to post my thoughts on the subject.

Rich

Hi All

The Bear has finally reached darkest Africa!

Has anyone run this is a stock or near stock set up. I have a NIB old style Rossi .90 and a set of std type spring airs with wire legs. I will reinforce the gear blocks anyway but am just wondering if anyone had had any success with the plane in a std guise.

Regards from Sunny South Africa
Peter

Hi guys, I have built and flown the RB in its standard guise and its flies great.... Standard Spring air retracts with wire legs and a Magnum 120 FS, on my first flight the retracts tore out, was an easy fix last week the tailplanes sheared from the fuselage ( looked like a dragonfly at the back ;-) amazingly I got it back and just to back a few of you guys and maybe shove up TT just a little ( overall am very impressed) I though it a perfect time to check the carbon rod breaking ribs issue and I need to tell you all that it was all stilll holding together, just the root rib let go then the ensuing forces tore the rest out, been trying to get replacment parts here but so far no luck from the supplier ;-(
One other thing, I also reduced the downt thrust on mine and it flew better in speed dives (less tendency to want to pull up, strange it seems doesnt it)