These wings are really lightly constructed. They really should have some wire support if you intend to do much aerobatic flying. I've seen an in-flight failure due to a lack of wing wires.

There are several of us flying these planes in the Omaha area. What we have done is use plastic-coated wire fishing leader line from Cabela's. It's much tougher than the wires that came with the plane. Once the original wires have been replaced, the wires become a non-issue.

Dean in Omaha

Haven't been able to test fly it since all the mods, including relocating the C.G. to 4" (as per the book). Maybe next week.

I find the landing wires break regularly, (must say something about my landings) but the flying wires are usually fine. I keep them really loose so they tension up during normal flight but sag on the deck. As I like the look of the plane with the wires, I replaced the landing wires with some Sullivan ones tensioned by springs which has worked really well. I also added rigging between the wing struts which really eases the alignment headaches as well as looking good.

I use #64 rubber bands on the U/C suspension rather than the o-rings and they work fine.

As someone who has preferred up to 0.6" forward of the recommended CG, I'm interested to hear your thoughts after trying it. Are you postulating that it will offer better ground handling? I'll bet landings will be quite different though; not to mention flying in general but landing especially.

However, enough people have voiced their opinion of 4" being too tail heavy that I think I'll still at first try at least 0.25" forward of 4" CG.

I wouldn't have done it, but when I checked, it was real close to 4" anyway, and had been flying fine. This happened from removing the brass prop nut (substituting aluminum) and going to a pair of 2000 milliamp packs instead of the one, big, Nicad 2250 pack I had in there to begin with. All I did was relocate the 2000 packs from one side of the firewall to the other.

Substituting the 4 oz Higley brass prop nut for aluminum is a pretty big change by itself. Anyway still informative to hear what difference there is going to the standard 4" CG from your point of view.

Mustang Fever: I just remembered reading that you use a much smaller fuel tank. Is it much shorter length wise than the standard tank? I was thinking that would give less problem with fuel-behind-the-CG to begin with.

Also, I forgot to mention, after I pulled all the ballast out of the right wing tip, the airplane was still very badly right side heavy. I think this is the main reason why it has always wanted to turn right on the ground. It took three 9mm bullets in the left wing tip to get it balanced left/right.

I can't wait to try it again, but the weather is not cooperating.

Skipper: It's been awhile, but the tank looks like the one that came in the kit. Has two clunks so as to get a separate fill line. It's doing OK, so I'm leaving it alone. This is my oldest plane, and I got it before I quit using tanks that come with ARFs.

<div>Hello to all! I picked up my camel a few months ago and have been reading through this thread learning everything Ican to help get mine in the air. The day finally came for the maiden a few days ago and it went pretty good thanks to all the info Ifound here! Iput my GoPro Hero wide camera on the gun hump looking out over the guns and set up a tripod with a video recorder in the middle of the field for some flyby sound and action. Kinda boring from the static ground view but here is the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lRZ37BZf_o

The grass was WAY to long to be landing in but I just HAD to fly it anyway so it did the usual nose-over on the landing. Later landings at another field with shorter grass have been very good with the stock wheels wrapped with electrical tape and with the Williams Bros wheels both allowing nice level 2 wheel landings and no nose overs! I had to make some bushings on the lathe to fit the Williams Bros wheels onto the stock axles because the axl was way smaller that the hole in the wheels.

Anyway I thought I'd share my setup and info to help anyone else on here with there project. I have mine setup with a Power 60, Quantum 65 amp ESC, VOX 15 x 7 wood prop, batteries are four 2200 MAH 3S Ternigy 30C lipos wired 2s2p and Hitec 5085 servos. Ground test with the Watts-Up in line showed at full throttle it pulls just a bit over 44 amps and makes 1025 watts of power and will fly a minimum of 10-12 minutes with plenty of reserve for a couple of 'go-arounds' to get the landing just right. (not to bad for only $60 worth of batteries!)

My maiden flight was pretty mild and only lasted about 8 1/2 minutes and only used 1115 MAH from each battery pack (1650 MAH is 75%). AUW is 9.8 lbs with the battery packs mounted through the firewall above the motor in a custom made light plywood box. The stock lead box wasn't used but I did still have to add about a pound of dead weight to get it to balance @ 3.5" COG. Pics in my gallery.

