I am considering on getting the Pacific Aero Models Gee Bee Y ARF. Has anyone out there flown one yet. Can anyone give me some information on the quality of the ARF. How well it flies. How are the landing gear. are they strong. Or are they like the Great Planes STA Ryan where there are very narrow making it a challenge to land with out ground looping.

Check out this thread, it will answer a lot of your questions.

PM GeeBee-Y ARF.]

HAVE A FRIEND BUILDING AND ALMOST COMPLETE A GEEBEE Y BY PACIFIC AREO MODELERS. EXCELLENT CRAFTMANSHIP IN THIS ARF AND DOES ASSEMBLE IN 12 TO 20 HOURS. WE ARE MAKING SOME MINOR MODIFICATIONS LIKE ROCKET CITY (NOW UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP) CONTROL HORNS AND 4/40 CONTROL LINKAGES WITH CLEVIS' ON BOTH ENDS (NO Z BENDS AS SUPPLIED WITH KIT)

THE ENGINE IS A MOKI 135 WITH PITTS MUFFLER, JR FLIGHT PACK WITH 1100 MAH RECEIVER PACK AND HITEC SPECTRUM RADIO.

FIRST FLIGHT SOMETIME NEXT WEEK.

THIS IS ONE BIG AND BEAUTIFUL PLANE. SUPER QUALITY ARF!

I just wanted to let all know that Robart now makes an oleo strut for this plane. I ttook my wing and original gear to them a couple weeks ago and they have put together a real nice unit for this plane. It is a great improvement over the stock gear!

Ken Reitsma[X(]

try this ... I am sure you know it ... http://www.pacaeromodel.com/Review/GB/GB.htm
try this also ... http://astro.umsystem.edu/andy/rc/gby/
It is also sold in Singapore under Green Model ... GM is the factory ... its really cheap in S'pore. try http://www.jethobby.com.sg/cgi-bin/e...nk/manager.cgi ... that is only list price ... USD1:SGD2.7

I saw a guy with one here a couple months ago with limited pilot skills and took off with that thing. We were all expecting the worst but it flew around okay and his landing was pretty good.

I reviewed it for RCU. It's an excellent plane! A saito 150 was plenty of power, but it needed a lot of nose weight, so a small gasser would be a good choice also. The LG were 1/4" steel wires, plenty strong.

Review:

http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/a...article_id=132

Minn ... I was keen to get one but I ended up getting the Laser 200 ... I am still keen and what sort of gas engine would you say will be nice ... what size? I was thinking a Fuji 50 as its cheap here and we are not looking for a lot of power. Still a Fuji is 5 lbs. How about something like an MVVS35 cc gasser ? Thanks.

"The LG were 1/4" steel wires, plenty strong. "

Guys, sorry but this guy needs to remeasure. Landing gear is not 1/4", however it is close. The back brace is weak at the weld points allowing the brace to flex backwards and tear the wheel pants. I have seen this happen on two occasions. That is why I had Robart make me a set of Robo Struts like the ones made for the Byron Gee Bee, Great Planes Gee Bee, Ryan Sta, PT 19 , etc. Robart showed me other requests for this gear for the same reason. Anything but a sweet landing plays havoc on the stock gear/wheelpant setup.

I fly mine with a G 26 and in my opinion it is all that is needed however it is not a speed demon at all. Just depends on what your particular taste is.

Ken

Ok, so I didn't break out the micrometer. The gear wire was better than 3/16" (how's that?)

Also, you'll see in the review that I had the same trouble with the wheel pants, but this is easily solved by removing a little material from the back of the wheel opening.

As for engines, I think a 50cc gasser would be too much, a 35 should be pretty nice though.

Minn ... thanks a lot.

Sorry Mike. I did not really mean to be so hard on you about the gear wire size. My point actually was that it is metric which maybe some guys will not realize. This is the case with a lot of these ARF's. Even the builders should know that welding that small back brace wire is bad news. It is too thin to weld very good at all. Some of the welds on my gear have been heated almost half way through the wire at the joint which actually by the time it is heated from welding, it is very weak. They have defeated their own purpose.


Ken

I fly mine with the Saito 170R3 radial. It's a dream to fly and the sound is great. So far no problems with the gear but I do need to repair the the wheel pants this winter.

I had previously heard the Sato 170 overheated if used in this airplane. Also the cowl clearance with the valve covers was not sufficient. How did yours do with these concern? Did you use the dummy radial engine? That would seem to be the "cool" engine of choice to me.
Ken

No offense taken Ken.

Yea, I'll bet this thing would be a Blast with a radial!

The 170 Radial has plenty of room inside the cowl. I haven't installed the dummy engine yet because I heard all the stories that it would overheat. Now that I haven't had any issues with overhaeting I'm going to install the dummy engine.

