My P47 finally arrived. When it comes to the servos the manual is suggesting ball bearing servos. Is this overkill or are they really needed??[8D]

I put ball bearing servos on mine. I went with the Futaba s3004, only a $12.00 (total) price increase over the std. non ball bearing s3003. I try to no longer use anything other than B.B. servos no matter what plane. Don't know if this is an improvement or not but for the very little price increase and until I am convinced differently, I will continue to do so.

Here is my program. I do not own any aerobatic type planes. Mostly warbirds, propjets and such of all sizes. I don't do much with the rudder like knife edges and all. With this being said, I do not run high dollar servos because I don't need them. The most expensive servo I use is always on the elevator. As far as the rest of it , I use basic Hitec BB's. The P-47 is by no means a speed demon and is just a nice cruiser.

I would consider a good $30 high torque for the elevator and go basic on the rest but this is only my opinion.

Thankx guys. After reading the posts I will just buy some ball bearing serovs for the price difference and then not have to worry about it. Great looking plane Snoop! Looks like a lousy weekend weather wise which means its great weather for building!

Personally my concern on warbirds was not the ball bearings but the gears , the larger the warbird or flying servace to be moved the more I would lean towards metal gear servos .
Example - 60 size warbird , H9 , I use regulat servos , its light and flying servaces are not to big
Then a Pica 1/6 P40 , 100% medal gears with ballbearings , the larger or heaveier the surfaces/plane the more chance you have of stripping a plastic gear under load .
IN the case of the P47 , I think its a relatively light plane but you may wnat to have medal gear servos on the elevator because its a bog plane

It looks big in the picutres and its even bigger in real life!!

Some warbirds have a tendancy to come out tail heavy. My P-47 did and I have a OS 1.08 up front. Just something to watch for.

Hey Snoop, I was wondering what you thought of their control rate settings on the P47? IS low too rate too, or high rate too touchy?? I only had one plane that went nuts on the high rate setting listed in the manual. Low rate was plenty! [8D]

I usually set my planes up on the max throw for the elevator and minimum on the ailerons. Don't like running out of elevator on landing. Minimum throw on the aileron is no big deal. You can still fly it around . Then when I get the feel of it all after a few flights , I will increase or decrease throws as necessary.

I just got my Modeltech P-47 out of the box tonight and started working on the covering with a heat gun. I can't really say as I like the way the elevator pushrods are setup, I might try and fix a joiner wire inbetween the halves and go with a single pushrod. But I think a larger servo would be a good idea, maybee a hitec 645. Good BB servos on all the rest shoudl be just fine, except, of course, for the retracts.

Otherwise, I have all standard servos on my Top Flite P-39, which is actually a heavier and probablly faster airplane, and it does just fine.

Andy

I used standard servos on my ModelTech P47, and it's been working fine.

Could someone please post the CG range on the P47. Thanks, I have the plane, but no manual!!!

I'm at work now so I can't check my manual, but if I remember correctly it's 4.5".

Has anyone put a sliding canopy on a P-47? How difficult will it be to do on the modeltech ARF? Any suggestions anyone.

Book says 4 1/4 to 4 3/4 max. By the way the reason i have a white stripe onmine is to keep better track of it in the air

Thanks for your help. I flew it today using the 1/4 of the wing chord rule and it worked. The airplane is very stable and will slow to a walk.Nice bird!

Thankx for the info Snoop!

I flew mine yesterday and Wow!!!! It was really twitchy on take off and through out the flight. I only had -40% expo dialed in on the ailerons and that proved not to be enough at all. I had a very difficult time controlling it. On take off it rolled hard to the left and I just about lost it. I input hard right aileron and barely saved it. I highly recommend higher expo especially on high rates. The plane is really fast as I have a Magnum 120RFS matched up with an APC 15x8. On my first landing I hit hard so pulled up for another go. On my 2nd landing attempt the right gear folded up and I lost the wheel causing a skid to a stop. Damage was very little but I'm happy I was able to get it down relatively safely and with minimal damage. After getting softer on the sticks it flew well. I like this plane, can't wait to fly it again.

Sounds to me like you had to much aileron throw in it. Add your -40%expo and must have been quite a ride. Why don't you go down to 10% and take some throw out of the ailerons and try it over again. You can get away with minimum travel on the ailerons and adjust it later on when you get use to it.

I never ad more than 10% on my planes for quite some time until I really get use to it. You get a plane on a maiden flight with full defection and that much expo, just set the TX down and walk away. I recommend minimum on the aileron and no expo for several flights

Yeah, I did have too much throw on the ailerons. I just should have switched to low rates. That's probably what I'll do next time. I'll keep you all posted.

Is the hard to the left on takeoff because of the larger engine/prop size?!?[8D]

Probably so. I know for sure though that I didn't jam the throttle and I wasn't at full throttle on take off.

I have a way of adjusting my ailerons. it may be a bit silly but it works for me. I set minimum travel and I mean very minimum. Then I fly it around on a maiden and if all is going well after its trimmed, I do a simple aileron type roll. If the plane corkscrews, then I don't have enough and I keep adding more each flight until its a nice smooth roll and there I have it. Not need for dual rates on it after that. I always dial in -10% expo but that is as far as I go . I just don't like expo because it makes the controls feel sloppy to me.

I notice you have a few sport planes. Dont even think about taking off in that P-47 the way you would with those planes on the list. You need airspeed. I see guys with sport planes just pop it up in the air because they have the power to do it with. Well you may have the power to do it with on a warbird but there is a good chance it will roll over and kaboom.




quote]ORIGINAL: Fastsky

Is the hard to the left on takeoff because of the larger engine/prop size?!?[8D]
[/quote]

Re: "Dont even think about taking off in that P-47 the way you would with those planes on the list. You need airspeed." < Not to worry Snoop! The Hawker Seafury likes to have speed before it lifts off as well. I was heading for tall grass once and hauled it off the ground early. It didn't like it and fought with me for about 10 seconds before it started flying properly, very scary couple of seconds for me!! [X(]