Do any of you have or have seen the Me 109 that Global is distributing? I think it is manufactured by Model Tech. I do not know any thing about either companies but I just ordered the arf from tower hobbies. I found an old O.S. 35fp in the basement that I had on a fan boat years ago, and I decided that $89 was a good risk to have another plane and my first war bird. I would have rather had a Mustang than a Nazi fighter but that was the only .30 size war bird I could find at tower, and my local hobby shop did not have any. I will just but American stickers on it and say it was captured in a glorious battle. Anyway, if any of you know anything about the plane I would like to hear it, good or bad.

A friend of mine had one of these. He had an OS 32 on it. It was very fast and flew very well. Unfortunately, it was lost on its third flight. Not sure what happened but it spiraled into the ground. The plane still has not been found due to the thick brush where it went down. He said that it flew well and that he was going to get another one.

I've looked at a few of the Model Tech ARFs, and they seem like they're a good value for the money. The built up nose on the P-51 was nice, but was built for right thrust, which I am no fan of.

Personally I can think of no reason for modifying the insignias on a German aircraft. It's a piece of history, and covering it up or stamping it out is a futile gesture. I have a WWII "Nazi" Mauser that still has the Waffenampts on it. Doesn't make the rifle evil, but in fact more desireable, as many countries that acquired these arms after the war removed the markings or stamped them out.

The funny thing is, my wife is Jewish. I asked her if having that particular rifle in the house would bother her. She thought for a moment, and replied "I think it is fitting for that rifle to end up in our house". Kind of like the "last laugh".

German aircraft models? They're just renderings of historical airplanes. Nothing more.

I have the .40-sized version (which Global discontinued a while back.) Its an honest little flyer and is fairly lightweight. Its quite aerobatic (IMAC-style, not funfly). Rips a snap like you wouldn't believe.

The kit doesn't come with any Nazi insignia. For the sake of historical accuracy I bought a set of German WWII decals from Major Decals. There were a few raised eyebrows the first time I brought it out, but no comments. Guys with Mustangs and Corsairs like to chase it around, though. Fancy that.

Mine has had an OS .52 on it for the past year; I've recently swapped it out for one of my spare YS .53s. Maiden flight with the new engine will be this weekend. I expect it will be Faster

Nitpicks:
The covering is some low-temp crrrap which sags like crazy if allowed to sit in the sun. I used to cover mine with a towel when not flying it just to keep some of the wrinkles out. I ended up recovering the entire wing after melting holes while trying to patch a couple of holes in the covering (it doesn't shrink much at all). Should you need to recover anything Aluminum Monokote is a perfect match for the supplied silver covering.

Ground handling! As-is the main wheels are set too far back from the wing LE - this makes it very easy to nose over. I bent my gear forward so that the wheels line up with the LE of the wing. This tamed a lot of the plane's tippy tendency, but not completely. Our field is quite rough; it will stick its tail in the air if I hit a bump while taxiing. I now land it, roll it to a complete stop (while standing on the elevator), shut the engine off then walk out to retrieve it. (I hate chipping up props!)

Thanks for the responses, I am excited about getting my first war bird. I hope it does not eat me up. I have about 40 flights on my Ultra Stick .40 since I moved up from a trainer. I feel like I am ready. If not I'm only out $89. And as for the Nazi issue, I am fully supportive of any body that wants to build accurate scale models. There are several guy as our field that have swastikas on their Germen war birds. I personally just feel that the swastika is an ugly symbol, and I do not feel comfortable displaying on my airplane. I have nothing against people that do. The fact that we live in a free country where you are allowed to display any symbol you want is a great thing and should not be limited

I am currently assembling the ME-109 .25 ARF. I'm planning to use my old OS .40FP that probably has the power output of a .25 at this stage in its life (it's the first engine I owned/abused). Like you, I bought the ARF because I was looking for an inexpensive .25 sized airplane and this was the only one I could find.

Before buying, I found reviews around the web and they are pretty accurate. The ARF is basically of decent quality, but it definitely has some deficiencies and requires a builder who can deviate from plans when necessary.

The kit is packed pretty well in the box. The covering has a lot of sagging areas, but they can be tightened up with a heat gun.