Overall aside from the usual ARF quirks we have to deal with I think it's a really sweet plane that fly's really good and very similar to the real camel.

Bill W. Milan, IL USA!</div>

Bill: Glad to hear it went well. You'll enjoy that bird more and more as time goes by. The Camel handles real nice in the air when set up properly.

Nicely done battery setup.

Thanks for the comments! Speaking of setup, Does anybody know how the wings should be setup regarding incidence? I had to trim the right aileron up a fair amount to keep it level. I checked it with my meter and found a little bit of twist in the lower right wing which I didn't notice. All struts are as they should be I double checked them first thing. I've had one person tell me the wings are both on the same plane (front to rear) and another tell me the top wing should be different. I'm sort of a bi-plane newbe so I'm not sure. I found nothing in the manual to suggest otherwise. How are yours setup?

Got a chance to test the changes this afternoon, and the results were good. The airplane will now turn left on the ground (when it feels like it), and rolls out a lot straighter on landing. Moving the CG to 4" had no noticeable effect. I'm thinking about going to 4.25 like someone has already suggested here.

I'm still having lots of trouble nosing over on landings, after the tail drops and the speed gets low. I'm thinking it's a combination of our downhill runway and the crappy Hangar 9 wheels. I've found these at Tower Hobbies that look closest to matching the originals. They have a 5mm axle hole, and the axle on the Camel is around 4.25mm. So many of the vintage wheels have 1/4" holes, I was surprised to find these.

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...&I=LXWAB2&P=SM

Did you consider Du-Bro 1/5 scale vintage wheels? They are 5.6" diameter (bit bigger than the H9 5.4" or so) and they are for 3/16" axles. A bit closer in diameter and axle.

It says the tires are foam, but it looks like it's coated to be slick.

http://www.shopatron.com/products/pr...560V/101.0.1.1

I tried a pair of those last year, and had to bush them for the smaller axle. Story short: I managed to screw them up in the process and they never worked right.

Well the dubro's are closer in size, but if you have to enlarge the hole for the bushing, then you have the problem of keeping the hole centered and straight-through.

I might just try the electrical tape trick that I read about earlier in this thread. Average width tape is just a bit wider than the contact surface of the tire. Should make it slick enough that it does not grip the ground if the plane (and wheels) yaws slightly off from the direction of motion (which probably contributes to the wheel-walking and nose overs).

Yeah, that an horrendous flat spotting. My factory wheels are almost square.

Hadn't considered that. Glad you mentioned it because I'll make a point of having the weight off of the main gear in storage once I have it assembled. Also I guess this might not be a plane for days when the ground is still moist from rain.

Hanging it on the rack worked for the first year, then after that, the flat spots became more or less permanent, just from sitting on the grass at the field.

I had that same "flat tire" problem before I upgraded to the Williams Bros. tires. Ground handling is better but I need to paint the centers something other than white.

You can also check post #450 for more info and some CG recommendations that I used.

Enjoy,

Yeah, Dubro used the have handy masks for their wheels that you could download off their site, but I guess it wouldn't be that hard to tape up the tires and get out the spray can. The prototype of the Camel we have had red wheels in all the pictures I've found of it, so I'll do mine that way. Someday. I promise.

I just noticed noticed that both the dubro and the larger 5.25" WmBros wheels are significantly wider than stock at 1.45" wide (at the hub). So I guess the 5" WmBros at 1.1" wide really is the only good option. H9 should upgrade the wheels or offer an upgrade. This is a bit silly

Mustang Fever: When you put your engine forward on the rails, did you check if it would have been possible to cut a wedge from the engine facade or was there other clearance issues? I'm curious because if I put the engine far forward on the rails, ideally I'd like to use the engine facade instead of placing plywood in the opening.

Yeah, that's pretty much why I picked those. They seemed to come closest to matching the factory wheels, less the flat spots and the edges of the rims cracking up after time in service.

I probably could have made the facade fit in there, but when I starting cutting on it, all the paint starting coming off, so I sorta got pissed and threw it out.

This is a great airplane, don't get me wrong, but the host of quality issues associated with it make me real hesitant to ever get another H9 ARF.

Yeah certain issues aside (overall quality I think is good), if you are looking for a nice Scale ARF, you can't overlook Hangar9. They make some nice ones.

If they had simply included slick wheels for the Sopwith (which they really should have) we wouldn't be saying this... Oh well.