I've have one for 2 yrs. now..have flown it with a G-23, G-26 and now have a FPE 2.4 in it...Need to hold right rudder on take off...good ole torque is a bit too much..Thinking of putting a little more ' Right Thrust ', in the engine..One thing for sure,re-enforce the wheel pants on the inside...don't hold up too good,just in case you have a 'Rough' landing.. I fly on grass....Other than that.it's a great flying plane..........

Hi, I received my Gee Bee Y this October, and hope to have it ready next spring for flying (other projects...) Engine will be a Enya VT240 V2, its fits nicely under the cowl and should have enough power and weight to encounter tail heavyness... Prop will be 20x7 or 20x8.

My Gee Bee Y kit has little larger wingspan (2.150mm, equals about 84.5") and has other landing gear. No wire gear anymore, this now is a solid aluminum tube construction of approx 12mm tube diameter with internal spring. Whole thing ends in a y-shape fork to receive the wheel.

We will see!

Speed-Panzer

Sounds pretty impressive!

Speed-Panzer

I am very curious: did You finish the plane?

Milos

Hi Milospozar,

yes I did finish the plane, and the maiden flight is about 2 weeks ago now. I did need no trim weight at all, c.g. is perfect. Engine still runs on the rich side, and turns a 20x7 prop only about 6.400 on ground. I expect it to reach about 6.800 - 7.200 after about 1 or 2 more hours, I still consider to change to 20x8 prop.

The Gee Bee does fly very gently, but by no means is overpowered, just ok. You need quite some right rudder for take of and especially during inital climb when airspeed is still low. Additionally, the rudder of my plane has some built-in warp [], so it is a bit difficult to say what is neutral position...

I needed some little left aileron trimming for level flight.

Landing is easy, the Gee Bee Y slows down quite fast if throtteled down resulting in a nice descent. Flaring out is no problem, the plane has enough reserve in speed to make a decent 3-point landing. The spring loaded landing gear has worked fine so far, only I had to use self securing nuts instead of the delivered bul**hit cap nuts on the wheel axles. Of course I use standard 6mm whell collars to keep wheels in place, not those stupid plug wires. Another thing which bugged me was that the delivered steel pushrods to connect servos to the elevators and ailerons where so brittle that they broke immediatly as I tried to adjust their shape to fit. I replaced them whith self made 3mm wires. Last, in my kit version, it was intended ot place the rudder servo close to the c.g. inside the fuselage and use 1mm pull-pull-wire system to operate the rudder. I decided against that and made room for the rudder servo under the horizontal stabilizer fin close to the elevator servos. This paid back as I did not have to hassle with extra tail weigth. Of course I also was able to set the proper c.g. postion by shifting the glow driver battery to needed position, which is now about under the pilot´s position, same as battery pack for receiver.

The Enya VT240 is operated with the dummy engine, but I have cut with the dremel tool several slots into the cowling aft of the cylinder heads to allow the heated air to escape on shortest way. Exhaust tubes are routed downwards to the tunnel built in to the belly of the firewall. If you like, I can send you pictures, it doesn´t look too bad. The engine fits perfectly under the cowl, and sound is just the best I can imagine for that kind of plane!

Save landings,

Speed-Panzer

Hello Speed PaNZER. I am curious who made your kit? Is it the Pacific Aero Models kit? You also mentioned spring/tube landing gear. Where did you get this from? I wonder if it is available to us in the US?

Thanks,
Ken

Hello Ken,

yes it is Pacific Aeromodel kit. As I live in germany, I bought this kit here from a local dealer, who reports to be selling a lot of those kits. He announced around late summer 2004, that there will be new kit version with that little larger wingspan (2.150mm) and the spring/tube landing gear. I decided for that. Often this kit version I fly is referred to be the "gas engine" version.

Meanwhile, another even larger wingspan kit (2.490mm) is available, the guys claim it does again fly better.

Attached a picture of the landing gear.

Regards

Speed Panzer

Speed , that is interesting to know. No kits other than the original have been anounced in the US that I know of. I think I will check their website though. The landing gear was the downfall if the original kit. I had a custom set of oleo struts made by Robart though. It helped a lot.

Ken

Speed-panzer,

thanks a lot for explict information about You GBY. I would like to see the pics of the plane. Could You send them to my e-mail? You have it on PM.

" the rudder of my plane has some built-in warp, so it is a bit difficult to say what is neutral position... ", I have the same problem too. Even worse, the left wing is twisted too (washout cca -1°). So i needed some right aileron-trim. I am trying to correct the error now (to twist both wings to washout -0,5°)

I have broken the structure supporting the landing gears two times: both on dead-stick landing outside landing area (Its dangerous to fly too low with the engine not finaly setted up.

I have much smaller engine on my ship: OS FT 1.60, turning MenzS on 8.000rpm and giving thrust of 6 kg. It looks like perfect combo for scale flying (model weight is 6 kg too).

Hardly waiting for pics.

Milos