I inspected the visible bulkhead and former joints in the fuse and they seem okay. Not great, but okay. I added some epoxy to a few areas. This may be overkill, but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

I decided to glass the wing root, so I added this to the wing assembly process. They have a ply wing bolt plate that does not fit the dihedral of the wing, so it has to be modified by either carving or breaking it in two. I opted for the latter and carved so that it sat more-or-less parallel to the bolt heads. The tail section goes together fairly well, but the stab saddle area wasn't perfectly flush. After some thought, I said what the heck and epoxied the fin assembly anyway. It's pretty close and I don't expect any trouble from it.

Upon reaching this step in the manual, I found that a page was printed backwards! I use a mirror to read it. This is a bit annoying, but tolerable.

Modeltech put quite a bit of metal in the tail section. I wonder if it wouldn't be tailheavy with a 0.25 engine. I'm using a 0.40, so I expect the plane to balance okay. The stab struts are metal and they aren't as light as they could be. I had to re-drill the holes in them because they did not fit as shipped. They also use a heavy steel tailwheel mounting bracket that screws to the bottom of the fuse at the rudder hinge line.

This is as far as I've gotten. I have to hinge the elevator and fin. The plane will be mostly complete at that point. One common criticism that I found to be true is that their fuel tank arrangement is rather dubious. They supply a hard 4-oz tank and tell you to insert it through a bulkhead to fit behind the firewall. However, it doesn't fit! I happen to have a 6-oz flex tank left over from my re-kitted Uproar (RIP) that I will use. It fits without problem.

I'm also planning to mount my engine upright instead of inverted because my engine needs special care.

As of now, I would recommend the kit to a builder who has prior experience and a sense for when to deviate from the plans.

Good luck with yours...

Mark

I bought, finished, and flew the mine. I can attest to all of the problems stated above. The holes in the struts have to be re drilled and the some of the pages are printed back wards. The plane flies very well! I loved it. Notice I said loved it. I got shot down on my 5th flight. I assume I got shot down, after a smooth take off the plane started flying its self until it finely went inverted and went in at full power. I think my .35fp survived. Nobody admitted to turning on their radio but I checked my batts. and the electronics seemed to work fine in the pile of scraps. The flight pack was new to the plane and I flew my stick with the radio aftwards. I am planning on buying another one of these arfs and trying again. The plane is super fast with the 35fp and you are going to have a real speed demon with any thing bigger. The plane is stable and does not show any signs of flutter even in high speed dives, so I think it might fly with a larger engine. Other than the above mentioned problems, the kit seems to be of very high quality. The wings were fine even after the high speed crash. Oh, you need to bend the landing gear forward so that is even with the leading edge of the plane. You also need to get up plenty of speed before take off or it will stall and torque over. Landings are fast but smooth. Like I said, I am planning on building another one. Hope you this helps.

I have the 40-version, another member of our club has the 25-version. We both fought the nose-over ground problem. He survived his efforts to correct this. I didn't quite survive mine -- the plane is in my shop waiting for me to replace the landing gear mounting block because when I tried to bend the gear forward it broke out of the hardwood block.

I did fly it a little and was very impressed with it. I'm running an old Webra Silverline 40 and that engine is plenty for the airplane. The nice thing about the Webra is that it is extremely light and has decent power.

I just finished my .25-size Me-109 and have been breaking in the engine since I've finished. I've taken it out a few times to taxi around and definately am havinig the nose-over tendancy on anything but smooth ground. I think I'm gonna go buy some wire and bend it to the shape of the stock gear, bend it forward, and simply leave it longer. Coupled with some larger wheels, all should be good.

I'm a little too excited about getting it in the air. I've taken special notice to how fast these planes are supposed to be with above engines and now I am going to be extra careful with how hard I push it. The OS 40LA seems to pull really strong. I could probably just let the plane go from my hand it pulls so strong (not really, but it pulls HARD).

Well when I see that people have replied to this post in my e-mail I keep hoping that I will see a post where somebody says that they have had one for a while. I just finished my second one. After the first one died due to a radio issue, I took up the newly completed 2nd one. The take off was really hairy. the plane will take off before it reaches flying speed and will drop a wing hard. There was a strong cross wind at the field today and all the rudder had was not enough to keep it going strait so I had to lift off before I wanted to. When it started to drop the wing I held the stick over full and it got up enough speed to pull the wing up. Once at speed just a hair of trim and it was flying hands off. Even with my old .35FP it is a screamer. THe gentlemen with the .40LA is going to have a straight up rocket ship. Once in the air it is a great flying straight tracking smooth plane. But, getting it off and on the round, mainly off the ground is probably the reason that I have never seen an old example of this plane. On the second flight I was not so lucky and could not get the wing tip up before it caught. The resulting ground loop busted the wings loose. Not a big deal, but ended the flying for the day. You have to hold back on the stick to keep the tail wheel on the ground so you can steer while you get up to speed, but to much back stick will cause it to take off to early and cause the stalling torquing wing drop and cause certain destruction. Good luck, I think if the plane will live long enough for me to get used to, it will be one on my favorites.

I had my .40-sized one out today. I've had some teething problems with the OS .52 / YS .53 swap but finally got them straightened out today. The tank was leaking pressure, so the engine was dying after a fairly short period of time.

It is Faster, as I expected. With an 11x7 prop I'm getting 10,700 on the ground... on downwing WOT passes it unloaded and sounded like it was running north of 12K. Throttled back in a hurry - I'd hate to blow the motor up.

Weird: Came in for a normal landing. Rolled to a stop while holding full up elevator (to keep the tail down.) Killed the engine, then walked out to retrieve it. Noticed that the elevator was still deflected full-up, and didn't respond to radio inputs. The elevator servo died during the rollout!

Weird #2: While carrying the bird back to the pits, the elevator servo went "zip!" and started working again. Need I say that I didn't put the plane up again?

I have FMA coreless servos installed in this bird, and this is the second one that has failed. The first one was the rudder servo which let go in the air about ten flights ago - one of the wires going to the motor broke loose due to vibration I pulled the servo, replaced the broken wire and potted the remainder with RTV.

/me thinks I need to do the rest of them...

I had one of the .25 size for several years..Reason for getting it was to break in 4 Magnum 30 4 stroke engines..all engines were inverted and the low speed idle was very good....only one engine did I have a problem with, and that problem was resolved..as far as the model goes,flew very good and was very fast....landings were 'Hot", but no problems there...I sold it about a month ago...believe he was going to install a Magnum 28 2- stroke in it..of course I sold him the engine too....I can think of only one problem with the kit and its the landing gear..If you fly off of grass,bent the wire forward to avoid nose overs..also get bigger wheels..was alot of fun flying this plane..I highly recommend it...

Ive had the 40 size ono going on 3 years now. It has a Thunder Tiger 46 on it. The 1st thing I did was to pull that cheezy looking green camo vinyl striping off of the fuse. On the 3rd landing the wood landing gear mounts tore out- they were glued in w/ hot glue! I replaced the mounts with good hardwood and have had no more trouble with the landing gear. As the above posts stated , you have to pull the landing gear wires to at least even with the leading edge to keep it from nose overs.
I camo'd mine with some grey color spray paint primer... doesnt look too bad. The covering itself leaves alot to be desired. After you have flown your plane awhile and see that you want to keep her , you may want to strip the old covering and recover it with some ultracoat or something similar. I did away with all that cheap metric hardware and replaced it w/ better stuff. On one of the metal pushrods I was making a 90 degree z bend and the metal broke so watch that as well. As in the above posts. the supplied gas tank is too low for the hole in the firewall. I had to dremel out to proper size and raise fuel tank.
Best of luck with yours. John

I am happy to announce that my 2nd Model Tech me 109 has successfully flown 4 flights and one with a botched takeoff. On the first day, the first flight went great. The second flight endend with a gournd loop on take off due to to little air speed on take off. I had a hard time getting air speed due to the fact that I could not keep it going straight on the runway. I fixed this problem with a new tail wheel and a 10X6 Master Air Screw prop. I started with a 9X6 APC, and it made the plane facter but a lot less stable. I am runnign a 35fp in the plane. Even with the M.A.S 10X6 I am getting 11,540 rpm according to my tach. The plane is a real screemer. The RPMs seem a little fast to me but it is a new and nice digital voltmeter and tach, so I guess it is correct. If any of you think differently I would like to hear your opinions. After some minor repairs, the second day saw three smooth takeoffs and landings!!!! The third landing was smooth but on the taxi back to the pits I bumped the prop on the edge of the runway and the engine started running backwards!!!! I hit the throttell and the plane started backing up. I had never seen this before. Some of the more experienced people at the field said they had seen it and it was rare but no big deal. Any way, I love my me 109!!! I hope that I keep having such good luck, I will not pretend that it is skill. Good luck, I would love to keep hearing hearing your experiences with this little rocket ship.

Today I was FINALLY able to get my .40 powered .25-sized Me-109 in the air. It took awhile to find a field with short grass and suitable area to fly it, but it was worth the wait.
Eveything everyone has said about this plane has been true. I experienced the tendency to dip a wing right after takeoff because, like everyone said, it wants to fly before it's ready. My plane was wanting to nose-tip which I think is attributed to a still-forward CG. I flew around half-throttle the whole time without incident. Full throttle gives me a screamer. I decided to tone it down for the first flight, just to get a feel for the plane.
The handling is sprightly to put it lightly! I had the low-rate throws set lower than the handbook suggested and still thought it was touchy. Unfortunately, it was getting dark when I had to bring it in dead-stick (having some engine woes) so I didn't get a chance to fire it up again. Landing was a cinch. Once the plane settles into ground effect it sets down nicely. I'm definately looking forward to more flights.

I finally lost my second .30 109. I had over 100 flights and several gallons of gas. Lately I have been using it to test maneuvers before trying them on my larger war birds. I was just playing around with it today at the field (Markham Park). I was doing touch and goes and stall turns. On about my 5th stall turn the plane went into an unexpected flat spin. I was at about 100 feet and I was able to pull it out of it easily. I was excited because I had never gotten a war bird to flat spin before. I decided to try to get the plane into another flat spin. After a couple of trys I succeeded (kinda). I climbed to a "safe" altitude and went into a perfect flat spin and applied a lot of throttle to get the spin faster and flatter, and I watched it come down. Then I started trying to get it out of the spin. Long story short I did every thing I could think of but no amount of down elevator and opposite rudder make a difference. The plane went in and broke up. I will miss my little 109, but I have already replaced it with the Global AT6 .15 .

I found this thread while searching around.......I maidened my Modeltech ME 109 today and all went well. I have an OS46 FX (yes, it's a .25 size plane), mounted the rudder and elevator servos in the empennage and am turning an APC 8x10 prop at 16.5K. No lead to balance and dry weight is 3.75 pounds. I built it in hopes that it would be fast and it is no disappointment. Took it up high and got it slow to see how it stalls and got a violent left wing drop that developed into a 2 turn spin. Definitely don't want it too slow on short final......flies nice.

Digging up this old thread for some input from people who have already flown one.

I'm going to order one of these. I'd like to use an old Saito FA-45, that actually doesn't have too much time on it, in this plane. Wondering if it's going to be too heavy? Will it fit within the cowl, or will the rear carb push the engine too far forward?

If the Saito won't work, all is not lost. I've got other choices, which include OS 25F ABC, OS .32 FSR, Webra .36, and Thunder Tiger Pro .36. Obviously, the 2 cycles will be faster, and I have no doubt that any one of them will work. However, I was really hoping to put the Saito in cause it's quieter, and the muffler is so less obtrusive. What do people think?

Not really sure if the Saito would fit or not....only one way to find out, though. I still have mine and I have settled on an APC 9x9 and this thing is an absolute rocket. As fast or faster than the typical .40size Dago Red with a YS110 in it!!!!!!!!! Don't fly it very often. It is more of a special occasion place--meaning a larger runway and a need to spank someone.......

You might find somthing here?
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=739224

I had the .40 size of the 109...See my gallery on my profile to see the pic...I has a Webra 50 in it and it was a ROCKET!!!
Flies like a pattern plane...I changed the scheme to make it desert camo.
not a bad deal for the $$.
Have you seen the new 109 ARF by SIG?
it's designed for electric, but I'll bet someone would make it into a nice glow-bird.